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Nov. 21st, 2009 01:42 amTonight ( or more properly, last night ) I saw Die Zauberflöte with two other girls from my floor. The community sprung for the tickets, and I'd never seen opera, so I went.
As you can probably tell from the title, the opera was in German. The prose bits were in English, but there were so little of them it might as well have been ALL German. There was supertitles, but since we were in the nose bleed section, you had the choice and look straight ahead at the titles or down at the stage.
But, other than language issues, it was a great play. They tilted it way towards the crack end of the spectrum, so there were puppets and the occasional Mozart popping up to introduce the acts. The set design was fucking gorgeous, and one of the most clever sets I've ever seen. Three solid walls, divided up into squares that looked like someone opened up a dingbat text. But the squares hid where the doors opened, and little cubbyholes could be revealed, and that the entire back wall could open in the middle and slide sidewards, and the two side walls swung on pivots near the proscenium arch so they could create a solid wall in front of the stage. And then the digbat text squares also hid that they could be flipped over to reveal the outdoor architecture.
Oh, and they had smoke effects. So the only two minsus was I couldn't understand what they were saying, and it had smoke effects. Pluses was EVERYTHING ELSE, so I had a good time.
I still think it should have been translated into English. I think the hilarious bird puppets made up for this. Barely, but it did make up for it.
As you can probably tell from the title, the opera was in German. The prose bits were in English, but there were so little of them it might as well have been ALL German. There was supertitles, but since we were in the nose bleed section, you had the choice and look straight ahead at the titles or down at the stage.
But, other than language issues, it was a great play. They tilted it way towards the crack end of the spectrum, so there were puppets and the occasional Mozart popping up to introduce the acts. The set design was fucking gorgeous, and one of the most clever sets I've ever seen. Three solid walls, divided up into squares that looked like someone opened up a dingbat text. But the squares hid where the doors opened, and little cubbyholes could be revealed, and that the entire back wall could open in the middle and slide sidewards, and the two side walls swung on pivots near the proscenium arch so they could create a solid wall in front of the stage. And then the digbat text squares also hid that they could be flipped over to reveal the outdoor architecture.
Oh, and they had smoke effects. So the only two minsus was I couldn't understand what they were saying, and it had smoke effects. Pluses was EVERYTHING ELSE, so I had a good time.
I still think it should have been translated into English. I think the hilarious bird puppets made up for this. Barely, but it did make up for it.
