The Arts in New York City

Okay, so the first half of this is going to be about Le Nozze di Figaro which I have unfortunately neglected to write about until this very moment. I really do enjoy the opera. You sit there in the seats and you are welcomed into an eperience that you are unable to have at home unless you have excellent surround sound =) . In terms of my expectations of Le Nozze, I did not expect to take any naps and I did expect to love it thouroughly as I had loved the only opera I had attended previously. What I found though, was that the comic opera, didn’t make me feel as much as a tragic opera did. I felt like the songs meant less to me when they weren’t anthems of loss. In le Nozze, my favorite aria was from the Contessa, when she lamented her husband’s gradual lean toward other women as opposed to her. There was little focus on movement across the stage and it was all about her and her magnificant voice, which Voice is what I came to the Opera to enjoy. At certain points, however, I enjoyed the seats at the Met a tad too much and I napped/fell asleep. It wasn’t because I was bored though, just becasue the music was so breathtaking that I felt the need to close my eyes and enjoy it but sadly one thing led to another and suddenly I was asleep at the Met! It was in fact the best nap I have ever taken and so thank you, Prof. Drabik, for all of your tips and tricks.

Now for Hotel Cassaopeia.

I’m honestly not even sure where to go with this. The play abolutlety blew my mind and I don’t feign to understand more than the premise. However, it happens to be the kind of production that I would love to see again and again until I have extracted all of the deeper meaning from it. In my mind, the staging was beautiful in its selectness and simplicity. I really enjoyed attempting to figure out the importance of each peice that appeared on stage as well as each person that moved in and out of the picture. What I gathered from watching at BAM was that the stage was meant to be a showcase of living art which seeing as the artist dealt with collage and assemblage was very interesting to observe. I truly enjoyed it and I wish I couldt t see it again or at least read the script so that I would be able to try and find meaning between the lines.
My favorite part was at the very end when they were talking about true love and the lead character remarked that he had never found it but when the girl replied that she had always thought he had, the lights dimmed and after seeing the stars displayed in their glorious constallations, he changed his response and says “Yes”. There could have been a no more fittinf exchange or ending for this quizzical production. I felt as though there was so little being said and yet so much being said which is why I am happy to have seen it on stage as opposed to reading it only in text (I never read the text, I am just remarking on the alternative to seeing it Live) What written word allows is personal interpretation but sometimes it’s nice to sit back, relax, and wonder what someone else was thinking when they had a girl ride a bicycle around on stage.