Danger: Slow Moving Seniors

An opera audience is a unique group.  At 51 I feel like the kid in the crowd with much of the audience made up of seniors.  Moving around the opera house can be a real challenge, it’s a senior minefield!  Dodging slow moving seniors is a little known skill required of the “young” opera goer that you won’t read about in the promotional literature or opera magazines. Getting to your seat, heading to the bathroom at intermission, leaving the building to catch a late night ferry home is frought with danger.  Being tall and usually quick to move from place to place, I’m not one to be looking down at what lies ahead… I just go.  At the opera such behavior can result in disaster. Slow and steady, scanning the carpeted terrain below is a must.  How horrible the thought of trampling someone’s grandmother or grandfather! 

All joking aside, how nice it is to see older couples all dressed up for the evening,
Original production 1881
L’Opéra-Comique many I’m sure having spent many an evening over the years at the opera.  For me a rookie after two full seasons, every opera is a new experience.  For these veterans a lifetime of opera must bring a different focus to the evening.  I can only use my opera mentor, Gregory as a model.  After 30 or so years of serious opera going he has seen many operas multiple times.  His understanding and grasp of opera is astounding making our intermission debriefings and discussions very meaningful.  This past week’s performance of “Tales of Hoffman” (Les contes d’Hoffmann) by Offenbach is a case in point, I believe he has seen it three times.  A little background I learned: Offenbach died before the opera was finished in 1880.  Consequently it has been the subject of many variations over the years.  Apparently no two stagings are ever alike; music is added, acts omitted or rearranged, dialog added and so on. There are four women (subject to variation as well) in the opera who are the object of Hoffman’s obsession.  Historically some productions have one woman singing all four roles, a major undertaking since they are all very different in range and style.  The great Joan Sutherland was one of the few in recent history capable of handling such a daunting task and performed the opera in Seattle in 1970 (read a review of her Met performance 1973). Beverly Sills was another known for brilliantly handling these parts.

One of the marvelous things about opera is its rich history and the role that every new production and performance has in shaping that history.  As our experience grows as opera lovers ( I guess I can say that about myself now) we too shape the history of this unique art form.  If not for the patronage (and generous financial support I might add) of the many loyal and aged fans of opera there would be no opera for us youngsters to attend!  I just hope the next generation of young opera goers (ya know the 40 years olds) will keep any eye out for me when I’m shuffling around the opera house!

 

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