A little bit of culture... my first trip to the opera

Yesterday was my first experience of opera... ok so I'd watched Madame Butterfly before on TV (and loved it) but I'd never physically gone and sat in a theatre to watch an opera before. Usually I'm more of a musical kinda gal, but when Mum sent me a link to a deal for £60 upper circle seats for £10, I figured at that price why not get my feet wet and try something a bit more cultured. Plus hubby to be really wanted to go. So, I got 2 tickets for £20 to see Simone Boccenegra at the London Coliseum.

We were both quite excited about going to the opera... hubby-to-be stressed about what people wear to the opera, and even went so far as to google it (which was really cute!!). The theatre itself looked pretty impressive too. The boxes to the left and right of the stage were huge (and there were some lucky rich people sipping wine pre-curtain up in their box) and the view from our dead centre upper circle seats were pretty good.

I'm not sure what I was expecting... perhaps after watching Madame Butterfly on the TV I was expecting more colourful vibrant sets, but this version of Boccenegra went down the modernistic route, with the cast wearing black, white and shades of grey. The opening act's set was interesting enough, a smoky bar full of men in beige raincoats and hats, with a street outside complete with car, but from act two it was all grey walls and black plastic seats. From act three to the end, the entire opera was set in what looked to be some kind of meeting/conference room (again a modernistic take on what should have been a throne room of sorts where the Doge saw his subjects). The set was drab, although clever in terms of perspective. Every time the curtain went down and you heard the shuffling and bumping as they moved the set around, I hoped for something new and interesting, only to be disappointed that it was just the same set yet again but with a couple chairs upended to give the impression of an uprising had taken place. Poor effort!

With regards to the story, I'm not sure if this was an abridged version of the opera, but even with the intermittent curtain down and projected narrative explaining the progress of the story between acts, there seemed to be too many gaps and plot lines unexplained. I think perhaps in general it was a bad choice for a first trip to the opera. The story didn't evoke any kind of emotion from me (and I'm pretty hormonal at the minute... I've even cried today watching Supernanny on TV!), and seemed quite disjointed yet predictable. The singing was good although again somewhat flat... and the acting seemed really hammy! I don't know if it was supposed to be funny but a few people kept on laughing at one of the character's attempts at frustrated tantrums!

So as you can tell, I wasn't over enamoured with Boccenegra! It hasn't put me off opera by any means but perhaps I'll stick to a more well known and mainstream opera next time! Thank goodness I paid £20 and not £120 for my tickets!

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