An afternoon at the opera

If you read my friend purplepassion's blog "Gimme Patience" you'll see she's also writing about the opera. That's because we went together. We got season tickets for this year's Florida Grand Opera, it's the inaugural season of the beautiful Ziff Opera and Ballet Center. We saw Verdi's "Aida" and it was fantastic.

This whole opera thing is a work-in-progress for me. Back in my early 20s I had a mild flirtation with a significantly older and quasi-dangerous Italian man - he was actually arrested in Cuba for allegedly smuggling Cuban art out of the country! Anyway, one night after a wonderful rodizio dinner and copious amounts of wine, we were discussing our likes and dislikes and I told him that I didn't really like opera. He told me that opera would be the last genre of music I would learn to love, he said I had to be exposed to many types of music to be prepared to appreciate opera. I think he might have been correct.

I have taken opera slowly and in small, easy doses - gradually increasing the amount and complexity. The first real opera I attended was two seasons ago, I went to see "Madame Butterfly". The following season I got a *three-pack* comprised of "The Barber of Seville", "Carmen" and "Rigoletto". Relatively light, popular operas. This year I went ahead and comitted for the full season - six operas.

The first was "Aida", the next one is by Mozart and the season culminates with "Anna Karenina" written for the FGO. So far I have thouroughly enjoyed all those that I've seen. Granted I'm not quite tackling Wagner yet, but who knows...maybe next season!