The Civic Opera House.

Hace exactamente dos semanas fuimos a la opera. Hacia tiempo que habiamos hablado sobre ello y desde que hicimos el tour por el rio Chicago y vimos el grandioso edificio, supe que queria ir al menos una vez a ver una opera. La verdad es que fue mi regalo de Navidad para Thomas, pero con entrada incluida para mi.
Las entradas estaban agotadas para varias de las operas que habia, unas dos obras distintas por mes. Mi idea era ir a ver "Carmen" en Abril, pero las entradas estaban agotadisimas y lo unico que pude encontrar disponible, con una buena entrada (el precio esta por las nubes) fue para febrero "Lohengrin" de Wagner.
Aqui os dejo el link para que veais la historia, el elenco de personajes, etc.
Two weeks ago we went to the opera. We had talked about it many times and since we did the tour along the Chicago river and I saw the building of the Civic Opera House, I knew I wanted to go there at least once. The truth is that it was my Christmas present for Thomas with an extra ticket for me :)
It is not easy to get tickets since they are sold out many months in advance. There are around two plays per month and my idea was going to "Carmen" in April, but the tickets were sold out of course. I looked for something available with good seats (it is pretty expensive) and I found it for February. It was "Lohengrin" by Wagner.
Here I show you the link for the play, the cast, story, characters, etc.

http://www.lyricopera.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=9818

Nuestros asientos estaban en el primer balcon y se veia el escenario estupendamente. El sonido era muy bueno y sinceramente creo que eran mejores asientos que en la planta baja en la parte trasera.
Our seats were on the first balcony and our view was great. The sound was also excellent and to be honest, I believe we had better seats than the ones downstairs at the back, even though they were more expensive.





La historia me gusto, al igual que los personajes y la musica. He de decir que la orquesta era de primera :). La opera duro cuatro horas y media, con dos descansos de media hora incluidos.
Habia gente joven, pero dominaba la tercera edad, jeje!! Tambien habia algunas personas estiradas que parecian adineradas y que miraban por encima del hombro en plan "que hacen estos aqui?", pero bueno, yo iba a lo mio. Tambien habia mucha gente que creia que vestia de modo muy estiloso, pero yo les daba una buena leccion de como vestir. Esta parte fue bastante entretenida y de hecho, estoy pensando muy seriamente el dedicar un texto a los modelos que vi aquella noche...
I liked the story, the characters and the music. The orchestra was outstanding and it took four hours, including two breaks of half an hour.
There were young people, but the "golden generation" people were the majority, haha! There were also kind of rich people who looked at us with a face of "what the hell are they doing here?" but I didn't pay any attention. There were also people who believed they were stylish, but I'd like to teach them something about what to wear. This was something pretty entertaining and I'm seriously thinking of writing a post about all the dresses and awful clothes I saw that day...
Lo mas importante fue la obra, las voces, la musica tan poderosa estilo Wagneriano, nada melodico, pero si muy potente y naturalmente, la puesta en escena, con mas de 100 personas sobre el escenario mas la grandisima orquesta. Bastante impresionante.
Mis personajes favoritos fueron "los malos", en este caso Ortrud y Telramund. Ademas, la obra se desarrollaba en Brabant, si señor, de donde viene Thomasito y estaba escrita en aleman, por lo que pudimos entender la mayoria de la letra (aunque habia una pantalla con subtitulos).
The most important things were the play itself, the voices, the powerful music, pure Wagnerian style, not melodic but very strong and of course, the acting with more than 100 people on the stage together with the big orchestra. Pretty impressive.
My favorite characters were the "bad guys", Ortrud and Telramund. Moreover, the play takes place in Brabant, yes!! where Thomas comes from and it was written in German, so we could understand the lyrics easily, even though there were English subtitles.
Para concluir, decir que la experiencia fue positiva, lo pasamos bien, fue cultural, interesante y unico. Esto ultimo porque no creo que pueda comprar entradas muy a menudo, jeje! Al menos, merecio la pena :)

In conclusion I have to say that it was again a positive experience, we had a lot of fun, it was very cultural an unique experience. I say unique because I don't think I can buy tickets very often, haha! At least, it worth it!! :)