An afternoon at the Met

Verdi's "Don Carlo".

We've just spent a most delightful afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera (in HD at the Rialto) with Verdi's Don Carlo. It was great. It was awesome. Four and a half hours of sheer wonder, until the heroes were all dead - or most of them anyway. For once I'd like to see such a full opera in all its melodramatic glory, but with a happy ending. Come on guys, take some poetic license here and re-write history somewhat... there's nothing better than boy meets girl and... they lived happily ever after! Sure it's not necessary for ALL Spanish Inquisition stories to end unhappily!?

The official blurb says:
Director Nicholas Hytner makes his Met debut with this new production of Verdi’s profound, beautiful, and most ambitious opera. Roberto Alagna leads the cast, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, and Simon Keenlyside also star. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, back after his triumphant debut leading Carmen, conducts. “I think Don Carlo is the quintessential Verdi opera,” Hytner says. “Right through this opera there is, on the one hand, an implacable expression of impending doom and, on the other hand, a succession of the most gloriously open-throated arias, the most fantastically determined music.”


Yes, quite a roller-coaster of emotions of love gained and lost, political intrigue... you name it, we got it! Then we finished off the outing with a scrumptious meal at Two Chefs Bistro as an early celebration of our 36th wedding anniversary. Yum. We're basking in a golden glow of contentment.