So the Opera, where do I begin? We read in a number of guides that you could get standing room only tickets the day of the Opera for really cheap so we decided to give it a try. Kyle, Dina or I had never been to an Opera other than Phantom of the Opera, but I'm not sure you can really count that! When we had checked on Tuesday night, they told us we had to get in the queue for tickets between 5-5:15. After we grabbed sandwiches for dinner we took our place in line. I'd say there were maybe 30 people in front of us, and you could tell many of them were not Opera rookies like us! They had little folding chairs and reading materials for while they waited in the line. The security was pretty strict in that you could not leave your place in line at all, otherwise you had to get in the back. We watched a group of 3 people where the one guy left to go get coffee or something and they would not let him back in line with the rest of his group. Finally, a little before 6:00 they started to move everyone through the ticket line. You could pay 3 Euro for tickets up top or 4 Euro for tickets on the bottom floor. We opted for the tickets up top just because we figured we would have better photo opps. After purchasing our tickets they shuttled everyone up the staircase and had us wait in another line. Around 6:15, they opened the doors and everyone made a run for the best standing room seats. Again, you could tell we were the rookies because we were completely unsure of where to go while others knew exactly where they wanted to be. I wouldn't be surprised if there were fights for areas at times. There were 2 rows of standing area, each with a railing in between. Think bleachers style. Once you got to your "area", you staked your claim by spreading a scarf or ribbon along the railing. Again, we were rookies because the only thing we had was the scarf I had been wearing - the veterans brought everything from shoelaces and ribbons to mark their territory. We then were forced to check our coats and bags. After checking everything, we had about 40 minutes to kill before we had to be back in our "seats" so decided to walk around and take some pictures. The inside of the opera house was just like you would envision it in the movies - a huge marble staircase in the front of the building, box seats all in the mezzanine levels, beautiful woodwork and sculptures throughout. It was gorgeous. We walked downstairs to take some pictures and quickly decided we were the rift raft of the show. Most of the men had on jackets and ties, some even had tuxs and many of the women were all dressed in ballgowns. Meanwhile, we are in jeans and track jackets from walking around outside all day. We were all thirsty so we decided to stop at one of the concessions and purchase some bottled water, which was served in a glass and cost more than our actual ticket! While we stood around drinking our water we just did some people watching - it was interesting that while the majority of the people attending were older, many looked as though they were around our age or just slightly older. After finishing our drinks we headed back up to where we belonged, with the rest of the tourists in jeans and the old, cagey veterans in their shirts and ties with their little foldable stools.
The show we were seeing was called La Forza del Destino by Giuseppe Verdi. It is a relatively famous Italian opera based on a Spanish drama Don Alvaro (thank you Wikipedia). It started out with the full orchestra playing some beautiful music while a weird video was played on the screen covering the stage. After the orchestra was finished their piece, they raised the video screen and the opera began. Man did those singers own a set of pipes! While I thought the people in Phantom of the Opera could sing, I'd never heard anyone that could sing like these people. The entire thing was in Italian, however they had little screens on the back of each seat (or in our case along the railing) where you could see a translation of what they were saying. Despite those screens, the story was definitely still difficult to follow. According to Wikipedia
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