Another Updated List

On October 23, 2008, I made a list of the opera performances Andrew and I had attended between February 2006 and October 2008. That list revealed that we had attended eleven opera performances during the period.

This particular list is very easy to update. We have attended only one opera performance since October 2008:

Peter Illich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, performed by The Metropolitan Opera

I can take or leave opera. Indeed, I would be happy to go years without hearing another opera performance.

Lucky for me, Boston is not an opera town. The city has two small opera companies, neither highly-regarded, and Andrew and I are happy to skip their presentations. Our lone experience last year with one of the Boston companies was exasperating.

Next season, the two Boston companies will offer productions of Strauss’s “Ariadne Auf Naxos”, Bizet’s “Carmen”, Offenbach’s “The Grand Duchess Of Gerolstein”, Mozart’s “Idomeneo”, Rossini’s “Tancredi”, Britten’s “The Turn Of The Screw” and Zhou Long’s “The White Snake” (a world premiere).

As things stand now, I think Andrew and I plan to skip them all.

The only opera performance in our near-term future will be next month, when we will attend a performance of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at Theater An Der Wien in Vienna. “Don Giovanni” at Theater An Der Wien will be a new production, with an international cast, and I actually look forward to it.