It took 4 hours for Carmen to die but the moon and tunes made it a memorable way to while away a mid summer's eve.
Opera in Verona's Coliseum is the bomb. Forget La Scala and La Fenice, Italians need a space in which to deposit their drama, a place to give it up to the gods above...the voices, mis en scene, la luna, completely full, lulled our views and minds up towards the sky as the emotions below hung along notes so deep, long and raw. Who needs to memorize the libretto when you have so many well known melodies emanating from the independent Spanish vixen named Carmen and her many lovers.
Alas I was alone, sans mio marito and petite chiens....my mind decides to rewind, reviewing live performances from my past but once the internal exercise began, I was slightly terrified at how little I could recall.
Sitting outside the arena, anticipating the next extravaganza, a little insalata mista, tortellini, lite greco di tufo alongside, the mind tries.
In London's West End I saw Dame Maggie Smith in Three Sisters, Billie Whitelaw (Samuel Beckett's muse) rocking away in that chair, oh yes, I did. Listened in rapture as Tom Hollander sang that song, blowing everyone's socks off in Threepenny Opera at the Donmar Warehouse, just before he and Mendes became such international IT hits. A few musicals like Wicked and dramatic darlings Private Lives with Alan Rickman were't quite as stellar but close and several others, I just can't recall. Age.
Brecht's Causasion Chalk Circle and Mamet's Glenngarry were brilliant but Mamet's profanity missed the mark with English actors...my favorite Mamet happening across the pond at The Seattle Rep during Daniel Sullivan's heyday; he put the Emerald city on the theatrical map with "Heidi's Chronicles" and then Intiman's "Angels in America", saw and loved them all. Seattle's always had tons of theatre and my family had season tickets to everything. For a short time I lived next door to Sullivan downtown, such a cool guy, he once said after meeting my parents and a brother, 'is all of your family that nice', well no, but it was nice of him to say.
6 seasons at PNB with Muv, cooing over Patricia Barker while we sat in the front row, center stage just makes me smile but when invited backstage the sensation was strange; those magical ballerinas morphing into human form, exhausted, leaning against the walls, feet flat, I was grateful to get back to our seats and allow the magic to begin once again.
In NY, I bared witness to one blue and naked Nicole Kidman not even try to act, saw John Turturro overact in Waiting For Godot, met him at a fundraiser afterward, asked him about the scene in 5 Corners when he threw his mother out the window, suffice it to say, conversation didn't last long...but in the winter of '98 finished off that trip by laughing my head off at Sandra Bernhard's one woman show. Funny, clever woman.
Opera in Vienna and Salzburg feel the most civilized, exotic and authentic, it's the fabric, but the piece di resistance was seeing the maestro at Berlin's Staatstoper, the costume and make-up. Watching Herr Daniel Barenboim conduct and then meeting him at a party backstage afterward, well, that's heady stuff for a quirky kid from Seattle.
Absorbed everything in Paris, the ballets @ Garnier, the opera and modern dance at The Bastille, in Rome, grooved on Herbie Hancock and Alicia Keys at Circus Maximus, a randy, rough but cool setting, listened to Susan Sontag at the forum ruins, she wasn't interesting, actually, but the environs were...the Italians have forgotten more about lighting than anyone else remembers...got blissed out while watching/experiencing Swan Lake at the baths of Caracalla, beyond surreal, but listen, why brag when the rants' gone on long enough.
Just grateful I can boast of how my time has flown, it'll be over soon enough.