Opera
I've never been to an Opera before. I've seen many musicals and loved them. I've only heard of Carmen. Since it's so famous, I assumed that it too was a musical.
Wrong.
Supposedly, it's in French with Romanian subtitles. I had no idea what this meant. Turns out that the lyrics were in French but there was a screen above the stage with the Romanian translation. I thought I could follow along with the French songs but:
a) it's opera
b) the singers were given little training on actual French pronounciation
c) normal French words won't take 10 seconds to pronounce one syllable
Yes, I was bored out of my mind. The costumes were lovely and the scenery nice, but three hours and forty five minutes of opera singing was pure torture.
I amused myself by sending SMSes.
During the intermission, I heard a girl speaking English. She's on a Fullbright scholarship from California. She asked me for my email address. I hope she'll contact me!
During the breaks, we went out on the balcony. This was where the Communist leaders stood during the Revolution. I got plenty of pictures.
The only thing keeping me awake was the thought of our reward. We decided to go to Friends to finally try their chocolate fondue. When we ordered, it turns out that they don't have it. I hope this isn't a permanent thing. So I consoled myself with some tea.
10 Comments:
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i don't like what you write about romania...coz more than half of what you write is pure crap
that opera thing was only the cherry on top of the cake
some of the things you've written about romania are quite insulting
strange but i can't stop reading ur blog, not because it's good...just because i'm curious to see what naive foreigners think about romania
i hope you won't find the word 'naive' insulting
and don't worry, i'm done with writting comments...it's simply not worth it
Then do us both a favour and don't read it. Or move to Canada and write about your experiences there. Life in either country isn't perfect and I could write much more insulting things about Canadians. This is my life here and I write about what I experience.
Strange how out of all the Romanians who read this, you're the only one who has a problem with it.
My coworkers all read it. My local Romanian friends read it. I've had conversations with other Romanians about what I write. Helped me understand more about about the society I'm living in and they could see things from another point of view.
Yet not one person has ever accused me of insulting Romanians. Yes, I get frustrated because things don't always happen with the efficiency or smoothness that I'm used to at home, and I vent my frustrations out in my blog. It's also a way that people back home can sympathise with my situation (like dealing with banks and postal outlets in a foreign language) and maybe not take for granted the ease at living our lives that we're used to.
If you don't like it, don't read it. I could honestly care less about what some anonymous person on the internet thinks. Anyone who knows me (or my sense of humour) would know that I would never deliberately insult anyone. I can't honestly think of one place where I insult Romanians. And from what I've been told by friends, Romanians often get just as frustrated with the "system" that I do. As far as I'm concerned, you're an obviously bored flamer who has nothing better to do with their time. So please do us both a favour and stop reading and commenting in this blog. Anything else you write will be promptly deleted. Goodbye.
do everybody a favour and get ur big canadian ass out of romania
why did you erased the other comments?
I wanted to read them
or are you afraid that other people might disagree with you?
I was in Bucharest on business in January 1997 and enjoyed two very delightful evenings at the opera house there. The first night they performed "Aida" in Italian. It's a famous opera about an Ethiopian slave who falls in love with an Egyptian warrior, who is in turn betrothed (promised) to his king's daughter. Very dramatic music and exciting onstage action. The following night I saw "Escape from the Seraglio" by Mozart, which was composed in German but in this production sung in Romanian. The opera house there is very beautiful, and I especially enjoyed seeing the small museum on the second floor that showed pictures of famous singers who'd performed there, as well as their costumes.
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