We took the kids to see Don Carlo yesterday – the Metropolitan Opera live HDTV broadcast on the big screen at The Strand. There was much preliminary moaning about the 4 ½ - hour run time, but once we got there they were fully engaged. Hungry by the first intermission, but engaged.
I was impressed, because Don Carlo is, probably more than any other opera, a wrenching portrayal of people who are utterly at the mercy of forces larger than themselves – political, emotional, religious, it’s all there, and it requires a certain maturity of perspective to appreciate.
This is the third season that we’ve splurged on a family outing to the opera broadcast. By now my punks are unfazed at being the youngest people there (attendance is heavily skewed to retirees of a certain income level) and they are better behaved than the some of the old people.
This performance was impressive, to be sure. In fact it was marred only by the lead tenor’s singing his big opening aria with a ginormous booger hanging out of his left nostril.
HD is so unforgiving.
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