I've always had the same vision of a typical opera. A rather large lady with a bun so enormous that it barely stays on top of her head stands centerstage. With her hands held together at the center of her chest, she begans to sing at atypical ranges in a language unknown to the audience. She ends with a long high note, and the crowd gathers in applause, yet having no idea as to what they've just witnessed. The House of the Dead proved my perception completely false. The first aspect of this opera that caught me off guard was the huge cast of men.

On saturday in the blistering cold, I decided to visit the American Musuem of Natural History. Though I basically froze on my way over there, it was definitely worth the trip, especially with the virtually free admission (donation). I first visited the area dedicated to astronomy and apart from reading just about the stars like the temperature of the Sun (6,000 F), I got to weight myself. Apparently my weight in some specific planets was less than a single pound, in fact it was .1 of a pound. So this was a litte fun deed to go about doing.

Let me start by saying I have never been so lost in New York in my life. Since I've never taken the train to Columbus Circle by myself, I didn't know where to go after I got off the train. I walked in all four directions before asking someone and realizing that the museum was just across the street from the circle! As I walked in to the museum, the counterperson gave me a hard time by saying that the Macaulay passport would not be free admission. I argued for a good 5 minutes before she finally called someone and realized she was wrong.

I had very high expectations for House of the Dead at the Metropolitan Opera this Wednesday. However, the opera didn't exactly meet my expectations. Although I fully understood that the style of the book is dreary and uneventful in itself, I thought the opera would be somewhat more lively. I expected the acting and singing to bring excitement to the story of the House of the Dead. Apparently, these were not the intentions of the opera itself. All throughout, mostly everything about the opera was very bleak and monotonous.

By class time on Wednesday, I had only read a portion of Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead. After reading this much of the novel, I was very interested to see how the story would transfer onto stage. It was very difficult to imagine how Janacek could possibly transform this story into an opera. The performance was not at all what I had anticipated based on my prior knowledge of the opera. In class, Professor Bergman mentioned that we might find ourselves waiting for the song to start, and I caught myself doing this just a few minutes into the performance.