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Don Quixote: we had a nice time anyway
Mar. 4th, 2011 11:26 amwe have season tickets to the opera (well, partial season, we signed up during intermission at Lucia di Lammermoor), but Wednesday night was the first time we actually went on our regular night and sat in our regular seats.
i like the seats quite a bit, but found myself wishing that we were further back so that i didn't have to look away from the action in order to catch changing supertitles. this is not a big deal for chestnuts like Barber of Seville, but for an unfamiliar work like Don Quixote it was kind of a pain. going on Wednesday night gets us the best deal on seeing the Gold cast. (opera singing is pretty hard on the body. the solution is either to space out the performances or double-cast major roles. Seattle Opera does the double cast, and there's nothing wrong with the Silver team - they're up and comers, and i've never felt cheated by a Silver performance - but the Gold team is the people who also work at places like the Met and la Scala. i say if you're going to go, go big.) Wednesday also appears to have a less crowded Bravo Club (under-40 opera fans - discounts, free wine, special events) reception where we could actually enjoy the room/wine/chocolates instead of shuffling about like cattle in a feedlot.
the opera is early 20th century and doesn't sort into a comedy or tragedy bucket.* it's an adaptation of an adapted French play, so Don Quixote = Dulcinea + Sancho Panza + windmill. there the resemblance to the novel ends. the conceit of this production is that Quixote is indeed lost in his books: the set is mostly composed of giant books, inkwells, quill pens, and sand shakers. it's as if all this is happening on the elderly dreamer's library desk.
the ensemble scenes are ravishing, accented by a team of flamenco dancers. it's easy to understand why the opera's Dulcinea is "the queen" in her little town.
the music is...okay. not bad, but not memorable. the principals are very good; i look forward to seeing them in other operas.
the highlight of the evening for me was that the ensemble included Dapple and Rocinante. and i was like okay, grand entrance for our heroes, mounted on live equines. we will never see the horse and donkey again, right? no. the opera paid for the donkey and the horse, so they were totally going to appear in every outdoor scene with Quixote and Panza all the way through the curtain call. Rocinante wasn't too crazy about being on stage. she did a bit of sidling even when her handler was feeing her treats nonstop. Dapple was more chill - there was actually a tie-off point for her on the set so that she could be on stage without an actor holding her. and she had been slipped several treats before Panza walked away...which was obvious since she was enthusiastically chewing and then dropping stuff from her mouth, and then picking it up again and chewing some more. i think there may have been singing happening with Don Quixote on the other side of the stage at the time, but donkey! the clever clever opera merch booth did a brisk business in stuffed horses and donkeys at intermission.
*actually, it's classed as a comédie-héroïque. like The Cherry Orchard, it appears to be a comedy because only one old guy dies at the end.
i like the seats quite a bit, but found myself wishing that we were further back so that i didn't have to look away from the action in order to catch changing supertitles. this is not a big deal for chestnuts like Barber of Seville, but for an unfamiliar work like Don Quixote it was kind of a pain. going on Wednesday night gets us the best deal on seeing the Gold cast. (opera singing is pretty hard on the body. the solution is either to space out the performances or double-cast major roles. Seattle Opera does the double cast, and there's nothing wrong with the Silver team - they're up and comers, and i've never felt cheated by a Silver performance - but the Gold team is the people who also work at places like the Met and la Scala. i say if you're going to go, go big.) Wednesday also appears to have a less crowded Bravo Club (under-40 opera fans - discounts, free wine, special events) reception where we could actually enjoy the room/wine/chocolates instead of shuffling about like cattle in a feedlot.
the opera is early 20th century and doesn't sort into a comedy or tragedy bucket.* it's an adaptation of an adapted French play, so Don Quixote = Dulcinea + Sancho Panza + windmill. there the resemblance to the novel ends. the conceit of this production is that Quixote is indeed lost in his books: the set is mostly composed of giant books, inkwells, quill pens, and sand shakers. it's as if all this is happening on the elderly dreamer's library desk.
the ensemble scenes are ravishing, accented by a team of flamenco dancers. it's easy to understand why the opera's Dulcinea is "the queen" in her little town.
the music is...okay. not bad, but not memorable. the principals are very good; i look forward to seeing them in other operas.
the highlight of the evening for me was that the ensemble included Dapple and Rocinante. and i was like okay, grand entrance for our heroes, mounted on live equines. we will never see the horse and donkey again, right? no. the opera paid for the donkey and the horse, so they were totally going to appear in every outdoor scene with Quixote and Panza all the way through the curtain call. Rocinante wasn't too crazy about being on stage. she did a bit of sidling even when her handler was feeing her treats nonstop. Dapple was more chill - there was actually a tie-off point for her on the set so that she could be on stage without an actor holding her. and she had been slipped several treats before Panza walked away...which was obvious since she was enthusiastically chewing and then dropping stuff from her mouth, and then picking it up again and chewing some more. i think there may have been singing happening with Don Quixote on the other side of the stage at the time, but donkey! the clever clever opera merch booth did a brisk business in stuffed horses and donkeys at intermission.
*actually, it's classed as a comédie-héroïque. like The Cherry Orchard, it appears to be a comedy because only one old guy dies at the end.
