Rach and I took a trip to the opera last night, to celebrate my birthday in a more cultured way than last year. It was brilliant - a simple tragic love story, packed with tunes, emotions, laughs, tears (the opera staple of lead woman dying of TB present)... it would be a cold heart not to be moved by it.
La Boheme is my favourite opera. I do like Wagner, particularly Valkyrie which Chris saw recently, but my personal feeling is that many of his operas contain 5-10 minutes islands of genius surrounded by oceans of mediocrity. Puccini doesn't waste the audience's time too much - we were out by 9.30 and home in time for Big Brother - genius!
The sets were superb - modern but not minimal, some real money spent - Marcello's art consisted of multimedia installations projected onto huge screens (from apple macs of course - would you trust a PC for a live performance? I don't think so. Lots of sculptures and art, interacting with the singers and the music. Apparently this show is crippling scottish opera financially, and you could really see why - �20K to stage the show each night and the theatre was only 3/4 full.
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