Standing room at the Metropolitan Opera

[foxy]

I like opera but I'm no die-hard fan. Most of what I've experienced has been on PBS. I'm fairly familar with a lot of the music and some of the plots of the "big" operas. I guess I've seen about a half dozen live performances in my life. I thought it was about time I took more advantage of Lincoln Center. Opera tickets can be very expensive, into the hundreds of dollars. Almost as expensive as hiring an escort for an hour or two. Anyway, this is old news to true opera fans but I decided to give standing room a try.

 

I discovered that you can buy tickets, starting at 10am when the box office opens, for that day's peformance. Even better, I discovered you don't have to stand in line. You can phone 212-362-6000 starting at 10am and buy standing room tickets with a credit card. There's a $5.50 service charge for this but worth the convenience.

An actual human being answered the phone this morning and I got two tickets for the matinee production of AIDA for $51.

 

Check out http://www.metopera.org for any info.

 

The production was amazing. Like a Cecil B. De Mille movie. Huge sets, cast of thousands, live horses and big fat people who could really belt out a tune. I had a blast! During the big scene there were lots of shirtless men in loin cloths (bring opera glasses. One very muscular, very good looking, young guy caught my eye. He could have easily been a Gaiety dancer. I focused on him for a while.

 

Standing wasn't the nightmare you'd think. There are things to lean on and you can shift around. Time goes quickly. You do miss the top half of the stage, a downside. Something really nice happened however. Just before the last act, a man and his companion were leaving and he gave me and my companion his tickets. $215, 3rd row center orchestra seats. Astounding! It was fun sitting that close. Hell, it was fun sitting!

 

So, for any of you people who want to try out opera on the cheap, try standing room. You can't go too far wrong for $20.

[pierrot]

And all the singers these days are not fat. The Marriage of Figaro opening at the Met next week has Erwin Schrott, a Uruguayan bass who is extremely hot. His Don Giovanni in London this summer had all the gay critics panting. And Schrott is not alone. Romeo et Juliette has the very attractive couple of Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna, and the new Lucia has Natalie Dessay, a tiny Frenchwoman who is a great actress, and a handsome young Polish baritone named Mariusz Kwiecien.

 

Lots of hunky singers onstage these days (Aida excepted).

[poiuyt]

And then there's this article in this week's Bay Area Reporter:

 

Full-frontal Hercules

 

Ercole's nice package on DVD

 

Vivaldi operas are so much in the ascendant these days that Ercole su'l Termodonte, one of the recently reconstructed ones, has already received two new productions in as many years. The second, for Italy's Spoleto Festival last year, just released on DVD (Dynamic), is already generating considerable buzz, but less for the return to the fold of a once-lost Baroque masterpiece (the usual cause celebre in the fiercely competitive early-music world) than because the splendid American tenor who sings the title role of Hercules does so mostly in the buff.

 

 

Rest of the article, plus a glimpse of the tenor, at:

 

http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=music&article=395

[foxy]

Looks like I discovered live opera just in time.

 

I wonder if I should start bringing a handful of singles next time I go?

 

Who would have thunk it? The new Gaiety is the old Met!

[Guest alanm]

Standing rooms is not as bad as many people think.

 

Also, even the fall/winter operas with major stars ("Lucia di Lammamoor," "La Traviata" and "Romeo et Juliette") often have cheap tickets available in the few days before the performances because people turn tickets in. The trick is to check the Met Opera site seceral times a day, usually something shows up, even for operas with Dessay, Fleming and Netrevko

[Guest Rendie]

If there is an intermission offering punch, chips, pretzels and/or breadsticks I'm there!

 

rendie

[uwsman2]

Kwiecien is a real hotty... Saw his performance in Don Pasquale last year and really flipped out. He has lots of solos on a Naxos recital CD that's worth getting.

 

So your description of the Lucia production has me eagerly anticipating this Monday evening, when I'm going with a friend.

[tealady]

yep the hunk is travis, he was in the alyce underground a few years ago, nice guy, and he says his big muscles are all real, no steroids.

 

the stage director, got rid of 40 of the old soldiers, and has gone with more buff bodies.

 

if you want to see men in skirts, run to see this AIDA.

[KMEM]

This all sounds like fun to me :-)

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ Charlie]

I assume you had the standing room at the back of the orchestra, but there is also standing room at the top of the house behind the Family Circle seats. Last March I had a seat up there for "Die Egyptische Helena" (a crappy opera, but I hadn't seen a production in twenty years and had forgot how stupid it was), but my air tickets got screwed up and I had to arrive in NY that morning on the redeye from LAX. Halfway through the first act, I realized I was too tired to sit up straight anymore, so during intermission I gave my seat to someone in standing room in exchange for his place, because one can sit or even lie down on the floor back there if one gets tired, and just listen. That's particularly pleasant if one is attending a really long opera with good singing but not much action, like Handel's "Rodelinda." It's also a cheap way to see only part of an opera and then leave (I've done that many times), and much better than having to climb over people in adjoining seats during an aria.

[edjames]

Check out Playbill.com, Broadway.com, and TheaterMania.com. From time to time they off opera discounts. I'm not too sure it's always a Met production but certainly NY City opera tickets are available.

 

Recently they offered Don Giovanni tickets at the NY City Opera for 15% off.

 

ED

[Guest zipperzone]

>Recently they offered Don Giovanni tickets at the NY City

>Opera for 15% off.

 

That would make them what? $255, down from $300?