I had a great time with Andy at the Met last night. We saw La Traviata.

I feel a rush whenever I’m at Lincoln Center. Walking over to it last night, seeing the opera house directly ahead, I felt a surge of pleasure. Something about Lincoln Center makes me feel like a kid, all secure and safe. I wonder if it’s because I saw The Nutcracker there when I was little? The highest of the fine arts are there – opera, ballet, the symphony. Timeless, and sheltered from the rest of the world.

The ticket-takers at the Met wear cloaks. Fancy. And the Met has a true lobby, unlike cramped Broadway theaters. Most operas seem to be three acts, so there are always at least two intermissions, and they’re long – about 20 minutes each. Plenty of time to go out to the various lobby levels and people-watch or go down to the lower level and explore all the portrait paintings of past opera stars.

I’m more or less an opera novice – this was only the third time I’d been to the opera. (And one of those times was an outdoor performance where I could hardly see anything.) It was my second time at the Met, so I’ve now seen both La Bohème and La Traviata at the Met, two of the most accessible operas. (The outdoor opera I saw was Rigoletto, another of the most accessible ones.) Traviata was beautifully performed. I wish I could say more about it, but I’m hardly the opera veteran Andy is. It was terrifically sung. Because the house is so big, though, the sound doesn’t really envelop or overpower you at the Met. I wonder what other opera houses are like.

I’m curious now to attend some less accessible operas. I have some Wagner recordings – the Ring Cycle, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, and Tristan und Isolde – and I love most of what I’ve heard. His music seems meatier and his themes more intellectual than the more popular Italian operas. But I’ve never actually seen a Wagner opera performed live. But I enjoyed last night and all its trappings so much that I’ve taken the plunge and bought myself a ticket to see Wagner’s Parisfal at the Met in May – a five-and-a-half-hour opera I’ve never even heard. Yes, I’m possibly crazy, but it’s supposed to be one of his best. I didn’t go for the cheapest ticket, either, because I figure that if I’m going to sit through a five-and-a-half-hour opera, I may as well splurge.

This opera stuff is kinda fun.

We saw The Woman in White last night, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest Broadway show, which previously opened in London. I liked it more than I’d expected to (though to be honest, my expectations were not very high). The lead actress is recovering from cancer treatment, but I thought the understudy was great. The coolest thing about the show were the sets – they’re all computer-generated animated projections. As Matt put it, it was like playing a giant game of Myst.

Like most Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, this one basically has three motifs that are repeated over and over until you can’t get the damn things out of your head.

Damn you, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and your catchy earworms.

Avenue Q is not doing too well in Las Vegas:

Steve Wynn, the casino and hotel magnate, paid $5 million for the exclusive North American rights to the Tony Award-winning show.

He built a theater especially for it in his new hotel, Wynn Las Vegas; hired, at very high salaries, several cast members from the original Broadway company; and revved up a nationwide publicity machine to hype its Vegas premiere last September.

The result?

An orchestra section in a 1,200-seat theater that’s half empty at most performances and a balcony section that Wynn hasn’t even bothered to open yet, theater people in Las Vegas and New York told The Post this week.

According to someone familiar with the balance sheet, “Q” either breaks even or loses money week to week. Advance ticket sales are well under $1 million.

One heavy-hitting Broadway producer, who’s sending one of his shows to Vegas, says Wynn has been grumbling about “Avenue Q.”

“He thinks it was a mistake,” this person says. …

One reason the show clicked in New York was that, from the very first preview, it had great word of mouth.

But theater people who’ve looked closely at Vegas say word of mouth is hard to generate in a town made up of people who are just passing through.

“There isn’t a permanent population,” says a Broadway producer.

“Q” may also be too sophisticated for Vegas audiences, whose tastes generally run to animal acts, Celine Dion and slot machines.