From Puccini to Glass

La Boheme was the first opera I ever experienced, and I had the pleasure of doing so at The Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan in the late 1980s. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I remember deciding that I wanted to see this particular opera. I went alone, by choice, to a Saturday matinee, because I wanted to experience opera by myself for the first time so that I could form my own opinion of whether I liked it or not. It was a wonderful experience, but I was completely unprepared for how much opera hooked me emotionally. I would say that this is mostly true of Puccini’s operas, of which La Boheme is one. I have seen other operas by other composers (Mozart and Wagner), but it is Puccini’s operas that ring most true to me emotionally. La Boheme is a tragic story about two lovers, Mimi and Rodolfo and their life together, their friends, the poverty they endure as struggling artists, and Mimi’s eventual death. When Mimi sings her aria Si Mi Chiamano Mimi (Yes My Name is Mimi), tears just start to flow because the music is so beautiful. My husband and I saw La Boheme at the San Francisco opera house in 1993, and the entire audience cried. I have never seen or experienced anything quite like that day at the opera either before or after.

I grew up in a family that appreciated opera and the great opera singers like Victoria de los Angeles and Renata Tebaldi. My sister was named for Renata Tebaldi--at least that is what my parents told us when we were children. I was named for my father’s mother, which somehow seemed far less exciting at that time than being named for an opera singer. My parents loved classical music as well, much of it sad, or so it seemed to me. I remember as a child being fascinated by the fact that my parents shared their love of opera and classical music with us. They were not afraid to do so and were not afraid that we would perhaps not like it. Their willingness to share their love of music and opera made it possible for us to share our music with them as well, and they did end up liking some of our generation’s music--Paul McCartney and The Beatles come to mind. As I get older I recall many of those childhood experiences—my father taking us to the local high school to hear classical music concerts, or Sunday afternoons spent listening to my parents’ favorite recordings.

Oslo decided to build a new Opera House in the late 1990s and construction on it started in 2003. It opened its doors to the public in April 2008. It is a beautiful building situated on the waterfront http://www.visitnorway.com/uk/Articles/Theme/What-to-do/Attractions/Norways-new-Opera-House/. We purchased a subscription series for the 2009/2010 season consisting of five operas and four ballets/modern dances. It was well worth the money although we discovered that we do not like all operas as much as we like Puccini’s operas. It has mostly to do with that Puccini’s operas seem to be more human or more able to capture the true human spirit in different situations. What we did discover is that we liked the visiting modern dance companies very much—The Netherlands Dance Theater especially—with pieces choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, often to music by Philip Glass. Fantastic dance pieces—Silent Screen and Shoot the Moon. This has been a wonderful surprise—that we enjoyed them so much. If you want to see what they’re like, you can check out short clips from these dance pieces on YouTube.