The Opera on a rainy Sunday

Today we went to an opera. Jenufa.  The music and lyrics were Russian (or Czech, we never could figure that out) the subtitles were in French, but the music was universal.  We loved it.

The day started slowly.  Rain, cold, we just hung out at the apartment and ate croissant and coffee/tea.  Got ready for the 2:30 opera, wondering, what should we wear?  Did people really dress up?  If so we were screwed, so we wore our black uniforms, black pants, black shirt, black shoes, black coat.  I did, however, dress up with a necklace and a colored scarf and Jerry wore his sport coat.  We needn't have worried.  People were in all sorts of stages of dress, blue jeans to sparkles.

Here are a few pictures of the lobby and inside of the theatre.

we were in the 3rd balcony....another one above us. not quite the

 nose-bleed section but close

It wasn't full, but I took these pictures before a lot had come.

the ceiling

My darling

full orchestra

seats for the king and queen?  Some commoner sat there.  Some RICH commoner

Seats on the floor were 88 Euros each, so I wonder what these were?

Proscenium

We really enjoyed it.  We had read the synopsis on Google before we came, so we knew the plot, but don't all operas have the same plot?  Girl meets boy, falls in love with the wrong one, mother says no, another boy takes over and they all live happily ever after.  Except in this one the mother kills the illegitimate baby she has with boy #1 and Boy #2 cuts her face so she is disfigured.  Those eastern Europeans are darker than we are.

During intermissions, the French go out in the lobby and schmooze and drink wine.

 Gotta love this country!

Then the last scene, which I snuck a picture of.

After the opera we met our new friend Laurence at a cafe.  Laurence is a professional English trainer, who knew Andrea Luhrs (Jon and Deb's daughter that we saw here last year).  Andi set up a meeting with her and she is going to give us a tour of Southern France (she does this for $$$).  We immediately liked her and set up a couple of times that we will be able to meet her later in the week.

I expressed a desire to see the Mediterranean Sea and she suggested St. Marie de la Mer, which is just south of here about an hour away.  So today we will go to the bus depot, and see if we can get there easily.  If so, our next post may be from the seaside eating Bouillabaisse.  Dinner last night was OK but not worth writing about.  Home to talk to the kids on Google talk and Jerry drunk dialing friends.   Life is good.  A bientot!