we are going on a [manhattan] holiday (part 1 of 2)

well, we did. go on a manhattan holiday. L.B. and me. splurged on tickets to the opera: tristan und isolde. having spent the equivalent of a week's worth of grocery money for a family of four on the tickets, we decided to do it up high class. for us that meant dressing in clean clothes (L.B. wore a suit & tie. i wore a dress with boobage!) and staying overnight in a hotel! with views of central park! wowza.

03.14.08:

Act I:

there was a teeny bit of stress (it wouldn't be nyc otherwise) since L.B. had to work in east hampton on friday & the opera started early - at 7 pm! it runs just over 5 hours, so we were anticipating a midnight-ish etd from the lincoln center. would L.B. get back to manhattan & changed in time? would we miss Act 1? would the waning battery life of my cellphone be our downfall?

alas. it all worked out. L.B. made it back in time. we had time to spare. we changed at the parker meridien (the hotel we stayed it: my parents taught me right, since i had a hotel points card). viva la points.

prior to L.B.'s arrival back to civilization, i had an emergency moment. last minute run to bergdorf's (see? it was a fancy weekend) to buy new stockings. mine (last brought out in the 1990s) had a run in them.

all this preparedness & what to do for food? i hate to admit it, but my planning does have limits. we stopped at columbus circle for a snack at a kiosk. L.B. had sfiogliatella (how sophisticated). being the plebe i am, i hadn't even heard of that particular pastry. i had tiramisu. 1 sfiogliatella + 1 tiramisu + 2 coffees = dinner. we scarfed down our food. being decadent people of leisure, we left our cell phones (and me, my blackberry. L.B. was so proud. in my defense, i am not addicted to the crackberry like the rest of ny.) the unexpected consequence of such wild abandon was the fact that we no longer had ready access to the time. fortunately, the CNN clock came to the rescue. we ran to the lincoln center at 6:41 pm.

i wish i could paint a picture of us running to the opera house, being ushered in and whisked to our seats. but when we got to the opera (having oodles of time to spare), there were a bunch of people standing around outside. smoking. of course. L.B. had to light up because he is addicted to cancer of the lungs. me, judgmental? whaaa? while he smoked, i coveted the macdonald's food (there's a first time for everything) that the couple beside us had the foresight to bring with. damn. why didn't i think of that?

Act I:

let me set the scene. we were seated at row P, seats 9/11. yes, 9/11. we are two brown people seated at 9/11. this amused L.B. more than it amused me, wary as i am of the constant threat of deportation. our seats were in the prime orchestra section and we were surrounded by people in the "opera know" and some other odd characters.

in our immediate environs:

* behind us was "old man rehnquist" ("OMR"), my nickname for the 103 year old, sallow-skinned, half-corpse sitting behind us. OMR (kind of like OMG when is this man going to die. in the next 10 minutes?) appeared to suffer from advanced tuberculosis, since he would start a cough marathon. not only would he cough for 5 minutes straight (not mean feat; there's a risk of lung collapse) but he would start a "wave" of coughing around the auditorium. damn man. buy a losenze or something.
OMG's best quote: "this is a really dramatic scene." spoken out loud during, you guessed it, a really dramatic scene.

* next to us was boss hogg. also old. notable for a connect the dots of liver spots on the side of his face. he gave L.B. a dirty look when L.B. giggled (oh, what a giggle!) during a funny moment. but L.B. thinks he came around to us in the end due to our incredible, patent-pending cuteness.

* grumpy mcgruff in front of us. who also liked to look back & askance at us, shooting dirty looks. L.B. thinks he thought we were talking, when in fact OMR was the motormouth. i think he was just jealous of our better seats.

* herr opera was seated at the aisle of our row. he was standing in our spot when we arrived, making "in the know" chitchat with a legion of his lackeys situated all around the prime orchestra seating. opera man was really an insider. he seemed to know everyone. EVERYone. bald, bespectacled, enthused. over-stimulated? knew the biodata for all the opera singers in the audience.
best quote: in response to a query about who was heading up to the front to make chat with some famous opera singer, "just a member of the pooo-blique."

as for the opera itself. DRAMA. squared. the first drama was that benn heppner (the only opera singer still alive that i've heard of & a fellow canadian) was sick & recuperating at home. in canada. did i mention that ben heppner is canadian? so his understudy, gary lehman was on the spot.

the other two dramas will be revealed after this intermission.

1st intermission:

L.B. MUST smoke a cigarette, as though he has an addiction or something. we go out to the terrace overlooking the lincoln center courtyard. i am shivering. my teeth are actually chattering. along with boobage dress, i did have a shawl. but a shawl is not a parka. and it was cold. L.B. (typically) expressed absolute SHOCK that i could possibly be cold. this statement is made by someone wearing an undershirt, heavy-cotton dress shirt, woolen suit & tie. excuse me. i go on a rant about how men are always dictating whether it is cold or not. L.B. looks border-line amused, but mostly just wishing i would shut up.

we decide to spend a mini-fortune on champagne & beer during the intermission. i have champagne because i have class. L.B. takes a beer because it was a german opera. this is consumed on practically an empty stomach. the tiramisu long ago was absorbed into my gut.

Act II:

the second act is all drama! what didn't happen in the second act? the first scene stars the original isolde. the second act is basically an enormously significant love scene, which has a powerful duet. enough foreshadowing. tristan is singing. isolde dramatically exits stage right. abruptly too. tristan continues to sing for a while. the orchestra plays on. the curtain goes down. tristan is still singing. finally the orchestra stops.

OMR says: "This is haaaaaaarible. I think she refuses to sing with him."
Herr Opera is alarmed, but also not-so-secretly delighted. this is unprecedented opera news. he whips out his cell phone and merrily starts telling the operati what's going down. L.B. thinks he pressed the direct line he has to the NYT arts section: "Stop the Presses."

the director of the met opera comes out and tells everyone that isolde has suddenly taken ill. her understudy will fill in. when he mentions that isolde is ill, there is a collective gasp in the audience. but people, the show will go on! some people get up to leave anyway. L.B. says that these are the ungratefuls who have corporate seats & no culture, & who were going to leave after the second act anyway. maybe they were of the "i demand my money back" crowd or maybe they were about to pass out from hypoglycemia. who knows?

the audience is all atwitter while we wait about 20 minutes for the curtain to go up. opera man is in his element. his various admiring legions are all after him for deets. he's shouting across the house to all. he's running up & down the aisle, like the social butterfly he is.

the show goes on. curtains up. they rewind a little bit & pick up a few lines before original isolde dropped out. Note that Lehman was weak in the first Act, but he really did shine on the duets.

and oh the duet with Isolde nummer zwei. oh the chemistry. undeniable. tristan and isolde number 2 were on fire! the romantic scene coupled with their intensity on stage was amazing. & more than made up for his lacklustre first act. L.B.'s theory is that, instead of falling ill, isolde nummer eins feigned her illness so that her understudy would have a met opera premiere with the tristan understudy.

another intermission, another cigarette:

i amuse myself by walking my breasts around the lobby. deliberately i walk past two corporate-looking indian guys just to see if they'd notice. they did. L.B. shares his theory of isolde's departure with two english people on the terrace. they said it was a romantic theory. L.B. said that romantic theories should be entertained during "tristan und isolde". they conceded. (L.B. made me write about it.)

i brave pneumonia and head back to the terrace. L.B. is standing near a huge posse of opera-types: opera singers & wanna-bes. a rotund indian man from england wearing a nehru suit is holding court. "I've only just arrived for the third act from dinner & I'm only just hearing the story." Someone else: "I tell you, I almost peed my pants." L.B. is having an aneurism from laughing silently. i arrived just as this conversation had already taken place (what i get for NOT being a smoker.) L.B. is still giggling when i show up. i am immediately impressed by the girth of the indian opera singer and how proudly he wears his brown man's burden. a source of inspiration for my peoples.

we scarf down a sandwich, another champagne & a beer. back to the opera!

Act III:

tristan really needed to shine in this act. oh well. but guess who was shining! opera man. he was really alit, he liltingly remarks to his friend seated behind us: "And she didn't even say, "Ich kann nicht mehr singen." or something like that. in german anyway. oh how droll.

the third act is basically a lot of tristan going on and on and on. he finally dies. did i mention he was stabbed in the body 45 minutes ago! it takes the man 45 minutes to die from a deep stab wound. this is SO bollywood. i half expected his long-lost twin brother, twistan, to show up at his deathbed and his mother to reveal that the man he'd been on a quest to put behind bars was actually his father. [dramatic music here.]

this tristan did not shine. & it was sleep city. i fell asleep. L.B. dozed. but woke me up in time to see that isolde's "der schiff" had finally come in. king marke & isolde had shown up to forgive tristan. too late. should have taken the express. just then, he dies. & then isolde dies too.

& that's it.

no, that's not it. how could that possibly be it. there were still 20 rounds of applause to go through.

who do we applaud? who DON'T we applaud? of course, we applaud the understudies (it was their premiere. they got a standing ovation. L.B. pulled me up, I was still semi-asleep.) my take on it: "this is so hypocritcal. all these people were asleep 10 minutes ago and now they are shouting "bravae, bravae" like a bunch of stinky poseurs. after the cast get half an hour of applause, finally, james levine (the conductor beloved by met opera audiences) comes out (with his hairstyle a cross between "young einstein" & don king) for his requisite 45 minutes of applause. the people love james levine. & who wouldn't? the man looks like a leprachaun and it is SO close to st. patrick's day after all.

i'm complaining about the applause and L.B. tells me that if this were an Italian opera they would not only be applauding ALL throughout the performance, but people would be taking off their underwear and throwing it at the stage too. & flowers. & loaves of bread. & goats. & god only knows what else.

at this point i turn to L.B. and tell him how much i wish i could get applause & standing ovations for just f*cking doing my job. just like james levine. don't get me wrong. he was fine as a conductor. his orchestra did not muck up. but c'mon. i fall into a reverie thinking about how partners would leap out of their chairs shouting bravae, bravae when i submit my section of a brief.

but now is my time for a rant about how nyc audience are really all about themselves.
i have been to so many performances in all genres of music, in all sorts of venues where a standing ovation is not optional, or a matter of preference or personal experience or whatever but MANDATORY. why? why is every performance in nyc the greatest? I used to think it was because the audience was packed with people from des moines who were delighted not to be at regional community theatre but now I realize after 3.5 years of living here, that no. It is not the outsiders that leap to their feet at the end of a performance, but the locals. The locals are just SO impressed with whatever they had the good taste to go see, that it simply MUST have been amazing.

but the opera was a truly spectacular night. a met premiere for two opera singers and even though occasionally they could barely be heard & tristan put everyone to sleep in the third act, they did deserve something special to mark their performance. so bravae.

check out this link in the NYT the next day: