Arty farty

So here's something you might not know about me, because in kind of a weird way it's not really me at all, but a...meta-me. Or better, Optimal-Me (©). I have certain expectations about my likes and dislikes, my personality traits, my modes of operation that, when taken all together, basically amount to an entirely different person who has absolutely nothing to do with what I am really like. This is sometimes depressing; it is also probably extremely common. Optimal-Me is mysterious, cradling a deep and unreachable pain in her eyes. Optimal-Me sits in dark restaurant corners, wreathed in smoke (Optimal-Me will not be defeated by something as mundane as lung cancer, but rather will probably have a nasty run-in with either an Italian assassin or a majestic polar bear). Optimal-Me can afford to buy organic and free-range food, but mostly survives on a haunted diet of champagne and oysters that enables her to retain optimal sveltness. Optimal-Me knows kung-fu, but would prefer to kill with a glance.

Where I'm going with this is that Optimal-Me is also a huge opera fan. Unfortunately, Current-Me has to try really, really hard to sit through even the first act of a performance without fidgeting so much that I knee the head of the poor soul in front of me. I keep trying, recognizing that an appreciation of opera is probably more within my grasp than that terribly romantic sadness I so wish to exude, and so Saturday night's outing to Scottish Opera's Rigoletto was, I expected, to be yet another in a line of Things That I Do Because They Are Good For Me.

But it totally wasn't!! Well, I mean, it was, but I enjoyed it, too! That almost never happens, ever! I would love to take this as a sign of growth/the gradual emergence of Optimal-Me, but I suppose I should give some credit to the Scottish Opera, which did an amazing job. The staging was brilliant, a modernization that actually seemed to have some sense of reason and meaning behind it--when the second act opened with mannequin limbs scattered all over the stage, I understood why those were there. The set was stripped-down, primary-colored and completely innovative. There was this recurring prop of a row of doors that was so effective in getting across the atmosphere of poisonous rumor-mongering that had such tragic (opera!) results.

I suppose Verdi should get some credit, too, since he wrote the thing. Aside from the (in)famous La Donna e Mobile, I wasn't familiar with any of the music. Here are the Three Tenors doing La Donna because, you know, fun.

But it was all so beautiful...and so playful, which I really appreciated, since the entirety of the story is about a betrayal that ends in the accidental murder/martyrific sacrifice of the title character's sainted daughter, Gilda. Bummer.

Also, and I hesitate to admit this, because Optimal-Me would be horrified, but part of the reason I enjoyed this performance maaaaaaay have been because the soprano singing the doomed daughter started spontaneously bleeding halfway through her first aria...fun! I have the eyesight of a ninety-year-old naked mole rat, so it took me a little while to figure it out, but all of a sudden even I was aware of the spreading red stain engulfing the poor girl's sock. I think everyone in the audience thought that our Gilda had been visited by good old Aunt Flo, until she walked across the stage and we could see the PUDDLE she left behind. At that point, the entire auditorium was just waiting for her to pass out mid-vibratto. But she managed to finish, and during the intermission we were informed that she had somehow badly cut her leg just before making her first entrance, and had bravely elected to go on with the show.

AN OPERA WITH REAL BLOOD CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I WONDER IF THERE WILL BE GUTS AND STUFF AT MY NEXT ONE??!?!


Optimal-Me despises the vulgar obsession with gore, but is more than capable of spilling some, herself. Good day to you, sirrah.