Went to our opera house the other day. They played Puccini's "il trittico", that is three short operas in a row with two breaks (necessary for changeing the stage design as well as for the audience to recover from what they saw).
Three short operas in one evening. Each has its own stories to tell, its silent sufferings and loud lamentations. Honesty and falsehood, pleasure and suffering and comedy
I cried. I laughed. I was tired, I was wide awake. I was excited, relaxed, full of anticipation. I met some old friends, got to know new people. I applauded until my hands hurt. I was freezing on my bike on the way home.
This is what opera can do, what music does to your heart and soul. If you let it in, it changes you, affects you directly, releases your hidden feelings. Tears may run long dried out paths, laughter will revive long forgotten muscles. It will let you live through suffering and fear and anger and death without harming you. Music makes you feel human (again). Try it out, visit your local theater and let yourself be enchanted.
You can find a synopsis of the operas online, but this story has struck me most: the idea of Suor Angelica giving birth to a child and being forced to give the boy away, only to learn after years of penance in a cloister (monastery?), that the boy had died. I was as devastated as the mother on stage.
The evening closed with merry laughter in "Gianni Schicchi", so all was well in the end.
Originally typed on paper an posted on: