A Night at the Opera
My parents wanted to set me up to be a cultured person. They sent me to museums, plays, concerts, Paris—and one indelible night in the ‘70s, to the opera. I may have been more entertained watching The Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera , but I see what they were up to almost fifty years later. Opera was still a viable art form at the time, and Cleveland hosted a hoity-toity opera week. Until 1986, New York’s Metropolitan Opera resided here for several nights every spring . Each performance was preceded by a tony black-tie dinner that ended abruptly when a master of ceremonies banged a gong, signaling that the start of the performance was imminent. The dinner was better than the opera. Soporific, excruciating, endless—these words come to mind when describing the experience. It was three or more hours long. I cannot recall the opera precisely, but I want to say it was La Bohème . I remember seeing a live elephant during an exclusive backstage tour, indicating that Ai...
