Carmen

One of our summer traditions is participating in the Take A Child to the Opera event. Last year when Marina learned that Carmen was the featured opera this year she immediately wanted to go. She decided she wanted to wear a sparkly red dress, after all, red is the color most commonly associated with the main character.

We didn’t get as early a start as I had hoped. It was a long drive to the mountain town, but Marina passed much of the trip by admiring the scenery. She even took pictures with her phone.

We were a bit late, but fortunately they hadn’t started yet. Each child was given a list of clues for a scavenger hunt and a bag of supplies. With these they went from place to place and had their gold ore weighed and got candy in payment for it, created a souvenir coin and wrote down important dates from plaques. When they completed the scavenger hunt, they were given a pair of sunglasses as a prize.

We took a break for lunch. Marina and I had a picnic in our usual spot, the garden on the west side of the opera house. After lunch we went back to the stables where we had a special speaker, the actress who plays Carmen in the regular production of the opera. She sang a bit and demonstrated how she uses the castanets in a dance. Each child got a set of plastic castanets to practice with.

Before the opera we lined the streets to watch the usher march. As usual, it was fun to see. Then we lined up at the opera house to take our seats. We had a good view of the stage and Marina was anxious for the show to begin. When the lights went down she was audibly excited.

The opera is a long one, but it was very well done. The young artists in the lead roles were very talented and fun to watch. Marina particularly enjoyed the “Toreador” song. At intermission we went out to the patio to stretch our legs. While we were outside we saw many of the musicians enjoying their break.

 When the show was over, we went to the patio for the meet and greet. Of course, Marina wanted to meet them all. It was quite a lot of people, so we waited for the crowd to die down before we got in for pictures. That gave Marina a bit of time to talk to them as well.

After the meet and greet we went back to the car for the long trip back home. Marina still enjoyed looking at the mountains. She had a snack while we drove home after a fun but tiring day.