A Night at the Opera

My grandmother was in town this past weekend, which meant two things:
1. I would gain at least 7 lbs. Possibly per meal.
2. People would be singing in foreign languages.

The first time I went to visit my grandmother on my own, people AND a statue sang in a foreign language, while a guy with funny hair got dragged to hell. The second trip, a blond with an ill-fitting costumes sang passionately (in a foreign language) to a severed head. This past semester, a brunette (formerly the blond) with a much better costume sang passionately to a dead guy with head still attached, but covered in blood. In Italian.

Last night's production of Il barbiere di Siviglia once again featured people singing in Italian, but with heads mercifully still attached and relatively bloodless. For the record, this makes the show much easier to distinguish from the other one about a singing barber, for which the manufacturer of fake blood usually gets top billing (Sweeney Todd: Starring Heinz Ketchup!).

Now usually when I go on these cross-linguistic adventures, there are subtitles to aid me. Barber of Seville was no exception, except (the exception to the non-exception?) for the minor detail that the subtitles were in Hungarian. At first, I was not too concerned, figuring that I would be able to get enough of the Italian to get a general idea of what was going on. Italian, at least, falls into the category of Romance Languages I Vaguely Recognize, along with French and Spanish. If I see a language that looks romantic (i.e. can be spoken with a sexy accent) but leaves me baffled, I assume it's Portuguese. For my own sanity, I have to pretend Romanian doesn't exist. However, after the first scene, I realized the folly of my ways. I did figure out that somebody was serenading someone else, and it was not working so hot. I assumed it was because of the French horn. Never serenade someone with a French horn, unless you know them to be sexually attracted to geese. I also figured out that somebody wanted someone else to speak quietly lest he be heard, but I guess the other person didn't hear because they were next to the blaring French horn. Really, the entire song was like an Italian version of Cat-Like Tread, which, for those of you who have not seen Pirates of Penzance, goes something like this:
With cat-like tread *STOMP*
Upon our prey we steal *CRASH*
In silence dread *THUMP*
A cautious way we feel *DRUMLINE SOLO*

After the opening scene was over and the serenader had ridden away on his noble...fountain (I'm all for creative set changes, but I really wanted someone to follow him with coconuts), though, I fell behind the plot. When a man in bright red pants came in and began playing with razors, I assumed him to be the titular Hispanic hairdresser. It should be noted, however, that it took me until the third or fourth scene to be sure. I wished again that I had bought a program so I could find out who played Figaro’s right and left eyebrows. If they did not have their own bio, they should have. I suspect they went to the Royal Shakespeare Academy before studying under Martha Graham. Even with such two fabulous characters, however, I still had no idea what was going on when the serenader-in-stripes (my first guess was clown…apparently he was dressed as a student...same thing) rejoined the scene. I knew enough Hungarian (!!) to figure out from the subtitles that someone wanted to speak to someone else, or at least that speaking was going on/expected to happen in some capacity. I knew enough Italian (only one ‘!’, it’s not nearly as impressive) to figure out that this would for some reason involve soldiers. Actually, because of this, I was able to figure out that the Hungarian word for ‘soldier’ is ‘katona,’ so I was able to figure out when OTHER scenes involved soldiers too! Granted, this became much easier when they came in with funny hats (more later) and guns. Other than soldiers and verbal communication however, I had no idea what the scene was about. For all I knew, they could have been talking about the weather I wasn’t sure where the soldiers would come in though, perhaps they were going to speak to the captain but couldn’t because of the weather? Whatever it was, it took them about 45 minutes to decide whether they would be speaking to the man who speaks like a soldier when he’s under the weather.

Even after all that, I still felt I had a moderate handle on the plot until then end of Act I, when suddenly THE ENTIRE WORLD came on stage, Almaviva/Lindoro the serenader/student/soldier/secretly rich dude pulled out his credit card, and the set exploded. Now, I could sort of get on board with the fountain-as-public-transport idea, but once the head of Seville’s finest, menacing in his orange-fur-trimmed hat, started playing with a guitar that was HANGING IN MIDAIR and the gate outside Rosina’s balcony had a seizure, I gave up. I actually thought that maybe a poltergeist was part of the plot. In my defense, it wouldn’t be the weirdest plot device in opera. See “Don Giovanni pisses off a statue, eternal damnation ensues.” I did feel major respect for the stage crew, though; their storm-signifying curtain-waving looked much better than what we did for Pericles in 9th grade, though I suspect their budget was not much higher. A side note to the stage crew of the opera house: even (especially?) if you have to sell an actor, BUY CLAMPS (and maybe some caulk). Those stairs gave me a heart attack every time someone stepped on them, or stepped near them, or exhaled within 7 meters of them. Also, the curtain lights were definitely better than ours (which looked like bizarrely like we were shining a map of the US), but look into diffusers.

After Act I, I caved and bought a program. It’s probably a good thing I did so, as the bulk of my interpretations had been 150% wrong (yes, I’m a math major…your point?). Also, there was, surprisingly, no actual poltergeist involved. The only line in the synopsis to explain the LSD trip onstage at the end of Act I was something like “Confusion ensues.” I think they need to reprint the program: “Confusion ensues (in the audience).” I had been right about someone wanting to speak to someone else though, so I gave me 5 bonus points. Once I had my trusty program, the opera became much clearer. I was able to understand when Rosina became tragically and irreparably broken-hearted for all of about five minutes before Almaviva/Lindoro reminded her that he was a tenor in a romantic comedy so they pretty much had to end up together. Convincing her did take some effort; she didn’t believe him until he took off his coat to reveal that he was at least rich enough to dress like Liberace in a Swarovski promotion. She just happened to be wearing a matching dress under her robe, which was such a coincidence that it must have been love. Not gonna lie, I’m a sucker for a sparkly ending.