The Opera Intermission

This moment at the opera is better old in Bonnie’s voice:

Many people wanted to talk to David at the intermission. The first person to find David said, “Hello. I've been wanting to talk to the most important person in the audience today.” This surprised David. The man asked, “What kind of music do you like?” David said, “I'm not really sure.” The man said do you play any instruments and David said I've tried the guitar a little bit and some kind of wind instrument. The man said he was in the Threepenny Opera when he was 10 years old. Then man went on, “If this is your first opera if you were a climber it's as if you chose your first climb to the top of Mount Everest.”

At the intermission I went out to find David and Bonnie. They were engaged in a conversation with Rolph and Iris Haack and I didn’t join the group. I thought instead I would walk up and down the aisles of the theatre and stretch my body. I knew that there were two full acts yet to come. Two very long acts.

Stuart Skelton, left, as Tristan and 
Nina Stemme as Isolde 
in “Tristan und Isolde” at the Metropolitan Opera. 
Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Another woman stopped me and pointed over to David who was surrounded by many other patrons at the Opera. She pointed at him and said to me, “Poor kid.”  

I said, “David is here at his first opera.”

She said, “I can't hear you. I forgot to change my hearing aids.” I wondered why she hasn't put in her hearing aids if she was coming to the opera but it was only a passing thought for she went on to talk to someone else.

When the show was over, people were still approaching David in the parking lot.

One woman told him she had driven 2 ½ hours from up near Revelstoke and now she was driving 2 ½ hours back so that she could see the opera. I did the math. She would have been on the road by 6:30 am to have made it to the theatre on time.

Another woman just about climbed in the back of the car with David to talk to him.  He was busy closing the door so she couldn't get in.  Ah, I had fun at the opera today.

People are amazing.

Should anyone want to go to the Encore, here is a review from the NY Times.

Arta