Opera!

It seems that it is longer and longer between posts. When I’m not in Italy life seems less noteworthy. Not that I haven’t had anything to do but it all seems (and is) just more ordinary. I suppose that if I were actually living in Italy it would be the same. However there is one noteworthy thing to report. I went to the see an opera. Certainly not the first one but this was indeed special. This was the annual simulcast. The first one I went to was Rigoletto but that was in the fall. For some reason this one was the 5th of July.  Still, given that it is San Francisco, there was the ever present chill after the sun goes down. My renowned laziness has meant that I am only now doing the blog post that I should have done over a month ago. In any case this time is was La Traviata. Yet another woeful tale, as most operas are. Still it is a great event with over 26,000 people shivering together during what seems almost a front row seat. In fact the display is high definition and is a 103 foot screen. Pretty impressive. Yes, one misses a bit of the pageantry of opera in the opera house but, like sporting events, one gets a much better view of the action.  Click on any photo to get a much bigger and better view.

The crowd to the right

Sure the screen looks pretty small but it is, of course, quite large and even from this distance it is indeed like a front row seat. The sound system that they bring in is quite good as well so it is really a delightful experience. I’m looking forward to next year.

The crowd to the left.

That’s really a lot of people for an opera!

Waiting for the opera to start

We came dressed appropriately. I have gloves and a scarf at the ready.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2014 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.