Charlie Hatton About This
About Me
Email Me

Bookmark
 FeedBurnerEmailTwitterFacebookAmazon
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA



All Quotes
HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail

  |  

Howdy, friendly reading person!
I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now, but only to work on other projects -- one incredibly exciting example being the newly-released kids' science book series Things That Make You Go Yuck!
If you're a science and/or silliness fan, give it a gander! See you soon!

49

#49. I’ve seen three operas performed at ‘The Met’ in New York City.

Just don’t ask me to name them or anything. Oh, wait, no — one was called La Traviata. Or La Travolta, or La Tortellini, or something like that. Yeah, let’s go back to not asking me, after all.

My wife worked at this one place in Boston for three years. And every year, a group of them would get together and ante up money to buy two season passes to the Met. The tickets would come back, and be stuck in a hat or a bowl or something, and everyone would fish out a random pair of tickets for the year. (Well, okay, I think the girl who actually put the ginormous charge on her card got to pick for real, but the rest of us were at the mercy of fate. Apparently, willingness to put yourself deep in debt has its privileges.)

So, three times we got tickets, and three times we trekked down to Manhattan, and saw a show. Luckily, we had friends living in the city, so we had a convenient place to crash-for-no-cash for the night. Not a lot of time for sight-seeing or anything, but we didn’t get mugged, either, so I’d call the trips a wash, overall.

And the operas? Well, the Met is impressive, I have to admit. And it’s kind of fun to watch all the people parading around in their monkey suits and monkey ties, with their little monkey wives wearing their monkey tiaras and carrying their monkey Gucci purses around. Okay, so that’s exaggerating a little bit — most people just go in a nice suit or dress. But everything’s more interesting with monkeys, now , isn’t it?

Anyway, I don’t remember a whole lot about the shows, I’m afraid. One was about a hooker, or a madam of some kind, who shacks up with a well-to-do kid, and then… um, something. The guy’s dad gets pissed, I think, and tells her off. Or something. I don’t know; it was all in Italian. I may have fallen asleep at some point.

And then there was another one about a general of some kind. Somebody I’d heard of, from way back in history, but the guy’s name didn’t quite sound right, because it was in Italian, too. Anyway, there’s something about this guy’s daughter — she falls in love with a guy in the town they’re attacking, or something equally unlikely — and at the end, they reveal that some of the people involved are related, and a bunch of them die, and kill themselves, and all the other opera crap you’re probably used to. It was very dramatic and heartstring-tugging, I’m sure. Or would have been, if I could have kept straight which fat lady was which. I guess I’m not very good at opera.

The nice thing is that they have this little LED screen (or is it LCD? I can never remember…) in front of each seat that shows the English translation of whatever the people onstage are bellowing on about. So at least you can follow the plot, and — if you’ve read the program — figure out how much longer it’ll be until the intermission, when you can go get a damned drink. So that makes it a bit better. It’s a little like watching one of those over-the-top soap operas on the Spanish-language channel, with English subtitles to tell you why Guillermo is screaming at Juanita, or who’s the real father of Maria’s baby. Only at the Met, somebody always dies at the end, and takes twenty minutes to explain why. It’s Shakespeare with soundtracks. Really, you should try it once. And I do mean once. When you’ve seen one fat lady belt out a high C, you’ve seen ’em all. Trust me.

Permalink  |  No Comments



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail © 2003-15 Charlie Hatton All Rights Reserved
Highlights
Me on Film 'n' Stage:
  Drinkstorm Studios


Me on Science (silly):
  Secondhand SCIENCE


Me on Science (real):
  Meta Science News


Me on ZuG (RIP):
  Zolton's FB Pranks
  Zolton Does Amazon


Favorite Posts:
30 Facts: Alton Brown
A Commute Dreary
A Hallmark Moment
Blue's Clues Explained
Eight Your 5-Hole?
El Classo de Espanol
Good News for Goofballs
Grammar, Charlie-Style
Grammar, Revisitated
How I Feel About Hippos
How I Feel About Pinatas
How I Feel About Pirates
Life Is Like...
Life Is Also Like...
Smartass 101
Twelve Simple Rules
Unreal Reality Shows
V-Day for Dummies
Wheel of Misfortune
Zolton, Interview Demon

Me, Elsewhere

Features
Standup Comedy Clips

Selected Clips:
  09/10/05: Com. Studio
  04/30/05: Goodfellaz
  04/09/05: Com. Studio
  01/28/05: Com. Studio
  12/11/04: Emerald Isle
  09/06/04: Connection

Boston Comedy Clubs

 My 100 Things Posts

Selected Things:
  #6: My Stitches
  #7: My Name
  #11: My Spelling Bee
  #35: My Spring Break
  #36: My Skydives
  #53: My Memory
  #55: My Quote
  #78: My Pencil
  #91: My Family
  #100: My Poor Knee

More Features:

List of Lists
33 Faces of Me
Cliche-O-Matic
Punchline Fever
Simpsons Quotes
Quantum Terminology

Favorites
Banterist
...Bleeding Obvious
By Ken Levine
Defective Yeti
DeJENNerate
Divorced Dad of Two
Gallivanting Monkey
Junk Drawer
Life... Weirder
Little. Red. Boat.
Mighty Geek
Mitchieville
PCPPP
Scaryduck
Scott's Tip of the Day
Something Authorly
TGNP
Unlikely Explanations

Archives
Full Archive

Category Archives:

(Stupid) Computers
100Things
A Doofus Is Me
Articles 'n' Zines
Audience Participation
Awkward Conversations
Bits About Blogging
Bitter Old Man Rants
Blasts from My Past
Cars 'n' Drivers
Dog Drivel
Eek!Cards
Foodstuff Fluff
Fun with Words!
Googlicious!
Grooming Gaffes
Just Life
Loopy Lists
Making Fun of Jerks
Marketing Weenies
Married and a Moron
Miscellaneous Nonsense
Potty Talk / Yes, I'm a Pig
Sleep, and Lack Thereof
Standup
Tales from the Stage
Tasty Beverages
The Happy Homeowner
TV & Movies & Games, O My!
Uncategorized
Vacations 'n' Holidays
Weird for the Sake of Weird
Whither the Weather
Wicked Pissah Bahstan
Wide World o' Sports
Work, Work, Work
Zug

Heroes
Alas Smith and Jones
Berkeley Breathed
Bill Hicks
Dave Barry
Dexter's Laboratory
Douglas Adams
Evening at the Improv
Fawlty Towers
George Alec Effinger
Grover
Jake Johannsen
Married... With Children
Monty Python
Nick Bakay
Peter King
Ren and Stimpy
Rob Neyer
Sluggy Freelance
The Simpsons
The State

Plugs, Shameless
100 Best Humor Blogs | Healthy Moms Magazine

HumorSource

 

Feeds and More
Subscribe via FeedBurner

[Subscribe]

RDF
RSS 2.0
Atom
Credits
Site Hosting:
Solid Solutions

Powered by:
MovableType

Title Banner Photo:
Shirley Harshenin

Creative Commons License
  This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License

Performancing Metrics

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

Valid XHTML 1.0

Valid CSS!

© 2003-15 Charlie Hatton
All Rights Reserved