Pueblo Abroad: Journal Entry #5

Before I launch into the next installment of my long-delayed travel journal, I should apologize…I’ve been wildly inconsistent over the past few weeks… BUT—there are plenty of good reasons! Numbering among them are a second trip to Copenhagen, a few days in London, the wonderful but totally distracting presence of my parents in Edinburgh, and then one hellacious English essay about indigenous speech in imperial adventure texts. You know—fun stuff.

“Excuses, excuses,” you all quietly mumble at your computer screens. Yes—of course. And I sadly cannot promise that the next two weeks look any more hopeful in terms of Pueblo Waltz output. However, I can promise that this summer will see a definite renaissance of Pueblo Waltzing—so look to the future!

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Part 5: Werther – Standing Room in the Wien Staatoper

My first opera experience was wonderful…and painful. For the small price of €4 and two hours sitting in line, Ben, Adam, and I found ourselves inside the Vienna Staatoper (State Opera) an hour before the show, with a scrappy old woman telling us what we were (and were not) allowed to do in both German and English. No coats, no flash photography, no photography during the show, no conversation during the show. It was a little like elementary school or summer camp—made all the stranger by being surrounded by people ages 18 to 80 (no kidding, a man at least 70 years of age stood behind me). The standing room area was located at the far back of the opera, just above the orchestra floor seating. Set up in ‘tiered standing,’ we were made to slide in between the dividing railings—five or six to each cramped standing section.

I’ve been to concerts before. The same is probably true for you. Hell, my feet burned by the end of the first Drive-By Truckers show I went to in Montclair, NJ. All told, I spent some four hours on foot that night. It gets to you—those bodily pains—while you’re trying to enjoy yourself. At least when you’re standing at work, behind a cashier or a grill, you can bitch about your feet and feel embattled about the entire experience. You don’t exactly want to feel embattled about that concert you’re attending, though.

The problem with my opera experience was that most people—myself included—tend to feel embattled about opera from the very start. It’s not exactly like you’re singing (screaming) along to “The Devil Don’t Stay.” But the experience is supposed to cure us of that inclination. In the 21^st-century, opera is the opposite of populist art; the usual view is that it’s an exercise in elitism. But, I had heard, all I needed to do was actually go to an opera and then I would understand. As much as people make fun of opera and deride it as a form, not many of us have actually been to one.

That said, I had put more time than most into giving an opera a chance before actually attending one several weeks ago. A few summers ago, I went through a pathetic opera phase. I qualify it as pathetic only because it wasn’t really much of a ‘phase.’ I listened to a few operas in toto—Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s La Bohème among them—but mostly I listened to a smattering of arias and overtures. It was mostly an embarrassing foray into the world of classical music, which I, so insistent an admirer of straight-up folk music, found more than a little difficult to handle.

But there I was—almost entirely without any opera experience or knowledge—ready to endure 3½ hours of an opera that I literally knew nothing about. An opera, as I shortly found out, was not simply a physical experience (standing for 3+ hours), but also a mental one. I missed out on a lot of things; I suspect repeat viewings are necessary. I cannot even begin to imagine how opera critics do their job; there are too many things to keep track of…I’ll go into more detail in the next installment.