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OperaSIG

 

Page Guide

 

What We Do

 

The phrase "Opera Special Interest Group" (a/k/a "OperaSIG") seems a little grandiose for what we actually do.

No, we don't have any:

  • dues;

  • officers (well, "Captain-Commander" is a pretty good self-appointed office -- not that it pays anything, or has any honor, of course);

  • newsletter;

  • membership roster; or

  • minimum attendance requirements.

This webpage is pretty much it.

 

What we do offer is:

For bureaucracy, though, you're pretty much stuck with this webpage.

 

The Event, Dates and Times

 

What do we actually do? Opera SIG goes to Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD! This is the Saturday matinee (well, mid-morning, West Coast time) of the Metropolitan Opera, live and in High-Definition big-screen audio-visual cinematic splendor! The Met now broadcasts the live performance to selected high-tech theaters worldwide. We go to the very-high-tech theater in Tustin.

 

Warning! The show sometimes sells out days in advance, even after the theater has allocated extra screens. You might want to buy advance tickets.

 

The show starts at 10:00 AM, but we gather at the tables across from the snack bar at 9:00 AM (inside the theater) to chat and drink coffee -- and to delegate one of our number (on a rotating basis) to save some seats for us in the theater proper. Cinemas -- those barbarians! -- invariably use festival seating rather than the assigned seating system which is used by the Met (and by every other opera company on the planet). Look for my smiling face at the snack bar tables.

 

After the show, we walk to one of the many eateries available at the "The District" in Tustin and have a late lunch. My traditional conversation starter is, "So, what did you think of the sets in Act 2, Scene 1?". Feel free to talk religion and/or politics -- topics which have a way of creeping into The Opera. No, it's not like the Baja LasVegastan Independence Day Celebration, at which the discussion of religion and/or politics will cause your feet to be immersed in whipped cream.

 

Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD meets as follows for 2010-11:

 

October 9
Wagner’s Das Rheingold
James Levine; Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Patricia Bardon, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, Franz-Josef Selig, Hans-Peter König
 

October 23
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov
Valery Gergiev; Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Oleg Balashov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Mikhail Petrenko, Vladimir Ognovenko

November 13
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale
James Levine; Anna Netrebko, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, John Del Carlo

December 11
Verdi’s Don Carlo
Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Eric Halfvarson

January 8
Puccini’s La Fanciulla Del West
Nicola Luisotti; Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani, Juha Uusitalo

February 26
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride
Patrick Summers; Susan Graham, Plácido Domingo, Paul Groves, Gordon Hawkins

March 19
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Patrick Summers; Natalie Dessay, Joseph Calleja, Ludovic Tézier, Kwangchul Youn

April 9
Rossini’s Le Comte Ory
Maurizio Benini; Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Susanne Resmark, Juan Diego Flórez, Stéphane Degout, Michele Pertusi

April 23
Strauss’s Capriccio
Andrew Davis; Renée Fleming, Sarah Connolly, Joseph Kaiser, Russell Braun, Morten Frank Larsen, Peter Rose

April 30
Verdi’s Il Trovatore
James Levine; Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky

May 14
Wagner’s Die Walküre
James Levine; Deborah Voigt, Eva Maria Westbroek, Stephanie Blythe, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, Hans-Peter König

 

The Place

 

AMC Tustin Legacy 14
2457 PARK AVE
TUSTIN, CA 92782

 

Membership Requirements (such as they are)

 

OperaSIG is, technically, a Special Interest Group (SIG) of Orange County Mensa. However, it by no means limits its membership to:

  • those with tickets for Saturday's performance; nor to

  • card-carrying members of Mensa (whether of Orange County Mensa, American Mensa, or Mensa International).

 

Our only limitations are that:

  • you must love opera; and

  • you must at least tolerate breaking bread with a group of highly-intelligent opera lovers.

Not a Ticket-Holder for Today's Performance?

 

Some of you may have seen a similar performance before our SIG meeting Saturday morning, and therefore not interested in rolling out of bed at 8:00 AM on a Saturday morning. If you'll be within easy driving distance of Irvine Spectrum, then we'd love to break bread with you after the show (and after the coffee has kicked in). Regale us with comparisons between your experience and our description of the Met's latest effort. Contact me for my cell phone number, so that we can arrange when and where to meet.

 

Some of you may be seeing the performance as a rebroadcast after our SIG meeting Saturday morning. If you'll be within easy driving distance of ITustin then we'd love to break bread with you after the show. We'll speculate on how we may regale you  with what to look for in the Met's latest effort. Contact me for my cell phone number, so that we can arrange when and where to meet.

 

Would You Like an Email Reminder?

 

Would you like an email reminder of future OperaSIG events? Send me an email (or hand me your email address at our late lunch and I'll hook you up with our yahoo-group. If you're web-savvy, feel free to sign up (or sign out!) directly. You'll get an automatic reminder three days before each event -- and another reminder one day before the event.

 

Yes, if you show up for late lunch and already are in my email contacts list, then I'll send you an email inviting you to join this email reminder service. No, I won't subscribe you to this service unless and until you ask me to. A successful OperaSIG is good; having some good friends is even better.

 

Yes, you can leave the yahoo-group (and stop getting notices) any time you want. If you're having difficulty signing out directly, then send me an email; I'll sign you out myself. A successful OperaSIG ... oh, I already said that.

 

I welcome comments on this reminder service.

 

Disclaimer

 

It's hard to imagine OperaSIG's activities as being particularly controversial; but, no, we don't speak for:

None of these entities has any control over us, nor has any responsibility (financial or otherwise) for what we do.

 

Well, yes, Orange County Mensa sometimes gives us a link from its website, and a mention in its newsletter. Sometimes. When its Webmaster (and/or Calendar Editor) feels like it and/or has some space.

 

Sheesh! Lawyers! And I'm a lawyer myself!

 


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