They say you never forget your First Time, and I have to agree. In my case my First Time going to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden........and I went to see an opera that I love, Mozart's Die Zauberflote, or the Magic Flute.
(I'm not going to attempt a review of the performance because I am far to ignorant for my opinion to be informative, but also I loved everything about it! There are loads of bloggers online, many on Twitter who review opera brilliantly and in detail, with wit and intelligence and, above all, knowledge! Read them!)
Ooooh get me! Sound pretentious?? Why? It was magical, beautiful, thrilling, enchanting, inspiring, but above all accessible. The tickets, "restricted view", bought well in advance were the grand sum of £7.50 each. And despite being "restricted view" I could see virtually all of the staging for the production - although I couldn't see the back of the stage - fortunately much of the action took place in the majority that I could see!
It was a Saturday matinee performance and the house was almost full with adults, children, teenagers (because they are a separate category, aren't they) evidencing an almost bewildering variety of background and provenance in their choice of dress - from emo/goth to bordering on evening dress!
Prices for bar snacks and programmes were not prohibitive and I even ran to a half time ice-cream.
And it was, genuinely, exciting to be in such a beautiful, well known building with such a wealth of history seeping out of the walls. Everywhere I looked there were photos, costumes on display, information, history - OPERA! Everyone who is anyone has stood on that stage and sung (my co-superfan suggested that we bunk on to the stage at the end and just sing anything, humpty dumpty , whatever so we could say we had done so) and I felt as I sound writing now. Like a giddy, overwhelmed, naive, enthusiastic, joyous beginner discovering something wonderful that no-one had ever seen before! Although I felt inhibited about exclaiming or coo-ing too publicly about each nugget of operatic gold on display, most people seemed distinctly too cool to acknowledge any excitement, or perhaps just got to be there so often that they had already got it out of their system.
The singers were wonderful - I particularly enjoyed Elizabeth Meister as the First Lady, but everyone was wonderful. The Queen of the Night had been flown in to cover illness and, we were told, it was her 709th performance (or thereabouts). (My YouTube research and blog devouring tells me this is called "einspringen" - jumping in at the last minute, I just like the word - does what it says!).
I've overflowed with naive (yet hopefully charming) exuberance for long enough. I'll never forget my first time at the ROH and I can't wait til my children are old enough to come too and enjoy it with me. And we will run around together looking at every picture and exclaiming. And, naturally, have a half time ice-cream.
(Postscript: we were amused to see the battle-weary musicians in the pit matter-of factly packing away their instruments and scarpering in short order. The pit was empty pretty much before the applause had died away. But then they had about two hours to eat, rest etc before arriving to start all over again!)
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