Well, the Metropolitan Opera may be 125 years old, but they’ve never seemed younger. The place is buzzing with all kinds of excitement and tonight’s season-opening gala concert starring soprano Renee Fleming was a perfect embodiment of that. I was lucky enough to be watching the performance as it was beamed in a high-definition simulcast to movie theaters around the world- including Racine’s Renaissance – and even two thousand miles away (or however far NYC is from Wisconsin) it was as though we were there, experiencing all of the excitement in person. The Met really did this right by including more than a half- hour of pre-curtain festivities as we watched people file into the Met via a special red carpet. . . including actresses like Blythe Danner and Christine Baranksi, personalities like Martha Stewart, and even NYC’s honorable mayor. There were also short little features that showed us the new costumes which had been designed and built expressly for this concert for Ms. Fleming – the incredibly valuable real jewels that she would be wearing during the three acts of the gala (donated by four different jewelry firms in NYC) – and the distinctive Met chandeliers which had been painstakingly restored to their original glory just in time for this special occasion. Some crabby purists among opera fans would say that all that stuff is fluff, window dressing, gimmicks, etc. – but if it’s going to attract the attention of the uninitiated who might then find themselves hooked by opera itself, who can argue with that?!?!
The Met also arranged once again for its opening night performance to be beamed onto huge screens in Times Square, and there was quite a good-sized crowd there to take it all in, free of charge. In fact, during tonight’s simulcast there were a number of moments when we would be suddenly whisked off to Time Square and would see in the background big billboards for Orbit Gum or Coca Cola – – – or the neon news crawl on the ABC building, touting the season premiere of Ugly Betty! That was one of the most memorable things about tonight, as a matter of fact… to see opera, the art form I love above all others, rubbing elbows, so to speak, with Coca Cola and Ugly Betty, to say nothing of McDonald’s, the Gap, and Toys R Us. I am so thrilled whenever opera manages to butt its head into the middle of our culture. And I don’t remember which luminary it was who said this, but someone remarked during one of the intermissions that you don’t need to be Somebody Special in order to love opera. Unfortunately, if you want to attend the opera, you probably have to have some extra money in your pocket, because it’s an extravagant art form – but in terms of being able to “get it” and love it, anyone is fair game. But that’s what makes things like these simulcasts or the Times Square screening so crucial, so people can get a potent taste of grand opera at its very best. Which is not to say that everyone will be bitten by the bug – heaven knows if I were plunked down in the middle of a Led Zeppelin concert, I would be lying on the floor in a fetal position, sucking my thumb and waiting for it to be over. We don’t all have to like everything, and thank God for that. But what a kick to discover that you truly love something that you never would have suspected you could even like! What could be better than that?
I was reminded of that tonight, courtesy of my “date” for the evening. I didn’t have best friend Marshall with me tonight – he had a class to teach . . . Trevor now lives down in Illinois, and had football practice . . . Sarah and Nick had Milwaukee Symphony Chorus rehearsal . . . and although Kathy has been to a couple of these, this one did not interest her . . . so I ended up sharing my extra free ticket with recent Carthage grad Jamie Wilson . . . who loved every minute of it . . . and who said on our way to the parking lot afterwards that six years ago, if someone had told him that he would become an opera fan, he would have thought they were insane or stupid or both. But there he was tonight, clapping and cheering and – as far as I could tell – entirely enthralled. It’s fun to see Jamie joining what still is a relatively small but growing number of people in this world who realize that opera is a lot more than just a fat lady wearing a helmet with horns, carrying a spear and screaming out high notes. It can be side-splitting comedy, heartbreaking tragedy, compelling drama, torrential passion – – – wedded to some of the most glorious music ever composed, sung by truly amazing singers. We tasted pretty much all of that tonight in this stupendous gala showcasing Renee Fleming in supreme form. And I’m pretty sure that all of us who were there tonight walked out Re-Bitten by the Opera Bug. And trust me on this – once the Opera Bug has you clenched in its mandibles, it’s not about to let you go!
pictured: The Metropolitan Opera House as glimpsed during tonight’s simulcast. Most of the surreptitious photos I took of the performance were blurry, but this shot of the Met itself turned out amazingly well.