I grew up a bit obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera, thanks to my Mom and Sue. So it was literally a dream come true last night when Michael and I went to see a performance at the Palais Garnier (the Paris Opera House), which was the inspiration for the Phantom. When you visit the opera house as a tourist, you enter through the side and somewhat from underneath of the building. As a spectator, you enter at the main entrance in all its glory, with an incredible view of the grand staircase. It is a seriously special place, and an occasion to put on your best cocktail dress with your sexiest, most impractical heels. And then there's the inside of the theater. Ohmygod, it's crimson and gold and spectacular. With a ceiling painted by Chagall... The show itself was a comic French opera from 1745 called Platée. Our seats were in the stalls on orchestra level, which is fantastic until anything happened on the upper right of the stage, when we missed everything but the music and voices. Which it turns out didn't matter so much for us because we were utterly confused and bewildered the entire first half of the show anyway! The main character of the opera was an ugly water nymph called Platée (female character played by a male), who falls in love with basically every man who comes to her pond, including the king of the gods, Jupiter. She is sadly taken advantage of by Mercury and Love, who convince her that Jupiter is going to marry her, all in a ploy to cure Jupiter's wife Juno of jealousy. Happy ending for Jupiter and Juno; not so much for poor Platée. There are also some singing, dancing frogs along the way. Check out a clip here if you want to see some of the magic.
It also didn't help that the performers were singing in French with Italian "r"s. Any illusions we may have harbored about understanding more than two words at a time had gone out of the window in the first 10 minutes of the show. At the intermission, we decided to google the synopsis so that we could at least know what was going on. The second half turned out to be much better than the first, and we both ended up actually liking the performance. But honestly, we weren't really there for the show anyway. It was always about just being lucky enough to spend a few hours inside the hallowed building, experiencing whatever Paris decided to throw our way.
2 Comments
Sue
10/5/2015 11:15:12 pm
I am so Happy you enjoyed the performance. Please come again. I will be looking forward to your return.
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Michael
10/6/2015 08:02:47 pm
Good one, Aunt Z (aka, OG)! :)
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