I don't know a lot about operas at all. But when I was in Vienna, or rather, when I was in Budapest, I gained a mild interest in going to the opera since I was in these European cities with famous operas, and figured, why not? So I didn't go in Budapest, but stayed in a hostel with a British girl who is a professional opera singer, and you wouldn't have thought it to look at her, because she was about half my size. But anyhow, in Vienna, I read that they have very very cheap student tickets, like 4 euros, where you get to go to the opera and stand at the back in this open part, kind of like the groundlings at ancient Shakespeare performances. I friend I made at the my hostel, Jake, and I made the trek to the Staatoper, excited for this new bit of culture we were about to experience, only to find the Puccini opera playing that night sold out. Drat. So the following night we made our plans a little better, and arrived to the Staatoper 2 hours before to snag some 4 euro tickets, (where normally you can get the best seats at the Vienna opera for I think $300) The line was massive to get in everywhere, and I was so impressed by how excited people got for the opera. Fur coats, floor length dresses, lots of gold and marble, required coat check, it was like I'd entered another era. At the intermission, people drank wine out on the terrace, beautiful old women powdered their noses in the powder room, and the coat check man got annoyed with me because I added my sports zipup to my coat (he looked at me like, don't you know there's like a dress code here? Or I figured that was what he was thinking, to which my response was...you go backpacking for 3 months, and still look very classy apart from your sports zipup for added warmth, jerkface)
Forgive me, those who may be well acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the opera, but this was a phenomenal new experience for me. The theater was large but very intimate, you felt like you were really close to the stage from everywhere. Box seats lined nearly the entirety of both sides. The biggest, sparkliest chandelier I've ever seen covered the ceiling, probably 15 feet across. A full orchestra came in, a men's and women's chorus, and then the main singers. This was like a performance of an opera without the play part of it, so they were singing the parts, and acting them out somewhat, but wearing regular dresses and tuxes. There were little screens every couple seats that translated the Italian lyrics into German and English, so we actually knew what was going on. It was about a king and queen and the queen had an affair and then the king found out and everyone was trying to poison each other. Not the best plot ever, but I don't think that was the main point. One of my favorite parts was when they were singing for like 20 minutes about the glories of the wine of Cyprus and how its the best wine and no one could possibly make a greater wine than them and all the fools who say otherwise are idiots. As I said, its the music which I cannot recreate here.
I cannot describe to you what the voices sounded like, but I will briefly try. It was AMAZING. The lead female was a blond very robust woman probably in her 50s wearing this sparkly silver dress, it looked fantastic. And her voice, some of the things she could sing, some of the notes she held, I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. She and the lead male, the king, who had a phenomenal huge voice as well had a few songs together that were indescribable the voices were so rich and the harmonies sounded so good.
Jake and I both were pretty much floored as neither of us had been to an opera like this before. We stood the whole 2 ½ hour performance and it was worth every penny. Next time I'm in Vienna, I want to have a seat and be a real part of the action, and bring my floor length dress and fur stole. But 4 euros to even witness that cannot be beat.
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