A Night at the Opera

(found from the internet, not my camera)

I got to check something off my need-to-do-in-my-life-but-only-once-list yesterday.

Thomas and I went to a Kunqu opera at the Grand Theater downtown.

Sounds cool, yes?  And it was.  I feel more cultured than ever before because Kunqu Opera is one of the oldest forms of opera in China.  As you know, China is pretty old.  UNESCO has even proclaimed this form of opera to be " a masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of humanity".  

::whistles::

Unfortunately, it is also renowned amongst everyone not a 80 year old Chinese person to be one of the most tedious experiences of your life.

The shows for over two hours, and as Thomas and I discovered whilst struggling with trying to read the program, there is no intermission.  The conversation went something like this:

"Oh, oh, this is in English -- 135.  What's after that?  135 minutes?  Is this 135 minutes long?"

"Yeah, that's what is says.  But look, this character means rest!"

"The one before it says no.  No rest.  135 minutes, no rest."

"... you're joking."

We had forseen this kind of thing happening.  What we had not anticipated was that the more than two hour opera would almost solely consist of two people singing, with no set but a chair and a table, with no plot cues, or plot summary (assuming there was a plot, going out on a limb there) in English anywhere.  The theater was kind enough to provide Chinese subtitles, but to us that was the equivalent of being fed Italian subtitles at a Western opera.  Not much use.

The text I could figure out led me to believe that the entire 40 min first act consisted of the young lady's maid convincing her to go on a walk in the park, them going on a walk in the park, and them commenting on how they were walking in the park.  I mostly stopped trying after that.

It was beautiful, the singers were clearly talented, and the costumes were amazing.

But not gonna lie, it was a bit hard to stay awake.

Please, watch a ten minute sample of the kind of opera here.  (<- click on the word "here", you non-computer-savvy darlings)

The stage setup here is twice as elaborate than the rest of the opera.

Curtain call, you can see some of the costumes.

So again, happy I went and conquered, not likely to repeat!