I have a lot of subscriptions this season; most of them are together with my neighbor, and this week is the first week when things really started.
After the Symphony ball last Saturday, there was the first of our regular subscription concerts, with Ricardo Muti conducting Stravinsky, Liadov, and Brams. There are several new young musicians in the orchestra, and my and my friend could not take our eyes away from a very young violinist who was visibly ecstatic being on the CSO stage and was eagerly following the maestro’s directions, beaming.
Since we both agreed that we prefer the close to the stage seating even if the view is a little bit obscured, we have no problem finding the tickets to our satisfaction. Today was our first Opera, Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. If was the first time that I discovered that the Opera House has the same pricing strategy, and the side seats close to the stage cost the same as the rear main floor. We sat unbelievably close like I never was that close to the stage at any opera. We could see the singers’ facial expressions (as clear as in the videos below), and we could read English captioning with no problem.
The 2 hours and 20 minutes opera ran without intermission, so I was a little bit unsure whether we would survive, but the music was so captivating, and the performers were so engaging that I didn’t even notice where the time went! I never heard this opera before, not even in the recording, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Since I promised one of my followers that I would tell all about the opera set and costumes, here is my report. The set was innovative but not extravagant (in fact, the video about the lighting provides good shots of the set). The way they represented both ships with one was very clever. The costumes were “historically neutral,” probably close to the end of the nineteenth century, so they were not distracting the audience from the music. We loved it!
Hettie's Reflections 