The Opera

I had such a nice time at the Metropolitan Opera last night. I saw La Bohème at the Met, just like they did in Moonstruck. It was a nice antidote to the previous couple of days.

I had a box seat on the left side of the Parterre, in Box 5. I was in the front row of the box, so the view was unobstructed, and I could look down on the orchestra pit and the rows and rows of audience members seated in the orchestra section, and up at the chandeliers and the ceiling. The boxes are locked and unlocked by ushers, and each box has a place to hang your coats so you don’t have to wait on a coat check line. I don’t know how my mom got this seat for her subscription — she’s only subscribed for about two years.

The opera itself: I enjoyed it. La Bohème doesn’t have much of a plot, and the music is kind of sugary and fluffy — although there are some beautiful moments — but I was seeing my first live opera, at the Met, of all places, so it didn’t matter. I wasn’t familiar with the conductor or the principal singers, but they were all first-rate. The sets, by Franco Zefferelli, were elaborate, down to the fake snow falling in Act III, and the horse walking across the stage in Act II. (OK, I guess the horse should be classified as part of the cast, not as part of the set.)

La Bohème was the basis for the musical Rent, a show I love. Marcello became Mark, Rodolfo became Roger, Musetta became Maureen, Colline became Collins, Schaunard became Angel Dumott Schunard, and Mimi — well, she stayed Mimi. Change the Café Momus to the Life Cafe, move from 19th-century Paris to New York at the end of the millennium, throw in a black lesbian, and you’ve got Rent.

Tangent on Rent: In March 1997 I bought the cast album for Rent without ever having seen the show, and I fell in love with the music. I listened to it for months. Finally, that July, I saw the show for 20 bucks, back when, in order to do that, you had to hang out on line all day with a bunch of other young Rentrats instead of signing up for the lottery, which is what they do now, and which probably has ruined the bonding experience. I had a memorable time on the Rent line — I got there at 6:55 in the morning, which was actually really late, and hung out with everyone all day — sleeping, playing cards, reading, having people sign a letter to a friend of mine — until I picked up my ticket at 6:00 in the evening. Sat in the second row center. Anthony Rapp (Mark) and Adam Pascal (Roger) were both out that night, which really fucking sucked, because I really wanted to see Anthony Rapp. But I still had a great time.

Anyway, back to the opera…

There were two intermissions, and my mom had given me some money to treat myself to a glass of champagne, so I had a glass of Veuve Cliquot. I walked around, wearing my suit, drinking my champagne, doing lots of people-watching. For some reason I kept assuming that most of the men I saw were gay, because this was the opera. I did see a few men in pairs, and they were the ones I most assumed were gay. I could have been wrong, of course. Sitting next to me in my box were two middle-aged men who, from what I heard of their conversation, had been going to the opera together for at least two years and probably more, but one of them mentioned a son. (Then again, that doesn’t mean much these days.) Anyway, it was fun to play the gaydar game.

I’ve decided that opera really is meant to be seen, and not just heard. I’ve always approached opera from the classical music perspective — listening to recordings — rather than from the theatrical perspective — actually seeing a performance — and I’d wondered how people could enjoy opera so much. But now I know why, especially at a place like the Met where you get terrific singers, sets, and costumes to go with the spectacular music by renowned composers. I think that lately I prefer the whole classical music scene to the cheesy Broadway musical scene. Anyway, I want to go to the opera again.

God, I’m such a homosexual.

Postscript

Okay, just as I finished dissing Broadway musicals, my dad called from his office in Manhattan and said that he and my mom have two tickets to a show tonight that they’ve decided not to go to, and he asked if I’d like to go instead. I was already having dinner tonight with my friend CanadaGirl, so instead we’re going to have an earlier dinner and then see Bloomer Girl. It’s being done through Encores!, a program where they revive old musicals and perform them concert-style, with no sets and minimal costumes.

I’m even more of a homosexual than I was a few minutes ago.

Cathartic

Last night I had therapy, and given the previous night’s incident, I really needed it. I started talking about it, and after about five minutes I started sobbing. Uncontrollably. The tears just kept flowing and flowing and I couldn’t stop them, nor did I want to. It felt so damn good, so cathartic. I felt like I was in a movie.

(For the future, maybe I’ll follow RJ’s lead and start carrying some teargas.)

My number one priority now is to find a new apartment. It’s weird — I think I’ve realized it’s easier to suffer through certain things than it is to move on to the bigger things. It’s easier to worry about HIV and my crappy neighborhood than it is to focus on larger, more complicated issues — such as trying to get up the nerve to really hunker down and write a short story or a short play. Once I move to a quieter apartment in a better neighborhood, and once I find out I’m physically healthy, then I’ll actually have to confront those deeper goals, which in some ways is scarier. Not that the former goals are false ones — for my sanity, I really do need to move.

I just have to decide where. I’m thinking maybe a nice part of Brooklyn; although my current job requires me to live in New Jersey for the next five months, I could probably finagle something. There’s Hoboken, although it’s filled with post-collegiate straight guys who’ve forgotten that they’re not in college anymore. There are some quieter New Jersey towns slightly further west of Manhattan, but that might be too boring, too suburban. If I had my druthers, I’d find a little studio in Park Slope.

Anyway, at one point in last night’s session I mentioned that I really wished that I could sleep at my parents’ house that night instead of going back to my apartment. My therapist said, “Why can’t you?” I replied that I’d feel like I was wimping out. But then I decided, to hell with the self-criticism and the hairshirt, I really just need one night in a comfortable house. So I called my folks and wound up going home for the night.

It was terrific. I got there at around 8:30, had some leftover food for dinner, and then lay down on the couch in the den with a blanket covering me. I just sat there watching TV for almost four hours, everything from old sitcoms on Nick at Nite to snippets of network TV shows to PBS. I watched Diff’rent Strokes; some segments of a program on a music and arts channel; part of The Facts of Life; a terrific one-hour gay newsmagazine on PBS called In the Life, which I’d never seen before; part of NYPD Blue; The Simpsons; a snippet of Friends; All in the Family; and, to top it off, an episode of Quantum Leap, which is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. It was an episode with the Evil Leaper. (If you never watched the show, that obviously will mean nothing.)

Even though I slept on a couch, I slept like a log. And I was awakened in the morning by my mom. “I have sort of a gift for you,” she said, as I was wiping the sleep from my eyes. She was holding a small white envelope.

She said, “What are you doing tonight?”

“Um… well, I have dinner plans… why?” I said, sleepily.

“How would you like to go to the Metropolitan Opera?” she said.

“Really?”

My mom has her own one-person subscription to the Met, and she couldn’t go tonight. They’re doing La Bohème. I’ve never been to the opera, let alone the Metropolitan Opera, and hey, a free ticket, and hey, it’s La Bohème, so I said, sure.

I’m really excited. I’ve cancelled my dinner plans, and after work I’m going to put on a jacket and tie and go to the Met.

What a week — I get an HIV test, I get mugged, I get to go to the Metropolitan Opera.

And it’s only Wednesday.

Blog*Spot

You may ask yourself, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful car, and why did the Tin Man move to Blogspot yesterday? Because I got tired of Geocities. Geocities can really suck — sometimes I’d update my blog and the new post wouldn’t appear for two or three hours. It just got to me. So I figured it was worth switching over, even if I had to have the little Blogspot banner at the top. So I’ve joined the ranks of those blogspottin’ bloggers.

Of course, the day I switched to Blogspot, every single Blogspot website wound up crashing for several hours. I think I broke it.

Anyway, don’t forget to change your bookmarks.