New York II

2003-01-21 / 11:50 a.m.

::sigh:: finally back at school. As promised, I'll tell you a little more about my trip to New York. So, if you aren't interested in that, now would be a good time to go get a soda.

Saturday morning, I got up and went with Will to the Museum of Natural History. It was really cool, and like The Met, I wish I had more time there than I had allotted. The coolest thing I saw there was their exhibit on human evolution. That's one of the most interesting branches of biological study in my opinion, and went well with some of the stuff we studied last semester. After I left there, I went over to Broadway to go see ::drum roll:: Luhrmann's production of "La Boheme", and lemme just tell you, it was great. By the time I got there, I was very excited. I walked around and looked at the outside of the theater (Very Baz-ish, is it not?) and then went to lunch a little deli across the street and walked around and window shopped for awhile before I went back to the theater. I saw a lot of stuff walking around. I passed The Russian Tea Room, The Ed Sullivan Theater where Letterman is filmed, Carnegie Hall, and all sorts of things in Times Square.

My seats were pretty good as far as cheap seats go. There was no obstruction of my view, which was good because of the way it was presented. LaBoheme is an Opera in Italian, but Luhrmann has made it more viewer friendly by adding large screens above, below, and on the sides of the stage showing english subtitles. The subtitles are translated into 1940's Bohemian France vernacular, but they saw that they still stay with the original words pretty closely. The plot was simple, so it was easy to follow, and I liked the performers. There are three sets of lead vocalists, because the parts are so demanding...but from the snippets of the soundtrack that I've heard, the couple that was playing the lead parts the night I went was the best :) They were incredible, just increible. Also, as expected, the sets were spectacular. They had a lot of depth to them, and this becomes shocking apparent at the beginning of the second act. Through the whole first act, the viwer is focused on the scene of an apartment and it's balcony, which is in the middle of the stage, and relatively small. When the second act starts though, you can hear a collective gasp from the audience...the whole thing lights up. The scenery, which is beautifully painted and lighted stretches across the whole stage and off onto the sides, giving you the appearance of a street corner. There are lights all over the ceiling, stretching from the huge light fixture in the middle of the theater forward to the stage, and the painted backdrop also has lights in it, giving one the impression that the scene stretches out for several blocks. Gosh, I know that's a clumsy description, but it was just something else. It was so cool.

Afterwards, I walked back to our hotel and went out for very tasty Indian with Will, and walked around Rockefeller Center. It was great.