La Boheme

 Our morning was spent learning from Marcia Sells about the Met's diversity initiatives.  She delved into the vastness of the Met's departments.  The Met employs over 3000 people.  Wow!  I learned about the paid intern program, too. After our break, Will Berger, who is all things made public at the Met, walked us through the plot of La Boheme, our evening performance.  He made points about the development of the score and its marriage to the lyric/voice of the story.  This afternoon Pamela Jones, soprano, sang various arias for us focusing on how a singer will 'act' with voice, movement and expression to portray emotion.

This evening we got to the crux of the trip.  After dinner at a local Turkish restaurant, we walked in the rain to Lincoln Center.  Our seats were in the nose bleed section, balcony D.  At this distance one needs opera glasses to see facial expressions and sometimes even know who is singing.  But the sound was not diminished in the least.  We got the best view of the chandelier lifting.  Is it a surprise that the voices were beyond comparison.  No.  Mimi especially soared.  Wayne and I both felt the ending was not climatic.  But, Puccini obviously wanted that sombre feeling to remain in the memory.