Opera Idaho

Today is the day we perform this show for an audience! Finalmente. Tonight we will have many students and relatives in the theater for our final dress rehearsal and they will most likely be an enthusiastic crowd. You audience members have such an important job! You change the energy on stage. You make us nervous, which usually makes us better performers. You give us feedback. We realize that during the first scene or two, you’re taking it all in. Then we all sense the calm as the performers realize they have their voices and their wits about them, and you all settle in for the ride. I love watching people’s faces to see which moments will make them sigh or snicker or shout….yes, you can actually shout at an opera, as long as its in the form of bravo, brava or bravi! It is so exciting when an audience realizes that they can have an active part in the show…as long as you don’t get too excited and take it as far as the locals do at La Scala in Italy, by bringing your rotten vegetables with you. ♥

This is what we’ve been waiting for. And I’m not talking about the applause. We live for the energy of a live performance. We live for the butterflies and the times we have to improvise when things go wrong. We do it for your reaction and to see how much we can move you and instigate chatter after a show, as if you had just seen a thought-provoking movie. But this is better! Its live. There is no editing or photo-shopping.

So if you still need a reason to come to the opera for the first time, here it is. You have a date on Saturday night and you want to impress them. Or you haven’t been out with your spouse or your best friend in a while and you feel like, in the midst of all of the politics, you could use a vacation. This is it. Dress up, get your tickets, go out to dinner and come to the Morrison Center for the event of the season. The music and orchestra are spectacular, the costumes and sets are larger than life, and the singers have come from all over the U.S. to bring you this amazing story by Sir Walter Scott. You might actually think I’m getting paid to advertise, but I’m not! I’m so excited about this opera that I would shout it out from the rooftops if people wouldn’t think I was actually crazy.

Meanwhile in the next couple of days, we’ll be trying to relax and stay healthy. We survived production week, and we’re itching for that exciting moment when the lights come down and the orchestra starts to tune. I hope you’re as excited as I am and I can’t wait to see you either tonight or Saturday. Let me know you’re there…as long as its not with vegetables!

Thanks to Opera Idaho, our director, conductor and fellow singers for making this an experience to write about.

Happy Halloween! and Happy date-night on Saturday.