Day at the opera

Today's adventure was a trip to the nearby town of Busseto, where Verdi once lived and where the composer now looms larger than ever, since he's the reason for the tourism that seems to be this sleepy little burg's raison d'etre. 

Months ago Danny bought two tickets to see La Traviata in the 19th-century Teatro Verdi, Busseto's 300-seat jewel box of a theater. But it turns out that the only way to get to Busseto from Fidenza, aside from hitch-hiking, is to take a bus, and the bus's infrequent schedule meant we'd have to get there two hours before showtime and not head home until two hours after the opera ended.

Well, we were willing to make some sacrifices for art. We took the bus, strolled around the very pretty historic center of the town, admired the fortress that houses the theater, and had a couple of quick panini at a nearby cafe.

Danny had bought the tickets on line, snagging what looked like the last two seats available, all the way up in the top balcony. We climbed numerous flights of stairs and discovered that the cheap seats in Teatro Verdi are hardly seats at all, but narrow wooden benches.  (The seat in the bottom left of the photograph was Danny's. Mine was to his right.)

The theater itself is a treat, with lavish decorations in the gold-loving Italian style and great acoustics. 

But this Traviata was by far the most uncomfortable opera experience we've ever had, and given how tightly squeezed and sitzfleisch-unfriendly many opera seats are, that's really saying something. 

The photo above pretty accurately captures the very partial view of the stage from my seat. Danny could see even less. The only way to actually see the stage, or most of it, was to stand up on the bench, which is what I and many others did.

See that white lump on the bench in the center? That's my coat, and I spent most of the opera standing on the bench behind it, trying not to bump my head on the fire sprinkler. (That's my purplish sweater hanging next to where I stood. It was also hot as hell up there.) Danny stood in the aisle, behind that lady in the gray sweater.

Supertitles were projected above the stage in both Italian and English, but they were fuzzy and hard to read, particularly the English. Everything seemed to be conspiring against us.

But the production was clever and the singing was wonderful, particularly the Violetta, Isabella Lee. She not only has a beautiful voice, but managed to wring real pathos out of Violetta's moral predicament, which can too easily seem preposterous, and was very convincingly terminal.

When we first saw our seats, we discussed leaving after the first act, since we weren't sure we could endure much more of the opera on a hard bench, and we're a little old for standing room, particularly on a balance beam. The performance was so good, though, that we stayed almost until the end.

Nevertheless, we bailed as poor Violetta waited for Alfredo's deathbed visit. We'd remembered that there was a bus back to Fidenza at 5:53, and if we caught it we wouldn't have to hang around Busseto for another two hours. Which is what we did, because we felt we'd suffered enough for art for one day.