<p>So my daughter’s birthday is tomorrow and this year I don’t know what to give her. I am usually prepared but not this year. There are other complications: Money is tight since she’s going to college in the fall and that is a big expense (I’m a single mother, no help from father whatsoever); it got tighter because she needs her wisdom teeth removed and insurance is not paying much. AP’s are the following 2 weeks so it’s not like she has much time to celebrate.
One idea I had is to get opera tickets. She has been telling me that she wants to go to an opera and I thought this is a good oportunity but I don’t know which one. How expensive are these tickets? We live near NYC. Any Suggestions on which one to go to and how to get cheap tickets (if that even exists)?</p>
<p>Any other suggestion? She likes music, books (plans to make a reading list to kill time after Ap’s because classes are mostly over and she graduates in late june), outdoors.</p>
<p>Tickets to the Met start at around $20 I believe, and there are very likely student discounts. If she wants to go to Opera, that’s where she should go, and just see whatever’s playing (not Wagner. It’s really long, and for a first-time neither you nor she would probably like it).</p>
<p>If you had said chamber music, I might have been able to help, but you’ll find some aficionados who will tell you what’s available and what’s scheduled. Probably get some advice on student discount, student rush tickets as well.</p>
<p>See if you can still get tickets to “Carmen” at the Met – the final performance is Saturday. It’s a spectacular production - modern, sexy, exciting - starring a young and beautiful singer who totally rocks. In general “Carmen” is a good choice for opera novices because it has a plot that’s easy to follow and the music is recognized even by those who don’t usually go to opera. But this production in particular is very fun and packed with energy. There’s even a ballet performce (two, in fact) with two NYCB stars. I can’t recommend this highly enough.</p>
<p>I have a GREAT idea for you! The Met now offers live performances at select movie theaters all over the world. It’s a huge deal in the opera world. The performance is live in high-def, always with major stars, and the camera work and whole production is just amazing. They show the audience, lots of close-ups during the production, and it’s just better than being there live and in the back row! They also show backstage and scene changes, interview the stars at intermissions, and show some backstage things like the prop construction department. The tickets are about $20. I saw the live production of Carmen recently and it was wonderful.</p>
<p>This Sat. afternoon May 1 (1 ET) the opera is Armida, starring Renee Fleming, my very favorite opera star. It’s a sort of fantasy opera. I don’t know too much about it, but if Renee’s in it, it will be great! It’s just an excellent introduction to attending the opera. </p>
<p>Click on the buy ticket orange area at the left to find the closet theater to you. I buy my tickets right at the movie theater, but be sure to get there early to get a good seat. </p>
<p>I really can’t say enough about how wonderful it is to see these operas live, but on the big screen in high def. I have been to quite a few live opera performances, and I much prefer this. The words are on the screen in English, of course, and there are several intermissions. I always bring my own water and snacks in my bag.</p>
<p>I hope this works for you! I have seen about 6-7 of these live performances and have loved all but one (a weird modern produciton of Hansel and Gretel). I saw some of the props for Armida as they were being constructed, huge insects, and it looks like an amazing and imaginative opera.</p>
<p>Maybe you could surprise her and tell her you are going to see a movie, and then when she gets there it will be the live opera performance? I hope this works for you!</p>
<p>P.S.: There is a trailer for Armida on the Met link I posted that will give you an idea of the opera. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about the story–you can figure everything out from watching. In fact, I don’t like to know the story of the opera before I go, so everything is a surprise!</p>
<p>All of these Met productions are also available to purchase later as DVDs. Amazon carries them.</p>
<p>bookiemom, I’m a big fan of the Met simulcasts too and also recommend them (that’s how I saw the Carmen I raved about) especially in the event you can’t go/afford the Met in person. One note: those simulcasts sell out! Get those tickest early – the last simulcast of the season is this Saturday with Renee Fleming in Armida.</p>
<p>Also, OP, the Met has subtitles. Now you don’t have to be an expert to know what the heck is happening onstage :)</p>
<p>Heck yes I’ll be going to Armida. Have you read the NYT review when it premiered? If not, google it - has some interesting info about the opera and Fleming. I think the simulcasts were a stroke of genius on the Met’s part. It brings world-class opera to those of us who live out in the boonies, hee hee (Denver.) And it’s so exciting to watch these performances with literally thousands of people around the world. Toy toy toy!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Met tickets that are not standing room are incredibly expensive. A friend got me two for my 50th birthday, and it was a decade’s worth of presents.</p></li>
<li><p>City Opera will be much cheaper. There may be a spring opera production at Juilliard, too. Believe it or not, while the Met is generally higher quality, it is not necessarily higher quality in proportion to its higher prices, except for the sets, which tend to be amazing.</p></li>
<li><p>The simulcasts are great, except when they turn up for free on PBS two weeks later. That burned me a little.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But it’s so much better up there live on the huge screen! And you’re seeing it at the same time as the NY people who paid tons, and you have a better view! I think it’s money well spent. </p>
<p>katliamom: yes, I have the review saved right here next to desk, so I can read it again after I see the produciton. Link to NY Times review is in my post #5. </p>
<p>I read somewhere how much each new Met production costs to mount–in the millions.
($2-3 million, I think?)</p>
<p>I have found over the years that City Opera is of similar, if not higher (in some productions), quality than the Met. Of course, if she’s never seen the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, that in itself may be worth the price of admission.</p>
<p>Of course, Chedva. I’ve never seen a live performance of opera in NYC (live near Seattle). But OP said she has limited funds right now, so I think the simulcast would be more to her needs.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone!
Ok so Armida is soldout for the simulcast this saturday (and D has to study for AP’s so I was thinking after the 14th is better), the encore is May 19th.
Carmen is soldout for the saturday performance at the Met and no simucasts are available (its probably available at PBS).
Has anyone seen Lulu? It’s 4 hrs long, but tickets are available at the Met. Are you able to see anything in the Family circle seats?
Der Fliegende Holl</p>
<p>At this point, I suggest that you talk to your daughter about this. Musical tastes are very personal; my parents enjoyed Lulu, but I’d never sit through it (or even listen to it more than once). And while Der Fliegende Hollander is one of his more accessible operas, Wagner is an acquired taste. </p>
<p>Finding dates that won’t conflict with end of the year senior activities (even if just get-togethers, not necessarily formal activities) is also a challenge; you don’t want to buy the tickets to find out that it conflicts with best friend’s dinner party (or whatever).</p>
<p>Another option, by the way, if you don’t want to do the opera, is to go to NY early on a Saturday or a Wednesday (when they have matinees), and buy tickets to a show on or off Broadway at TKTS in Duffy Square. You can get good seats for 20-50% off, and they now take credit cards.</p>
<p>Lulu is a “modernist classic”. It’s a must-see if you like that period of music (20s, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, and of course Berg, Freud, Vienna, all that). It’s an interminable atonal overwrought mess if you don’t. Not the first opera I would go to see unless I had already listened to it and knew I loved it.</p>
<p>Der Fliegende Hollander is Wagner’s first major opera and much more accessible than his later ones. 2-1/2 hours is short/normal for opera. (One of the issues with the simulcasts is that they are often redacted productions.)</p>
<p>I would also recommend another company than the Met because you can pay less and get closer. The difference is in the scale of the production and sometimes the name of the star, not as much the quality.</p>
<p>I’ve often gone to operas put on by traveling troupes based in Europe. Sitting in the first rows is a massive treat, because you pick up every nuance. I take my daughter, a dancer, to ballet and when we sit up front she sees a totally different performance than I do; she tells me at intermission who was being corrected by whom, who helped cover up a mistake, etc. If you sit up close, you can watch the conductor cuing the singers with his eyes instead of the big movements you might catch at the Met. You can see them compliment each other on well sung parts with glances and small touches. </p>
<p>Up close, most everything is better and the best, like Don Giovanni, can be simply incredible. </p>
<p>The Met is cool, very grand, you can eat there and come back to you table for dessert during intermission, but you are also very far away. The sets can be sumptuous, but the singing is more remote. If you want a really weird treat, way way way way up, like almost vertigo straight up, you can sit and listen and they even have places where you can follow a score (which you can bring) because there is no view. But the sound rises and picks up a resonance that’s stirring.</p>
<p>BTW, this is how Motown recorded; they piped the mix into the attic - literally - and then back to the board so it picked up resonance. If you’re ever on Grand Blvd in Daytwois.</p>
<p>My point is that opera can be a huge, expensive treat or a lifetime love that can be indulged without breaking the bank. It’s great to see a huge Puccini production of Turandot with magnificent sets but if you love opera then it’s the music, the voices, the emotions writ large.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your suggestions! I decided to get tickets for the encore for Armida, saw the trailer and can’t wait. I will take a look at the City Opera and City Ballet (I actually have been close to going a few times) when things are not this crazy.</p>