http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/arts/music/20oper.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin <-- Many Nights at the Opera Involve Emergency Room

The Tristan und Isolde incident is in there. Long story short, the lead soprano ran off stage in the second act and was replaced by an understudy. The understudy who probably had never rehearsed with the orchestra....practiced the blocking.

LIstening to the radio today, I was very disturbed by the way the one song faded away to another. See, it wasn't even a fade away. A new song played on top of the old one and the old one just disappeared. But what was most disturbing was that they were in two different keys. Dissonant ones. The new one was a half-step higher. And ah...all those flatted/diminished seconds. I almost threw up.

Note to self: Look up when to use flatted, diminished, augmented, sharped.

So I went to Hoboken last Friday to see The Wiz. Lauren, Catherine, and I get off on Willow and 6th Street. And the school is on the corner of 6th and Park. But we have no idea where it is. So we pick a direction and start walking. We walk about two or three blocks when we see a dry cleaners. I go in and find out that we've been walking in the wrong direction. We turn around and walk and walk and walk. We see the school and decide to head up to the main street and grab a slice of pizza before the show. There was maybe an hour before the show. We sit down and order drinks and as we're about to order the slices...I get a call from the scarecrow shouting, "Cindy! Where are you guys? They just opened house and people are piling in. Get down here now! I gotta go." So we run out of there with a giant pizza box, a diet Coke, a Snapple, and a ginger ale bottled like beer. We run down to the school and find out that house has not opened. There was barely any one there. But I paid for the tickets and sat outside...in the cold...eating gigantic slices of pizza, drizzling oil over the white cement. Catherine stopped chewing long enough to say, "I hope anyone we know doesn't walk by and see us here like bums." It doesn't help that I have this ginger ale beer bottle in my hand, does it? And well, five minutes later, someone we know walks on by. Catherine, now mortified, has hidden herself behind her pizza.
Across the street there's a lady who's staring at us, actually at me, and gave me the smallest shake of her head. I think she might've thought I was drunk. I wasn't....but it's Hoboken. And it's Friday. There's always someone drunk. So the real dilemma is where to throw the box? The nearest garbage can is up there by the pizzeria. So Lauren and I leave Catherine to trek up and throw the box out. Catherine calls me on the way up. "Cindy...I'm scared. There are people." Lauren's struggling with the box. "It's not fitting. Quick. Is anyone looking?" Before I can say anything, she knees the box, bends it in half, and efficiently stuffs it in the garbage can.

The show itself was great. I really enjoyed it. I also figured out how the witch "disappeared." It came as a random burst during chorus. "You stripped, had clothes under, and blended in with the rest of the group."
Yep yep.

Now...Madam Butterfly, April 4th. Btw, it's an actual Asian. Lol. That should prove that Asians can make it out there. And my parents say to that, "But those stage and tv people are special." Oh whatever. She still has to work hard.