Madame…

Yesterday, I went with JJ to the ‘Royal Albert Hall’ to watch Puccini’s ‘Mme Butterfly’. I had watched the same production again a couple of years ago but JJ said that he’s never been to the Opera and he’d like to watch one. There is something with gay people and ‘Opera’. I believe they love the drama, the tragic endings and the costumes. Or should I blame Tom Hanks in ‘Philadelphia’ and that amazing Maria Callas scene?

Anyway, I couldn’t really say no and I always enjoy going to the Royal Albert Hall. I was lucky enough when I was younger in Greece to go to the Opera House often since my brother’s best friend was the production manager and could give us very good tickets for free. So, I have seen a few good productions there.

Mme Butterfly’s story is not that original. It’s about a young Japanese girl getting married to a handsome American Lieutenant and her tragic fate. What happens at the end is what you’d expect would happen but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. Opera is mostly about the sentiments generated from the music, the passion and the singing. Generally the production is very good and I would recommend to people thinking of watching it. There are lots of people on stage at any given time, extras performing everyday stuff like fishing or knitting giving a really nice Japanese touch to the experience.

Unfortunately for me, it was in English and I couldn’t really understand most of the dialogs. Opera singing in English is incomprehensible. Of course I could understand what was generally going on but not the details. That fact made ‘Mme Butterfly’ slightly tiring and at times boring. I might be wrong but the productions I had seen previously in Greece were all in Italian, their original language, and subtitles where presented over the stage for the viewers. That way, it was much easier to understand the plot. Fortunately, we had really good sits, first row, and we enjoyed what was going on the stage. Is this something they generally do in the UK? I’ve only seen this one production, so I can’t really tell…

That's my picture from our sits.

Anyway, today I have my 15th month anniversary with JJ. No, the number 15 doesn’t mean anything and we won’t do anything special to celebrate. We just text each other every month in the morning wishing a happy anniversary. It's no big deal, I just remembered it.