# For kids -- once more, with the reason



## ThomasI (Nov 22, 2017)

A few weeks ago, I asked this question: "what opera should I take my kids to see: Turandot or Lucia."

And I am still stressing over this. A lot. I have spent the last three weeks going back and forth and back and forth. So now I think I should give the backstory.

And I am sorry for this operatic post, but I really like opera.

And to be honest, I wrote this and am posting it to just say one thing: I love opera.

And to tell you why this is so important to me. I need to share this, story. I am posting it for me.

In NYC, it is illegal to offer to re-sell your ticket to shows; but it is legal to offer to buy someone’s tickets. If you are ever near a theater, ballet, symphony or sporting event in NYC and have back-up options on a given night, then look for those people standing outside the theater holding their tickets in plain view. They want to sell (but they cannot tell you that); so you make an offer (it is legal to ask); and you state your price near curtain time, or go home.

I have probably seen about 200 opera performances at the Met, paying just dollars on the hundred, often from orchestra seats (which I knew would be empty). I don’t know why I got fixated on opera—I just did. I have seen the grandest performances and stage settings and heard the strongest and lyrical voices, most confident and expressive conductors, and the most resonant and mellifluous orchestra and chorus. I know nothing about music theory and voices; and you have just read the only adjectives I know for opera. I cannot hold a note, or play an instrument and cannot read music, but I know what makes me feel good; and those performances made me feel good.

Those were very lonely years for me (for personal reasons—a very difficult, “me-too,” adolescence, that took me years to understand—enough of that story), made worse by the fact that very few people, my age, from the Bronx, loved opera. 

I always went alone. Two hundred shows and I never went with another person. Maybe it was me—probably it was my problem.

After the performance, I’d walk to Columbus Circle and catch the northbound D train to the last stop. From there, I’d have to take the bus further on. However, by 11PM, the buses were few. 

The winters were the worst. I’d exit the subway and sometimes just miss the bus, and would have to wait 45 minutes in the cold for the next one.

In my the cold, I’d relive moments of such extraordinary beauty, such transcendent sounds, such magical sets, that the surrounding snow seemed like sand on Jones Beach. (OK, so that is it for all the music adjectives I know.)

I don’t know music. I am an engineer. I only know that for those two hours, I felt less lonely, in the darkness, with those voices.

However, I would always know one thing. I could never turn to a friend and say: “Did you hear Leontyne Price’s voice in that final act? Did you see that set?”

I had no one.

I could only whisper it to the traffic light; and that just intensified the loneliness. No one saw me crying.

There are many forms of pain in this world. I understand that the pain I felt during those year’s pales in comparison to the suffering played out on our television sets, nightly. However, it was my pain, and my loneliness. 

The inability to turn to a friend and recollect a shared beauty magnifies loneliness.

Years have passed and I have weathered the storm well. I am fortunate to have found love with a smart and beautiful woman who is the mother to my children and my passionate friend. I am grateful that time has dulled the wounds that kept me from friendship with others. I have friends now.

I would never go back in time to hold that young man and tell him: “it will all work out. Life gets good.” 

That would be a cheap science fiction.

It is much better that that young man does not know that the currents of time take away the pain; it is better that feels his heart ripped asunder at the inability to have a witness to shared beauty. 

So now, this coming March, I take my wife and kids to NYC, and I will pay for those orchestra seats. I hope my children like opera as much as I do; but if they don’t that’s fine. I am paying this money for those four orchestra seats for myself: I know that is selfish; but my family agreed to this as a Christmas present to me. 

When that curtain comes down, and the images of the set remain on my retina, and the reverberations of the orchestra echoes in my ears, I won’t be going home, alone, this time.

----

So, what is it? Turandot (spectacle) or Lucia (lyrical) (they are also doing Luisa Miller that week). I did not mention this last time, but I have seen them all, several times (but the last time I saw an opera was ten years ago – I no longer live in NYC and, well, our kids were young and my career took off). 

Turandot has that set. But you only see it twice. Still, I loved when you see the waving handkerchiefs and then the lights go out. The stage sticks in your eyes.

But the music does not stick in your head, except maybe for Nessun Dorma.

Lucia is dark and dreary set. But it has that mad scene and the sextet and then the finale and the music that goes so soft and pretty.

There is Luisa, and Verdi always makes me feel good. But the set is dark.

This night is so important to me. I am stressing more over this that I would have thought. This night will cost me two thousand dollars. My wife and kids (15 and 13), read music, play multiple instruments and can tell one note from another (I can only say if I like the sound); they have never seen an opera, but they have agreed to do this for me—they know what this is about.

So if you are a teenager who can read music, and play an instrument, which one?

I can’t make up my mind. I have already had bouts of crying as I imagine the chandeliers rising.

Please tell me why you think one or the other, or Luisa Miller.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I prefer Turandot.


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## Amara (Jan 12, 2012)

I still think Turandot for the happy ending but since your kids are musical why not let them listen to some of the music of both and let them choose?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Once again, without a doubt (I am thinking of your children -- not of you!) TURANDOT!
Actually, if you read back to many of the previous posts you will see more recommendations for Turandot which should make it much easier for you. 
(However, it seems to me from reading your posts that you, yourself would possibly prefer them to see Lucia, so if it means that much to you, take them to Lucia. They'll get to see Turandot some day too.)


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## Jemarchesurtousleschemins (Apr 3, 2017)

As a teenager and musician myself (surprise! I'm a teenager, and I play violin, viola (just picked it up recently), piano (but not very well), and I sing), my advice would be to let your kids listen to excerpts from all three operas, and pick the one they like best.

(To be honest, if I were going that week, I'd pick _Luisa Miller_ in a heartbeat, what with Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczala singing Luisa and Rodolfo, and it being a Verdi opera I love and that I really want to see, somewhat dull production or not. But that's just my opinion, and your kids' could be very different. )

I've also never been to the Met, and I am becoming insanely jealous of your kids as I also imagine the chandeliers going up.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I am still saying :Lucia di Lammermoor, can't you just first show them a few clips from YouTube?


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Listening to or watching excerpts with your family is good advice.

My two cents is to try to remember your feelings after seeing each of those operas for the first time. Which is the better memory?

If you are still in doubt, go for the happier ending.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Did we ever find out the age of the kids/children?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I prefer Lucia, but Turandot is better for first timers. As one of my colleagues who didn't know much opera said, "Puccini's music always has the hook!"

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

_Lucia_ is a depressing tale of depressing relationships between depressing people set in the most depressing landscape of the most climatically depressing country on earth.

Nobody can say what _Turandot_ is really about but wow it looks spectacular and sends you away happy (if you can forget about Liu).


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