Italian Opera

I wrote a blog post a few Sundays ago about Rigoletto; the Italian opera that I went to that day, to inform everyone that I was going, and I wanted  to follow it up now even though it is a little bit delayed. I just had such a great time there that I really wanted to talk about it. In fact, we are looking into going back and seeing Pinocchio on the 18th of April because the tickets are pretty cheap, and we would actually understand everything that was going on just because we know the story of Pinocchio.

The plan started out for it to be a lot of our friends going as a group on a Tuesday night here in Torino, but we recognized shortly after that we had our 1st Midterm in our Italian II class on Wednesday. Therefor, we wanted to go on Sunday night, but because it was the last day of spring break some people had not made it back into town yet, some tired from their travels, some had made plans to do other things, and some just backed out. In the end it was only Ellie and I, so we turned it into a fun date of just the two of us and it ended up being absolutely awesome, and a really cool experience.

The chandelier on the ceiling!

Our view of the stage

Full house for Rigoletto

The mustard man!!

It ended up being good for us that I decided to read the summary of the opera before we went, otherwise our Italian level would not have allowed us to really understand what was going on. [My Italian is really getting good, and am able to really talk to people, but when it comes to Old Italian; dropping off endings, running words that don't go together together, and things like this... well lets just say its like seeing a play in a dialect of Italian: I was able to understand about 50% of the words spoken!] The opera itself, although the only one I have ever been to, was very impressive to me, and I was really impressed with the main lady. Her voice was absolutely incredible and I really enjoyed hearing her sing.

One of the coolest parts of the whole thing was that we got lucky and had our own box so we ended up with a pretty awesome experience. Therefore, we were able to take a few videos while the opera was going on! Although the videos that we were able to take are awesome, they don't even to begin to do it justice. The sound of the performers was just incredible and something that I will remember for a long time. However, I would feel bad if I didn't even try to let you all hear what it sort of sounded like!! So here are a few videos that we were able to take.I apologize that they are crooked, but when we filmed them it was on an iPhone, and now this is what they are!

She was absolutely amazing and she had potentially the best voice of anyone I have ever heard sing.. EVER! The other really cool moment was when the famous opera song "La Donna e Mobile" was sung. I was hoping that we would be able to hear it, but I wasn't 100% sure if we were going to be able to, so when it happened I got really excited!

I am really excited to potentially go back and see Pinocchio on the 18th!!