A Night at the Opera

On the way to meet some friends on Saturday night, I received a call from another friend. She told me that there would be an opera concert in the main square. I proposed checking it out to the people I was meeting up with and they accepted. We headed to Trg Republike for a night of opera.

What we found was the opening night of the Mozart Film Festival. Apparently, this festival is sponsored by the city of Vienna and is touring around Central Europe this summer.

Before the film, there was a series of speeches and a few selections from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ performed live, which I really enjoyed. ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ is probably my favorite opera. I played the overture in junior high band and saw the Seattle Opera Company’s performance of it when I was a member of my high school’s opera club (Yes, I was—and am—a big nerd.) The singers were quite good and my only complaints are technical: no orchestra, just a keyboard on the harpsichord setting, and the singers had microphones. One of the things that I find most amazing about opera is that the singers don’t use microphones. The ability to fill a whole hall with one’s voice is incredible. But this was outside, so I suppose allowances should be made.

And then the film began. I think a Mozart Film Festival is much better in theory than in practice. The only films they show are concert films, which really aren’t very interesting. “Wow, their fingers move really fast,” and “the conductor looks funny,” can fill up 15 minutes at maximum. I now understand the appeal of Fantasia. It gives you something to look at while listening.

The whole thing started to remind me of the Canadian Brass videos we used to watch as a ‘reward’ the day after junior high band concerts. Bored, and a bit cold, I snuck off at the end of the first symphony.