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Today was a work day. I needed to have my wrinkle-resistant dress ironed, get my hair cut and coloured, find a pair of shoes to match my dress, learn how to walk again in heels, buy a small purse, and get a manicure. We’re going to the famous Teatro Colon to see Carmen!
Now we're at the opera house waiting. A half hour later, we’re still waiting. It’s past the time when the opera should begin.
Our line starts at a side entrance where others holding similar tickets are queued. I note that people with cheap seats are not even allowed through the front entrance. The side door opens onto the bottom of an airless stairwell. Even the experience of the grand lobby is only available to those with costlier seats.
But it’s not just the side-door theater goers who are prevented from entering. The diamond crowd around the front cannot enter as well. Word has it that some members of the government have been using the opera house for a function and it’s just breaking up now. The rumour is confirmed by one of a dozen armed men patrolling the alleyway. Their presence makes me uneasy and I wonder if the evening performance would be cancelled all together. Unsmiling and focused on controlling bomb-sniffing dogs on a leash, these men are dressed entirely in black: black trousers, cotton shirts, holsters, cell phones, shoes, and black dog leashes. I suppose that even a security force dresses for the opera.
The opera finally starts nearly an hour late. We find our plush velvet seats - fabulously situated in the first row of the second highest balcony - sit down and discover we also have a fabulous view of an eye-level brass railing and the upper valance of the velvet stage curtain. We can see the performance four stories below only if we stand up. But the people behind us would frown on that, even though their row starts a good four feet above ours.
The century-old Colon Theater holds 3000 people and that's a lot for an opera house of nineteenth-century European design. They squeeze them in by a kind of house-of-cards construction technique. The balconies are very nearly stacked vertically. I figure that in 1908, you would buy a cheap seat just to sit comfortably and listen to the opera and that would be special since there were few phonographs then. You bought a more expensive seat to actually see the opera.
Not to be discouraged, over the course of the first Act I try out a few positions. I kneel. That works for a while, but without a piece of refrigerator packing sponge under the knees, in time, it became too painful. I try raising the seat back and sitting on top of the four-inch metal frame. But since I kept projecting forward when the seat slipped, I opted for something safer. The best view ends up being one I got from sitting on the very front edge of the seat and pushing my head between the brass railing and the two-foot high wall on which it was mounted. I alternate this position with resting my head on my hands, draped over top of the railing, like a dog begging for good seats.
Dan was a good sport through all of this. I only brought up the memory of my mosquito bites once.
At intermission, the corridor fills up with people lighting cigarettes. In Spanish, Dan asks an attendant how they could allow smoking in such a historical building. Were they not concerned about fire? But the attendant shook his head saying "not here...because". He smiled knowingly and beckoned us around the corner and we somehow expected him to reveal a secret about the grand building's fire resistance. Instead, he proudly pointed to a brass ashtray, artfully built into the marble wainscoting. His proud gesture communicated, ‘people are not peasants here. It’s forbidden to put out a butt on the floor.’
Did I say the opera was fabulous? The production was strong and Carmen and Don Jose received standing ovations and cries of "bravo". I was so impressed with the lead singer that I stood up, put four fingers in my mouth, and let out my very best and loudest stadium whistle (one of my special talents) as I always do in such occasions at musicals and rock concerts in Toronto. Dan elbows me. “Bad move Carolann!” Cultural faux pas! And I somehow knew it instantly even before the whistle had stopped threatening the crystal teardrops of the great Edwardian chandelier. Dan informs me that according to the European custom (which is followed religiously by Argentines), I had just booed the lead singer! No worse, I had cat-called her. I could sense the blood rush to my head and my feeling of mortification made me lose all perspective. After all, since I could barely see the performance, how could anyone seated in three quarters of the rest of the theatre see me? Still the heat of what seemed like 3000 eyes made me briefly wonder if atonement lay just on the other side of the brass railing. I opted instead for a speedy exit down the six flights of stairs. Damn the new shoes!
It's a day later now. I'm over it. At least I think I’m over it until we find ourselves touring the inner city botanical gardens. As we discover, the walled oasis is a sanctuary for homeless cats. The colony thrives in the gentle outdoor climate and they are fed by locals. Yet although I love cats, I was more than a little spooked by coming face to face with so many of them the day after my accidental cat-call at the opera.
So besides learning that one should never let out a four-finger whistle at the opera, that one night in Buenos Aires taught me that in the future I should raise my fee. At the very least, a jungle excursion should get me orchestra seats, not just any seat in the house. (by C. Moisse at maturetraveler.blogspot.com)
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