We had a nice dinner with Peggi’s mom last night and then the three of us headed off to Mercury Opera’s production of Puccini’s “Tosca”. It is sort of a love triangle where everybody dies. Peggi’s mom told us that much before dinner.
Peggi hung the handicapped tag on the rear view mirror and inched up to the front door of the Eastman Theater to drop off her mom. A car darted in front of us and a woman jumped out and told Peggi that we had just run a red light. It was probably green when started going through the intersection because we were only doing about three miles per hour. This opera crowd is tough.
I slipped my camera out in the first act, made sure the flash was off, all the while keeping the camera against my body and I held the camera under my chin for a few shots. The guy sitting next to me leaned over and said, “That’s very distracting”. I couldn’t tell what he said so I said, “What?” He said, “That’s very distracting”. He had an Australian accent and he looked a bit like Russell Crow so I put my camera in my lap.
The opening scene with an artist, his lover and and an escaped political prisoner all in a church had real potential but it was coming off cute. The sets were beautiful and creatively lit. The three main characters had great voices and strong stage presence.
Opera used to be public entertainment. Someone has stripped the entertainment from these sung plays. The focus is on the trained voices and opera people know the code for signaling their approval of the craft. But what about bringing this play to life so the audience can take their minds off their mink coats and manners?
And they should not have those stupid translations up above the stage. They are like the tags in an art gallery that tell you what your looking at or what the artist had for breakfast. Either everyone should learn Italian or the the opera should be sung in English.
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