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Boy, I made that too small, didn't I? That's the Staatsoper but you can barely see it and now I don't know how to make it bigger.

Here's the inside. Now that looks too big. But it was pretty amazing.

Yes, we did go to Rigoletto at the Staatsoper last night. We “skipped” the instrument museum (there may have been a comment to the effect that Leopold’s violins are as numerous as fragments of the True Cross, and that if you put all of Leopold’s violins together you could build Carnegie Hall but that may have been a figment of my overactive imagination) so we could get in line for the standing room at about 12:45 in the afternoon. It was a good thing we did because the line went around the block. It was a quintessentially Viennese experience to stand in line for close to seven hours then “run” for our places in the parterre standing room. We ended up right in the front and it was a fabulous experience.

Mary, my amazing roommate, went with us. When I went to Venice, she went to Krakow and then to Czestochowa to see the Icon of the “Black Madonna.” She’s from Boston and is the head of the math department at a Jesuit all boys school. That is pretty “hardcore,” as she likes to say in her Boston accent. It’s an adjective that will definitely be added to my vocabulary from now on. Here we are getting ready to run for our standing places.

The production was very traditional, with lovely Renaissance sets and beautiful elaborate costumes. Rigoletto was played by this old Italian guy, Leo Nucci, who was fantastic. Twice during the opera, once after the Gilda scene and once after the main virtuoso “La Ra etc.” scene, he brought the house down with the audience yelling and cheering (yes, we were among them) and broke out of character to acknowledge the Bravos. This drove Pete up the wall, since he said it was just not done any more and he thought it was incredibly cheesy. I, on the other hand, thought it was fabulous to see, just like in the old days of opera. Diana Damrau, who sang Gilda, was also wonderful. Her Caro Nome was absolutely breathtaking.

Afterwards we went out to the Sacher Hotel (where Sacher Torte was invented) and celebrated our evening. (You may notice this happening just about every night at this point.)

On a final Marriage of Figaro note: after studying the finale, I am more convinced than ever that my interpretation is correct. The whole opera is about the power of love through forgiveness. But now on to Don Giovanni, which is about a guy being dragged down to Hell! That’s the one we’re going to see next year in Seattle!