From Short Term to Long Term

Now that a few days have passed, I'm starting to remember the silly little things about Sonnambula and Firebrand, all unrelated to the performances themselves.

There's a fun website out there called Opera Tattler. The Tattler gives reviews of performances and then tattles on the audience's bad behavior. So in the spirit of OT, here's what I noticed.

La Sonnambula:

• When Juan Diego Florez made his appearance, people applauded and then other people shushed them.
• Every time the action was incomprehensible you could hear people muttering.
• During intermission and afterward the talk was all about how stupid the production was.
• I did hear one cellophane candy wrapper being opened and folded during act 2.
• For the first sleepwalking scene, Natalie Dessay entered the stage from the audience. Up in the Balcony, we couldn't see her but we could hear rustling as everyone who could get a view turned in their seats. It was quite a sound.
• I could swear I smelled something burning for much of the performance. Got me wondering where the emergency exits were.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll post more if I remember more.

Firebrand of Florence:

• Each seat had a plaque glued on the back with the name of whoever donated enough money for them to, I suppose, afford the plaque. Before the performance began, two rows in front of me, someone sat in his seat and then there was this loud crashing sound. The entire seat back dedication plaque had fallen off. He picked it up and you could see him thinking, "Ok, now what do I do?"
  
• The man next to me on my left kept dozing off.
• The man next to me on my right hogged the armrest. I finally acknowledged that if I wanted to rest my arm, I'd have to come into contact with him.
• One of those men smelled like he got dressed from a pile of clothes. You know the smell I mean. I think it was the armrest guy, which made it even more unpleasant for me to actually come into contact with him when cramps I got from holding my arms in finally forced me to spread out and inch or two.
  
• Someone nearby must have had lots of beans and broccoli for dinner the night before. I hope I don't need to go into further detail about how I know that.
• People applauded when Victoria Clark entered.
• My Backstage Visit was much more intense than I let on in the post I wrote about it.

That's all I can think of right now. As more junk seeps from my short term to my long term memory I'll add to the list.