STILL ON PATROL

Need Some Culture? Try Met HD

I tried something new last night, and enjoyed it far more than I anticipated I would.  We took my 85-year old mother-in-law, a life-long opera devotee, to see the Metropolitan Opera production of "Lucia de Lammermoor" by Donnizetti, but did so without the high expense of travelling to Manhattan.  We sat comfortably in one of our local movie theatres, courtesy of the "Metropolitan Opera in HD" series.

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_next.aspx

The Met, thanks to a "generous grant from the Neubauer Family Foundation", presents a series of 11 opera performances in a season that runs from September through May.  Some of the operas are familiar classics, while others are new, or lesser-known selections from great composers.  Each opera is usually presented live (usually as a Saturday matinee), or in weekday evening "encore" performaces.  Our tickets were $18 apiece, well below New York prices, and series tickets are available.

I have seen a few local or regional operas in my time, and usually had trouble remaining awake.  The talent level in this Met performance, however, was mesmerizing, particularly a young tenor who had been performing in a Russian-language opera at the Met, but was given two-days' notice to prepare to sing, in Italian, the role of Edgardo, an intense, emotional, and complex role, because the usual performer was ill.  I will admit that the subtitles helped quite a bit, once you got over the Japanese-movie-like fact that there were far fewer words printed than were being sung.

"Lucia" was well-sung and acted, with many extended ovations by the Met audience.  The story, similar to Romeo and Juliet in that two lovers are kept apart by feuding families, only to drive the woman to madness and the man to suicide, was compelling and interesting.  My only issue with the performance was that the 20-minute intermissions (two in this production) were lengthened by interviews with various performers to where they were more like 25-30 minutes.  In a live performance, with the massive set changes of "Lucia", these long intermissions are necessary, but in an "Encore" performance, while the interviews were interesting, but the set changes, well, a little fast-forward might be in order, particularly on a weekday night.

A Metropolitan Opera is worth seeing if for no other reason than the spectacle of the thing.  The talent is incredible - for example, the Conductor likened his job with the Met's orchestra to "driving a Ferrari."  The vocal talent is amazing, and the acting is pretty decent, within the genre, of course.  As I said, I am no opera fan, but this was far more enjoyable than I would ever have guessed.  My mother-in-law was so thrilled she was asking on the way home when the next opera was scheduled, and wants to go again.  And she's seen the Met at the Met, so she's hard to impress.

Give it a look - Madame Butterfly by Puccini is next up, and I guarantee this will be better than the movie version of "Miss Saigon."

Play Review - "The Curvy Widow"

Corinne and I had a rare treat this past weekend.  We got to see Cybill Shepherd in a new one-woman play, "The Curvy Widow", presented at the Hertz Stage of the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.  The Hertz Stage is a small non-traditional theater beneath the main Alliance Theater, seating only a hundred or so patrons.  We were lucky to have seats on the front row, almost close enough to reach out and touch Ms. Shepherd and close enough to smell her perfume.

"The Curvy Widow" is about a very successful woman in her late 50's.  She had been married to a man 20+ years her senior for 27 years, until his death 6 years prior to the time of the play.  In the interim, she has had a "boyfriend" who was married, until he dumped her a few months before the time of the play.  Thus, the story is of a woman who is trying to make her entry back into dating and companionship in the electronic age.  It is both hilarious and touching and in many ways hits close to home in its frank appraisal of the effects of aging on sexuality, beauty and surviving life in general.

I have been a longtime fan of Ms. Shepherd, going back to her debut in The Last Picture Show.  Her character in this play is every bit the persona we have come to know with Ms. Shepherd - brassy and irrepressible but at the same time vulnerable and real.  Rather than leaving the audience feeling as if they are distant observers, she pulled us into the character's life as if we were old friends hearing of her life and loves in their most intimate details over a cup of coffee.  As the play ended I felt as if I wanted to talk to her some more to see how things had come out since then.

The set, lighting, and effects all were very creatively done with their elegant simplicity becoming integral to the storytelling.  From her businesswoman's closet lined with black and blue suits, to the projections of computer screens as she ventured into the internet world of dating sites, to the use of lighting to add and subtract from the on-stage appearance of each scene, I was impressed by how much was accomplished with very little and its precise coordination with Ms. Shepherd as she spoke and moved about the stage.

If you have occasion to be in Atlanta in the near future, think about taking in "The Curvy Widow".  Tickets are a little hard to come by given the small size of the theater and the star power of Ms. Shepherd, but you will find it worth the effort.  I do not know what the future plans are for this play, if any.  The Atlanta venue is billed as the "World Premiere" of the play, which might lead one to believe more might be in store depending on its success on the Hertz Stage.  There are also presently exhibits at the adjacent High Museum of Art on Impressionism and of items on loan from the Louvre, which would afford a patront he opportunity to take in quite a day of the arts in one mid-town location.