Regular readers of the Tempo section will recall that I recently described how I, a blue jeans-and-plaid shirts kind of guy, became the proud owner of my own tuxedo, only to realize that I needed more reasons to wear it.
A few Fridays after the article appeared, a flu-ridden friend offered me her ticket to the opera the next night. Only after accepting did I learn that the opera in question, Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” began at 6 p.m. and lasted past 11 p.m.
Getting your first exposure to opera with five hours of Wagner is a bit like taking up mountaineering by climbing Everest, or running for president after serving less than two terms as governor of Texas. The opportunity to wear my tux to the opera on a Saturday night was too good to pass up, though, even if there was a chance I’d end up falling asleep in it.
As it turned out, I was one of the few men wearing tuxes who weren’t in the orchestra pit. If, like me, you imagined Saturday night at the opera as some sort of glamorama, think again. Instead of a glittering, high-society gathering, in fact, the opera bears unexpected similarities to a baseball game.
At ballgames, people hawk programs. At the Lyric Opera House, a pair of guys repeatedly belt out, in unison, a sales pitch for libretti (plural of “libretto,” the opera’s text with English translation). Not that you need one, because English translations of what is being sung are projected above the stage as super-titles, the opera equivalent of a Jumbotron.
You can’t eat a hot dog and pretzel in your seat, but during the intermissions people stretch out on the lobby stairs with the box lunches the Lyric sells. There also are plenty of refreshments available, although you’re more likely to get champagne and Toblerone than peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Like baseball games, the opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings, but whether you’re at Comiskey Park, Wrigley Field or the Lyric, things tend to end badly. “Tristan und Isolde” may be a love story, but because it’s an opera, and 19th Century German opera, no less, the title characters can attain true romantic union only in death. Alone for a precious hour in Act II, all they do is talk about “our longed-for love-death.” Maybe super-titles aren’t such a good idea after all.
So if the opera was a bust, what’s a tuxedo owner to do? Next time I get a hankering for high culture, I think I’ll suit up and rent “A Night at the Opera” instead. When it comes to formal-wear role models, Groucho Marx seems more like my kind of guy.
