My Entrance to High Society

Staircase after the Show
Originally uploaded by subatomicfilms.

Last week I went to see War and Peace at the Metropolitan Opera. My only other experience with operas was at the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of 'Samson and Delila' a few years ago, which I really enjoyed.

I went to see it, because a friend of mine is a huge fan of Tolstoy's massive original tome (which still sits unread in the office bookshelf), so I thought that this would be a good substitute. Also The Times also gave it an incredible review a few weeks ago.

The production itself was enormous and long, full of hundreds of cast members all singing their hearts out. So on an epic level it was successful. The production is pretty much divided into two parts (the opening being 'the peace', and the second part 'the war'). I found the former to be a bit slow paced, whereas the latter was was extremely dynamic, passionate and full of great production tricks.

Unfortunately, Subatomic Films hasn't hit the big money yet, so all we could afford were the cheap seats, and sitting so far away, it's a bit hard for the voices to hit you as strongly as they should.