Opera in New York (0108)

 

Opera in New York

New York was the city that I had always wanted to visit someday. My dream came true last February. The weather was not good; mostly it was cloudy and rainy. At any rate, the weather posed no problem for looking around Manhattan.

As I was busy before going to New York, I hadn't made any plans for sightseeing. Fortunately, I had a partner who attended a conference there with me. He had already spent some time for preparing schedules to enjoy the visit. Around one week we were together in New York. When we had free time, we had much fun visiting theater, opera house, museums and restaurants.

Manon, which was the first opera that I saw in New York, was quite interesting. I must confess that I am not an expert of music and have had rare opportunities to enjoy its different forms, especially opera. I am uncertain whether it is right to say opera is music or it is something entirely different. Until that point, I had no chance to see any operas.

Nevertheless, I was confident that I would enjoy some fine music. My partner's recommendation brought me there that night. He liked to see the works of famous artists in the museums (the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum) and was eager to see Metropolitan Opera House. As we didn't have any reservations, we arrived there in the evening with a bit of trepidation. Luckily we managed to buy tickets at the box office. They were $80 each. We sat towards the back on the main floor. The ticket of the front side was $200 or more.

The opera house was magnificent and wonderful. The house was huge and its decorations were ornate and elegant. The opera's settings were fine and looked great. Also, I could readily understand the story of the opera, as the English translation of the original songs was shown on a small screen in front of me. It was fascinating.

In addition to enjoying the opera and the house, we saw some obviously wealthy New Yorkers. They were neatly dressed and mostly older. Some of them left the house before the opera was over. Can you guess why they left early? I guess they were too tired to sit through the whole opera(two and half hours). I think it is important to have health and wealth enough to enjoy the entire show. If you do, then perhaps you will enjoy your golden years too.