I've recently been to an Opera in London, just to see what it is like, and lo and Op, Op Eraaaah! I've been enlightened in several respects.
To find the opera I rushed through the streets, subways, tubes, metros and undergrounds of London with a packet of Digestive cookies, which I couldn't quite close, as the top had fallen off. To fix this I munched along as I frenetically was waiting for the next station. The cookies could also be considered some sort of medicine against my overactive thyroid, as it gave me energy enough not to fall to the ground in a lifeless pile of flesh and bones, something which can be considered a criminal fence in the otherwise efficiently enclosed underground.
The price of the ticket was around 35 quid, equivalent to 55 bucks, 250 balles or 350 bagare (more than a third of a lakan!), and that gave me the pleasure to expose my almost ironed T-shirt and the packet of Digestives to two gentlemen in suits, who sat next to me on one of the first rows intensely frowning their noses at either me or my cookies, until the show began, when they instead started snoring, leaning their heads in a lot of different, more or less unnecessarily social directions.
The opera was Rusalka, a piece by a Czech czap, called Dvořák. The plot is basically the same as in Walt Disney's film "The Little Mermaid" which costs only a tenth, but then without frowning and snoring gentlemen. The idea, if you can call it that, is that the water nymph Rusalka lives in a lake playing with her sisters. She gets immensely bored, probably because they never discuss neo-existensialist drama, so she wants to get out of there. She asks the nastiest person in the play, a nice old lady who puts living mice in her coffee, to rip the plastic fish skin off her legs. Rusalka then happily trots up on land and finds a princy chap. The catch is that she no longer can speak, so the conversation about neo-existensialist drama, that the audience anticipated, is somewhat limited. This prince bloke however doesn't really mind, and he seems quite happy to have found a girlie, who doesn't talk uninterruptedly, no matter if she smells fish or not. They walk off hand in hand, smiling foolishly to each other, and the opera is at an end.
Or could have been at an end. At this point I started reading the small print in the program, and it stated basically: "There are three acts (THREE?!), the first one lasts 40 minutes, the second one 43 and the last one, provided there is no disturbing applause, 53 and a half. To each act you have to add at least three minutes to get out, two minutes of which will be needed to wake up the other blokes in your row, so you don't have to walk on their shoulders. The first interval including the second act and part of the first one is 78 minutes, and there will be no booze when there are less than 3 minutes and a half to an act, regardless of which, provided there is no 'p' in the name of the hero's last name..." And so on. They could have given me exactly the same information in much fewer words: "You've gotta stay, mate!" and so I did, mate.
The rest of the plot is even more confusing. The prince bloke decides that it's quite fun to chat away anyhow and finds another girlie, this casts a spell on everyone and that kind of puts everyone off. Rusalka has to go back to the pond, where her sisters don't want her to come back, as she lost her plastic fish skin. She cannot stay on land either, and therefore is highly confused. The prince bloke decides that he's had enough of neo-existensialist drama and the other girlie and tries to get Rusalka back, but it's too late. The pub has closed. Rusalka says "OK, you can kiss me, but then you'll die because of my bad breath". "I can take that", he says but can't and snuffs it. Now, part of the spell was that Rusalka could save herself by killing the prince, and that, any lawyer in his right mind would acknowledge, she's done, but the nice old lady has better paid lawyers, and says oh no, that doesn't count, which kind of cuts off all Rusalka's hope of any solution whatsoever. She cannot stay on land, she cannot go back to the pond, and she cannot die, as she's immortal.
They then live happily for ever after, and the opera is over.
18 March 1996
