6/8/03

I went to the opera last night. The tickets had been a Christmas present from my aunt. She'd recommended that I see this particular opera, Rossini's "La Cenerentola," because the lead tenor role was being sung by the hot, young opera sensation Juan Diego Florez (although Juan Diego is apparently not hot enough to have his own official website. I do like that fan site, though: "His motto is to be natural. Not only he sings opera in the theater, but also in his everyday life").

I was originally planning to attend the opera with this guy who I used to sort of date back around the time I got the tickets, and I even felt compelled to call him a couple of weeks ago to remind him of the upcoming opera, even though I hadn't spoken to him in months. Much to my relief, he couldn't make it, so I asked K. to go with me.

Anyway, K. and I talked up the opera so much in the past week that we made Jenfu and Mo jealous, and they wanted to go, too. And I told them that they probably could, through the magic of student rush tickets--students can buy unsold tickets for $15 on the day of the performance.

Since both of them had to work on Saturday, I picked up their tickets in the course of carrying out my usual array of Saturday errands. When I got to the box office, there was only one woman in line ahead of me. She was middle-aged, wearing an elegant pantsuit and carrying an expensive purse. She was trying to change her tickets from one performance to another, but this transaction was complicated by the fact that she didn't actually have the tickets with her. The man working at the box office was trying to accommodate her as she babbled on about how the reason why she didn't have the tickets with her was because her friend had them and her friend was out of town because she was a doctor and she was at a medical conference until finally, the man in the window interrupted her and told her that he had to concentrate on carrying out the transaction so he wouldn't make a mistake. That shut her up, but it still took several more minutes for her to get the correct tickets.

My transaction, in contrast, took about thirty seconds, after which I headed back to my car which was parked right outside. I started the car, turned the corner, and found myself stuck in stop and go traffic caused by the construction of the new "tree-lined Boulevard" on Octavia (I put that phrase in quotes, because as locals will know, that is the way this construction project is always described by city officials). The two westbound lanes were to merge into one, and all the polite San Francisco drivers complied, letting one car merge and then going themselves--that is, until it was supposed to be my turn to merge. The driver to my right, who should have let me into her lane, simply rode the bumper of the car in front of her, seemingly oblivious to my very existence. I turned my head to give her a dirty look, and yes, of course, it was the same woman from the box office!

The opera itself was great, though. We got all dressed up, but unfortunately, I only took one picture and it came out all blurry, but I tell myself that the blurriness conveys the excitement we felt about attending the opera together! Plus, it made it easier for me to blur out camera-shy K.'s face.

Yes, that is, from left to right: K. wearing a dress, Jen counting her money, and Mo taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me, etc. Who says we scientific types are not artistic?

I'd never seen or even heard "La Cenerentola" before, and the music was nothing special, but the acting was great--the opera tells a version of the Cinderella story, and the two wicked stepsisters (brilliantly named "Clorinda" and "Tisbe") were excellent. Juan Diego was good, too--a couple of particularly loud, powerful notes in his arias caused a murmur of excitement among the audience. He is not, however, the soul of modesty, as he showed in his curtain call, when he basked in the applause and practically begged for more.

It reminded me of one summer when I was a teenager at music camp (yes, I spent my adolescent summers playing chamber music in the woods with other nerdy teens). My chamber group that week was comprised of my friend, Luke, who played piano and who was from the same town as I was, some girl named Kelly who played the violin and was from somewhere in the South, and me. I don't remember what we played that week, but I do remember that we worked really hard on it and we sounded good and we all knew we sounded good. So, we played at the concert and got thunderous applause. We took our bows and left the stage, but they were still clapping--second curtain call! This was a pretty rare event at those concerts, but we knew we'd earned it. We did another round of bows and then left the stage to dwindling applause. However, it had not completely dwindled, so as soon as we left, Luke grabbed both myself and Kelly by the arm and hissed at us "they're still clapping!" So, we went back for a third curtain call. That remains the only time in my life I've gotten that third curtain call, so I guess it's good that I went along with it, even though I was sort of embarrassed by the fact that we were obviously milking it, and also by the fact that everything is embarrassing when you're 15. Anyway, Juan Diego didn't seem to have any such qualms.

Other stuff I did this weekend: went out drinking, and to see my friend's roommate's band (that webpage is out of date and they have since changed their sound). I thought they were going to be awful, based on their self-description ("an ocean wave of sonic splendor"), their shtick (they only played covers of country songs and their drummer was dressed in a bunny suit), and the fact that my friends' bands in general usually suck, but they were actually very good! The best song was their version of "I Will Always Love You." Even K. and Matt liked them, and they hardly ever like anything!

I also dragged out my old webcam thingy from the closet and spent two hours trying to download and install the OS X drivers for it (nuh-uh). I took some pictures with it and with my other camera anyway, and they're not that great, but I posted them anyway! Other than that, work, sleep, running, eating, grocery store, discussion with seamstress about whether I should have the entire hem of my favorite skirt restitched or just the part where the stitches already came out. Excitement! And now the weekend is over.