If you plan to attend an event like this at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, and you are a guy, be sure you don't drink much all day, cause while there is a women's room, the only facilities for men in sight are unisex family bathrooms. Luckily, I was in a good way tonight, which isn't usual for me. TMI.
What really got my knickers in a bunch, though, was the group parked right in front of us. This was wife's view of the stage.
Apparently the Phi Beta Kappa Twin Cities Association was meeting up at this Opera event, and they wanted EVERYONE to know, especially the people behind them. I told wife not to worry, surely they would take it down when the opera began. At 15 minutes to showtime, I went to find out that there were no designated men's facilities, and waited in line for the "family bath" rooms. There are so many things wrong with calling a room the "family bath" room, but let's leave that one alone.
When I got back to wife, she relayed the following to me.
Two guys, obviously college students, perhaps grad students, who spoke with thick accents, from somewhere where soccer and cricket are likely popular, asked the guy by the sign "I want to know, if we sit over there or here, will you take the sign down when the event starts?" The first guy ignored them. They moved on to the guy standing up by the sign and asked the same question. The standing up guy said "no matter where you sit, you won't be able to see the stage anyway, so it doesn't matter."
The two guys walked away. Another college aged girl carrying a Barnes and Noble bag, long dark curly hair, comes over and points to the sign. The guy starts to get defensive. She asks "are you the Phi Beta Kappa group?" He says "yes." She says "I'm here for you." he changes demeanor completely into Nice Guy Ned. He makes room for her, offers her a cookie and stuff to sign.
Then a woman in pink comes and asks if he's the Phi Beta Kappa group, as if the sign isn't RIGHT THERE.
This woman, the one wearing pink and a hat:
They make room for her. then they discuss what happened with the sign. She said: "Good for you, you want to make sure that they know their place."
That ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
Now, I can't say if this was a racist comment, or a class-based comment. In any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't a comment that can be painted over with some easy explanation unless she has a really dry sense of humor that makes no one laugh. But perhaps that comes from being part of a honor society that makes you feel superior to other people.
.Anyway, racist/classicist/classist(?) groups aside, I assured wife that I would step up to the plate and be an ass if I needed to be. The music began, and the sign wasn't going down. After a few measures, and a tweet, I said rather loudly "Hey, Phi Beta Kappa, could you take down your sign now?" the guy turned and looked at me, blinked, probably gauging if I could see the stage if he moved the sign, and moved to take down the sign. I thanked him "thank you very much." and we moved into the Opera.
They put the sign up again at intermission, and had to be verbally reminded again to please take it down thank you very much.
The concert was of "La Boeheme" a story of a group of friends at the end of the 19th Century who party hard, fall in love, and lose love to consumption. If you have seen "Rent" you know all the basic beats of the plot and characters. Me, I had an unhealthy obsession with Rent in high school, so reading the synopsis before the opera began I felt like I was treading on familiar ground.
The music was rather hard to hear at times, even though we were closer than half the people attending. Though there were microphones around the stage, they weren't used by individual performers. Only when people really belted out an aria's glory notes would the audience really get excited, partly because of the beauty of the music, but also partly because they could actually hear it.
I loved the introduction of love in the first act, signaled wonderfully by the light, romantic turn in the music, and aided by the diving sparrows around the park as they hunted bugs in the pink, Minnesota dusk. The setting was lovely, the picnic wife made of bagels with cream cheese and turkey was divine, and the whiskey and ginger drinks we brought in a thermos the shiny cap on a wonderful event. Wife took this picture of the feet of someone who knew exactly how to enjoy this time.
I'd entirely recommend going to such free opera in the park events, but be sure to get their plenty early to get good seats, hopefully not behind haughty signage.
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