Night Out at the Opera



Two Friday nights ago, I saw an opera for the first time in my life. Lexi, Toria, and I headed out to see Anna Bolena.

We dressed in our finest casual wear only to find others walking through the grand front doors of the Wien Staatsoper (the Vienna National Opera House) in tuxedos and sparkling ballgowns. That's when we decided that we had to find another entrance because this one certainly wasn't for use by us normal-folk.

After getting our 3 Euro tickets for a glamorous spot at the standing-room-only rails, we headed to the very top of the theater to find our spots at the next-to-the-top steps of the Gallery. We were living large.




The woman behind us decided she wanted to watch the opera with the German translation (not opposed to doing that) so she climbed over to change the little LCD screen in front of me (very opposed) to German. And when I say 'climbed', I mean 'wedged in between us and climbed up onto the railing'.

So I got to translate the German translation of an Italian opera into English so I could understand half of what was going on. It was actually really great practice, but I really only understood 1/4 of the words at any given time. Surprisingly, when I asked Lexi and Toria for a recap at intermission, I had gotten most of it right!

After intermission, I moved spots to a newly emptied railing to watch the rest in English. It was much easier to understand, which was very enjoyable.

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