So I mentioned in my post about the
Valencia opera, that I had planned on going to one in Madrid, well, that
happened. And it was a wonderful day and a fantastic adventure. It was also
horribly irresponsible, but so worth it.
So Sunday morning I woke up and did
some planning and did some homework. I finished an essay, and booked a ferry,
and confirmed places to stay, and all that jazz. Then I showered and went up
and let Jess do my hair. It was hilariously shocking to her, and everyone else
for that matter, to see me look like a girl. Shrugs I have a good time. So, hair coiffed, I got
dressed and headed out. I stopped at a bakery on the way to the train station,
and got a couple of sandwiches for lunch and a snack. I made it to the train on
time, and had a fairly uneventful journey.
I got to Madrid and, between street
signs and google maps, got to the theatre. Fortunately, it’s in a part of the
city that we spent a decent amount of time in at the beginning of the trip, so
I didn’t have too many problems. I picked up my tickets from a machine just
outside of the lobby, and headed out to find something to eat in the hour I had
before I needed to be back at the theatre. I wanted to go to this Thai
restaurant I had seen on the way, but they were closed, and so were a lot of
other places, (because it was like 4:45, and that is like 3pm on the Spanish
meal schedule, nobody is eating anything.) but I finally found a nice Italian
café, and had a cup of tea and a mini-pizza. It was very tasty, and good to
hold me over until the Opera finished (which wouldn’t be until like 11). So
after my little mid-afternoon meal, I headed back to the theatre, and got ready
for the Opera at 6.
I walked into the lobby, and… I
feel like this blog sometimes gets repetitive. I use the same words and phrases
and expressions over and over again to try to communicate these experiences,
and as a lit major that bothers, but the truth is that there aren’t words, and
I try to use what I have to describe these experiences that aren’t made of
words and images and sounds, but of feelings and impressions and emotions. And
I am incredibly fortunate to have lived much of the last few months in a state
of absolute wonder and awe, and I want to try to communicate that to you, but I
know I can’t, and I just keep repeating myself in the attempt.
But walking into the theatre, it
was incredible. Like, I loved the theatre in Valencia, it was cool and funky,
and interesting, and very modern, but I walked into the Teatro Real (Royal
Theatre) in Madrid, and it was perfect. All red velvet and gold and
stateliness. I remember when we toured Columbia University a couple years ago,
my dad commented that it felt like if there was a God of Education, this is where
he would live. Well, if there is a God of Opera, he’d feel right at home in the
Teatro Real.
One of my favorite games when I go
to the opera, is to try to find people younger than me. Because most of the
crowd is older than my parents, and I’m often the youngest person there, but
not last Sunday. I saw SEVERAL people who were younger than me. And one of them
was reading the program and in a box, and didn’t even look like her parents
were making her come. That warms my heart.
But the theatre wasn’t the only
difference between my two opera experiences. So in Valencia I saw Simon
Boccanegra, an Italian opera by Verdi, while in Madrid they performed
Lohengrin, a German opera by Wagner. And when I told my dad that I was going to
see Wagner, he was like, “you know that’s intense, right? Like, German
intense.” And it was, but it managed to surprise me. Because we have this image
of what Wagner sounds like, but I think we forget that he wrote operas, that
have to tell a story, and express a whole range of emotions. It can’t all be “Ride
of the Valkyries.”
Also, in Valencia there were little
personal screens where you could choose your own language for subtitles, and in
Madrid they just projected the lyrics in English and Spanish at the top of the
stage. And I mean, as wide a range as Wagner has, it was still a German opera
compared to an Italian one. Those two languages sound different. And you can’t
change that. Also, because of that, the design of the two operas was RADICALLY
different. The stage in Madrid was covered in this rough brown-grey stuff, and
it looked like they were underground, and the costumes of the chorus could have
come from a Soviet Factory Workers Surplus Store. So much grey. While in
Valencia there was a black mirrored stage and sumptuous gowns befitting Italian
nobles. But the design worked with the productions, and the voices were
beautiful in both.
So I’m sitting there in this
beautiful theatre, and the orchestra warms up (I really love the sound of an
orchestra warming up. I know it’s not polished or professional or the way they
normally sound, but I love it. It’s comforting. And there’s this strange,
unplanned swell, and buildup, and it gives me chills.) and the overture starts,
and it’s… delicate. Light and airy, beautiful and happy and sad, but not angry like
I expected. And then the strings kicked in in full force, and I heard that
Wagner we always think of, and that was its own kind of magic. And then the
opera proper starts.
Now, first, I have a bone to pick
with this opera. Because it’s title is Lohengrin (which is inconveniently
unpronounceable in any language other than German, and I HATE trying to
pronounce German words in Spanish. It’s just a fail.), which is the name of the
male lead, so that’s what it is. Except that the entire point of the play is
that we cannot know the name of the male lead. And he literally only says it
once. I can think of half a dozen better titles off the top of my head. Like,
it’s like naming Star Wars “Darth Vader’s kid” or “Leia’s Brother.” Seriously.
Also, the play was pretty sexist and definitely had some seeds of nationalism
present.
Except I don’t really care about
that, because it was beautiful. It was entrancing and wonderful, and I knew
what was going to happen, and I was on the edge of my seat. So it’s about this…
girl whose brother (the Duke) has gone missing, and there’s a guy trying to
take over the dukedom, and the girl is like, “I had a dream that a knight was
going to show up,” and everybody else is just kind of, “great, kid, but there’s
a succession crisis.” And the guy trying to take over the dukedom (I don’t
remember anyone’s names, they were all German) accused the girl of killing her
brother to take over the dukedom, and decided that they were going to settle
this by combat, and asked the girl to choose a champion to fight for her, and
she was just off in lala land, being all “my dream knight.” But since this is
an opera, and not Game of Thrones, a knight DOES show up on a boat pulled by a
swan. Like a boss. He agrees to fight, but on the condition that no one knows
his name or where he comes from. And they all agree. For some reason.
So the knight wins (duh) but spares
the other guy’s life, because, literally, the knight shows up dressed in all
white, he’s that kind of tenor. Actually, that’s a thing I love about opera.
It’s almost a superhero movie. Because it’s one of the only places where there
is moral absolutism and battles of good and evil on a grand scale. I mean, you
go in, and you know. The tenor is going to get the ingénue, who will be the
highest female voice around. The bass is evil, probably in league with the
mezzo-soprano, and all the other dudes are baritones. And one of them is
usually a reasonable authority figure. And obviously I don’t think people with
low voices are evil, nor do I want all my media to subscribe to a pattern like
that, or to have that moral simplicity, but I think it’s necessary, and I
disagree with those who reject morally simple universes as useless or dull.
They’re important. I mean, we love superhero movies, and they’re all about guys
running around in brightly colored spandex saving the world. And weak, but
incredibly moral guys with names like, “Steve Rogers” and “Peter Parker” become
heroes, and those with names easily shortened to “Doc Oc” and everyone who
smokes cigars are evil. We keep that morality around, in a back pocket, and we
do that for a reason.
So back in the opera, the defeated
guy schemes with his mezzo-soprano wife, who also happens to be a witch. And
she gets in the good graces of the ingénue, who is about the marry the knight,
and begins to sow doubt in her mind about her fiancé, and why he won’t fess up
to his name and family tree. So then the knight and the girl go off to get
married, and the song they sing at the wedding, which is the Act II finale is
one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Everybody has tried
to get this knight to spill, but he refuses, and tells them that only his bride
can make him tell, but he begs her not to, and the chorus is behind her, saying
that they don’t care where he came from, because he’s going to save them in the
war, and she is singing over them, agonizing over her decision, and then the
knight is begging her not to ask, and I almost cried. Like, that’s not what you
expect from Wagner, but it’s there, and it’s wonderful.
And then the Act III opener was…
the wedding march. I’m not even joking, “Here Comes the Bride” is actually from
this opera. That’s right, Wagner. And it has lyrics. In German. And it is NOT
played at the actual wedding in the opera, it’s played AFTER the wedding, and
is sung by the chorus as they wish the couple happiness (spoiler alert: they
don’t get it. Come on. This is Wagner.). So the couple fights, and the girl
starts to freak, and demands the knight’s name, and he’s like, “please don’t”
but she insists, and worries that he’s going to leave her, and then the guy who
was trying to usurp the dukedom shows up and tries to kill the knight, and they
all go before the king, and the knight reveals that his name is Lohengrin, and that
he is a knight of the Holy Grail, and that when a knight of the Holy Grail goes
out into the world he can only do so anonymously, and as soon as he reveals
himself, he has to return. Oops. And then the end was really really confusing.
Like, I think that the girl’s brother had been the swan that pulled the
knight’s boat all along, but had been cursed by the usurpers’ witch wife, and
he may or may not have been turned back into a boy, and the girl may have died
of grief at losing her husband. But I’m not actually sure. It was pretty,
whatever happened.
And despite my confusion, I really
loved the opera. It was beautiful and moving and well-done. And to be honest,
it was worth the trip just to sit in the theatre and hear the orchestra warm
up. But there was also some very interesting theology. For example, trial by
combat is not (supposed to be) about who is stronger, it is who God favors. So because
the knight won the trial, the girl was declared innocent by God, and the knight
also had divine favor. And the only person to question that, is the evil witch.
Because even her husband accepts that as absolutely true until she convinces
him otherwise. And of course, there’s the anonymitiy of the knights of the
Grail, but also the question of how immoral are they allowed to be: like, can
they kill someone? (obviously) can they get married? (obviously) Ok, but can
they lie? What if it’s to protect someone or something? They’re immortal, how
does that work? But yeah, I really really enjoyed the whole thing, and I’m so
glad I went.
Which is good, because about 15
minutes after I bought the tickets, I realized that I had a problem. The last
train for Valencia leaves around 9. The Opera ended at 10:30. And the first
train from Madrid the next morning arrived at 9am, which is the exact same time
my class started. So I had to get back to Valencia, and basically my only
option was to take a bus, which left at 1am, and arrived at 5:20. So that’s what I did.
But my opera got out early enough
that I had time for a meal before my bus left, so I went back to that Thai
restaurant (that’s Spain for you: closed at 4:45, but wide open at 11) and had
a lovely meal. I’ve missed Thai too. So then I caught a cab to the bus station,
and waited around for a bit until my bus was ready to leave. I got on and spent
the ride listening to music and texting people. We stopped at the halfway
point, and I got a cup of tea and desperately tried to charge my phone in a
deserted bus station in the middle of nowhere at 3am, while some random
flamenco show played on the TV. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing with my life.
But fortunately I charged my phone enough to last me the rest of the trip to
Valencia. When we pulled into the station at 5:40am, I caught a taxi (because
Valencia at 6am is FAR more deserted than Madrid at midnight) back to my dorm.
And ya know, that part was lovely
too. I mean, I was exhausted, and doing that was definitely irresponsible, but
Valencia is a beautiful place even in the wee small hours of the morning. The
streets are all lit up and golden, even though they’re deserted, and it’s
almost unrecognizable. A whole different world. And so, despite being the
boring one of our group, I got my experience of sneaking back into the dorm at 6am (though I
didn’t know it at the time, there was actually a crazier story than mine that
had taken place earlier that day. But that’s a next blog kind of thing.). And I
got back to my room and put on my pajamas and went straight to bed. And that
was my insanity. And it was wonderful.
So, I realized as I was writing my
last blogs, that my 3rd monthiversary of being here has come and
gone, and my neglect of the blog has caused me to miss writing about that, so
I’m gonna do it here, because I went to Madrid April 6, and that was the actual
day, so it all works out.
So while I was on my opera kick
last weekend, I kept thinking about that expression, “it’s not over til the fat
lady sings” because it was almost hilariously literal in my case. My weekend of
Opera was the weekend of my last full week of classes and with the program. I
leave Spain a week from today. My final exam is Wednesday. It’s all ending,
after a shockingly short time. Because it feels like I just arrived, like I
just got settled, and there’s no way that it could have been the full length of
the program, that my clases are wrapping up and my exams looming. But at the
same time, I kind of feel like I’ve been here forever. I mean, this is my life
now. I don’t even think about eating dinner until 8, and don’t bat an eye about
eating at 10pm. I know my way around the city and I don’t even think about the
30 minute walk to class. That’s just how it is.
When you are an American
studying abroad in Europe, everybody
warns you about falling in love, either with a person, or with Europe itself. I
knew when I came, and I think most people who know me knew too, that me falling
in love with Europe was inevitable. And of course, I did. I mean, it’s been a
long time coming. I think I wanted to move here before I ever made it to the
Continent, but sitting in the Teatro Real between acts of Lohengrin, it really
hit me. I’m happy here, and I like the way Europe lives its life much more. I
like being in cities that have an opera house, and able to take trains to get
anywhere, and buildings older than my country. I’m going to try to take the
positivity, the mentality here that has made me so happy back to the US,
because I’ve still got things to do there, and I refuse to let myself be
miserable, but I also know I’m coming back over here. As soon as I can. I mean,
in three months I can’t remember wishing to be back home. I wished that you all
were here, so I could show you all the amazing things I am seeing, but I don’t
really understand the people in my group who are ready to leave.
And I don’t have to leave Europe
for a while yet, but the fat lady has sung, and the tide has turned. It’s no
longer about weekend trips and homework and activities, it’s about exams and
hostels and ferries and planes, and getting around Europe for 3 months, and
meeting my parents in Italy. And now that’s what I’m looking forward to.
And now some photos from the journey:
