the opera

in an effort to celebrate yet another year and to pluck from new york another cultural feather, we found ourselves dressed to the nines on a thursday, opera tickets in hand.

they were in hand, of course, because in spite of expectations for a cold winter, i was in a halter dress and heels. no tights, no coat, no purse. the unseasonable weather made its way down into the underground, and our fancy garb stuck to the orange polystyrene subway seats.

coming by way of train, we were forced to approach lincoln center from the dungeons of the city. (oh, how easily phantom rumors could form!) mansion-dwellers, to whom such trips became commonplace before even weekly mentions in the sundaystyles, slid up in their town cars. let them have their chauffeurs; they missed the amazing saxophonist playing for pennies on the underground.

of course, the opera itself was incomprable to anything i had ever witnessed. not only was the ceiling graced with a chagall, not only was the world transforming before our eyes, but the purity, the hilarity, the precision of il barbiere di siviglia was so perfectly crafted that i did not know whether to laugh or to cry. to realize that this alternate reality exists only a trainride away from my brooklyn haven is to realize a new desire. a persistent and not necessarily novel need to reach out to the unknown finally found its justification. why haunt a neighborhood, a bar, a stage if you can find at each train stop a new reality an ounce more inspiring than the one before it? why become a regular when the inspiration drawn from these locales comes from not knowing them?

hypocritically, i am indeed going back to the opera. but i guess i'll have to see a different show.