Saturday, September 14, 2013

Mozart En Plein Air: The Magic Flute

Sometimes it is good to push your luck.

Last month it was a chance to see cinema en plein air. Imagine a huge screen and thousands of well behaved people gathered in a big park in Paris. Everyone has a picnic supper including wine. For 7 euros you also get a nice folding deck chair and a warm fleece blanket. The opening short film is truly bizarre, and the feature film is set in Buenos Aires. I say that to let you know it was not a happy film. Come on have you ever seen a happy film set in Buenos Aires?

The picnic was good, the park nice and the company excellent. The air was chilly but the fleece blanket took care of that.

Fast forward to Friday Sept 13, La Flute Enchantee, again in plein air, this time at Les Invalides. My friend Carole called during the day to see if it would be cancelled due to the rain. The lady assured her that it would stop raining at 5PM. She was so convincing we headed out to the opera.

Hotel des Invalides

During the first song it started to rain, just a little bit. Before the planned intermission they had to stop the show to let the rain have its moment on stage. We all huddled under the beautiful arches while we waited for better weather.
Don't be fooled by the glamour - Parisiens are tough
No matter the downpour, we all waited out the rain..

During the second act the leading lady, Pamina slipped on the rain-wet steps. I know it hurt. She jumped back up and sang her heart out.
In fact the entire cast, wet and cold as they were, continued to traipse around the slippery stage and sing like the professionals they are. We huddled miserably in our seats, unable to open our umbrellas for fear of blocking our neighbours' view. But we stayed and were rewarded handsomely with beautiful voices, lighting and scenery. Not for those sensitive to Mother Nature's whims, but really worth seeing.

L'enfer

Au naturel

Notice Napoleon watching over it all.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Waiting to hear from you!