Last Saturday night was the opening of San Diego Opera’s 2007 season. The opera: “Boris Godunov,” the attire: formal. First confession: This was my first opening night at the opera. Any opera. That’s not really the big story for me that evening.
Somehow I landed in the local newspaper’s “Currents” section.
The opera itself was amazing, Ferruccio Furlanetto stole the show and the supporting cast was nothing less than superb. I was transfixed, even when the lady next to me seemed to be sleeping — only to wake up and check her cell-phone.
Second confession: I leaned too far forward to reach my bottled water under the seat and I split the side-zipper on my dress. It was worse than a wardrobe malfunction because the zipper goes from top to almost the bottom — it was a formal-wear crisis. Luckily, I had a jacket that mostly covered the split. The dress survived the show and we even went to Denny’s afterwards (as opposed to the many post-opera parties I’m sure the opera patrons attended). The only problem was getting the dress off. We had to use pliers.
Third confession: I was a little confused about some of the fashion choices. I left my date at intermission and went upstairs just to people-watch. The most surprising outfit I saw was a man in a full-length mink coat over a tuxedo. I saw sashes and medals and small trains on women’s gowns. I saw elaborate make-up and sparkling jewels.
But again, here’s my take on the show. Were you there? Do you have any good opera stories? Or wardrobe malfunctions? Email me at molly.bettiga@voiceofsandiego.org.
I’ll be blogging about performing arts in San Diego, so let me know if you have any questions about what’s coming up this year.