Old People at the Opera

Cosi fan tutti

My first live opera was Benjamin Britton's "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Central City.  I had somehow managed to get a "job" at "Cervi's Rocky Mountain Journal" writing drama reviews when I was fresh out of college.  It wasn't a job in the sense that I got paid or anything like that.  I wrote the reviews for free theater tickets and the pleasure of seeing my name in print twice a week.  I wasn't worried about the money, because I didn't really deserve to get paid.  I didn't know what I was doing, but the editor, a funny and mercurial drunkard, liked my voice.  So, I ended up going to all the local dinner theaters where the performances frequently matched my unenlightened 750 word reactions.  It was a kick to walk into, say, Country Dinner Playhouse and see one of my pieces stapled to the wall.

I was a little over my head, but when I went up to Central City to review the opera, I was completely at sea.  I was a good student, however, and I prepared by reading everything I could get my hands on about Britton's opera.  I did have one advantage; I knew Shakespeare's play quite well, so I could at least talk about the ideas underlying the production.

The production changed my life, just like four years earlier a Regis production of "A Man for all Seasons" changed my life, made me look at theater in an entirely new way.  I started crying half way through the first act.  The music was ethereal which seemed appropriate.  The unamplified voices were transcendent.  The director managed to ring every piece of business he could out of the libretto. At intermission I got to go out into the courtyard and drink champagne and pretend that I knew what I was talking about.  After it was over, I didn't so much drive as float home where I immediately got out my IBM Selectric (yes, it was a long time ago) and dashed off my review.  It was published two days later and the day after that, the paper got a lot of letters praising the production and by extension, my review.  A red letter day.

Since then, I've seen a number of operas at Central City.  Their production of "La Boheme" had me weeping from the first aria to the last.  Of course, all productions of "La Boheme" do that to me.  The only other production of note up there was "The Three Penny Opera."  It is of note, because it was barely mediocre and compelled me to get my opera fixes elsewhere, like Santa Fe.

Kathie and I saw "Cosi fan tutti" up there last night.  I'm not going to write a review here, because it was the last performance, but if I did I would urge everyone to postpone all future activities and make it up to The Teller House at their earliest opportunity.  Mozart's music was light, and tinkly (don't you love technical opera talk?) and perfect for a summer afternoon.  All the voices were excellent, especially Despina's (the chambermaid).  She stole the show.  Of course, Despina's part was written to steal the show.

Quickly, Mozart's light opera is nothing more than an extended episode of "Three's Company" with characters telling white lies to one another, parading around in disguise, all trying to catch the others in some transgression.  At the end, everyone's identity is restored, they all get married and presumably live happily ever after.  Yes, just like most sit-coms, the plot is stupid, but you don't go to the opera for plot.  You go to the opera to marvel at the music, the voices, the ambience, and the thrilling idea that you are a member of a species that could create something that enormous.

And there was champagne in the courtyard.  Kathie and I didn't avail ourselves of that because we were too busy standing in line for the bathroom.  My bladder isn't what it once was.

The main thing I want to talk about though, is the whole idea of age.  I don't like being a month away from 69.  I don't like the way my body looks and acts.  I don't like always being the oldest person in a room, or feeling like the oldest person in the room.  For that reason, the opera is the perfect place for someone nearing 70 to hang out.  We were decidedly not the oldest people in the theater.  With only a couple of exceptions (the youngish woman sitting in front of me looking at her iPhone during the entire production comes to mind), the audience was filled with gray haired, stoop-shouldered, old people and the aisles were littered with walkers and those cute little electric chairs that old people ride through the aisles of King Soopers.  It took almost as long for those old codgers to filter out of the theater at the end of the production as it took for the orchestra to tune up.

The scarcity of young people is worrying.  Whenever I go out at night, the chances are good that I will run into a former student or two.  I see them at baseball games, concerts, and the like.  The other night at Michelle Obama's speech to the Colorado Women's Foundation, there were at least a dozen former students in attendance.  I didn't see any of them at Central City last night.  I worry about what is going to happen to grand opera when my generation dies.  It will be replaced by things even worse than "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars."  Horrible.  Most horrible.

We are leaving for Santa Fe tomorrow morning.  We have great tickets to "Lucia Lammermoor" and "Die Fledermaus."  The opera at Santa Fe is beyond beautiful with the sun going down behind the stage just as the opening chords are hit.  Old people dressed to the nines get there early and tailgate in the parking lot with crystal glasses and plates of foie gras.  The next morning the opera goers congregate at some great place like The Compound or Cafe Pasqual and talk about their evenings at the opera.  I can't wait.  But I'm not going to see very many young people there.

I don't think this all means the end of Western Civilization (Trump has already initiated that), but it does mean the end of one little slice of beauty.  We have precious few slices to waste.