Culturification

Today is Saturday, my one day a week that I have off, my one day to sleep in and laze around the house and be a total couch potato.

Instead, I got up not long after I normally get up for work, got dressed up(ish), and sans-coffee went off to the movie theatre to sit still, in a packed theatre full of little old people for four hours. Whew, am I glad to be home!

And while the waking up part of my morning was rather unpleasant, the experience itself was pretty fantastic. My husband and I met my parents at the wee hours of 9:30 am to see a production of Carmen (in HD no less) piped in from the Met. It was a rough 4 hours, admittedly; mostly due to the fact that we'd been too lazy this morning to put on coffee and so we had to do without. Also, the fact that movie theatre seats tend to be built more for cramming as many of them into a particular space than actually making them comfortable to sit in for long periods of time. Oh, and I could have done without every single little old lady there bathing in lavender eau de toilette when she got up this morning. Thankfully, I never travel without an inhaler! And then there was the two elderly ladies beside me who apparently didn't know how to turn off their cell phones and so pretended that it wasn't *them* that was the source of that stupid little ring tone for two mins straight... TWICE.

All bitching aside (and apparently more bitching than I realised was warranted) it was an amazing show; even my husband loved it, and he's not an opera fan by any stretch of the imagination. I haven't had the pleasure of attending an opera in a few years and had a very poor experience the last time I went and saw it live. There's a few reasons why I would highly recommend this "version" of an opera, actually.

The number one reason I really appreciated this type of production is that it was so easy. I didn't have to travel to the city, as is usually the case for a live opera and then secure somewhere to stay as well. The tickets to the show today were just over twice the cost of a movie but still cheaper than if you sat way up in the nose-bleed section at the Queen Elizabeth theatre and the view was exponentially better to boot.

The other reason that I'd really recommend this version of the opera to anyone is that during the breaks they did some really neat "behind the scenes" looks at the stage and scenery and talked to some of the major performers. Really a great way for anyone who's new to the opera or even just that particular production to get a better understanding of the whole thing.

All in all, Carmen was a perfect reason to get out of bed early (even if I do maybe need a nap now). The current cast for this production is utterly fantastic and I highly recommend that if you can see any production with Elīna Garanča in it, that you do. She's stunning.

Now forgive me, but I am off to go try to nap with Habanera playing in my head for the rest of the day...