On Friday, Pyrimyd hooked me up with an extra ticket to the Metropolitan Opera's first-ever open house -- he got up early a few days prior and waited in a mammoth line for free seats to the final dress rehearsal of the Anthony Minghella-directed "Madama Butterfly."  I'd never been to the opera before, and my prior experience with the form mainly consisted of me stumbling across it on the car radio and then stabbing wildly at the "scan" button...but to my slight surprise, I really enjoyed it.

We were sitting way up in the nosebleed seats, but the view was great.  I'd worried about not being able to follow the plot, but it made a lot more sense when you can see the acting (and the nifty supertitle system helped.)  And the staging was inventive and spare, with utterly fantastic lighting.

Staff were friendly and welcoming, the opera was preceded by an interesting technical discussion/Q&A about the auditorium, the staging and other behind-the-scenes stuff, and they even served us a free bag lunch.  Nice!

I think I'll be going back -- we're already talking about going back to see "The Barber of Seville" and Julie Taymor's "Die Zauberflote."  City Opera is also doing "Butterfly" later this season, so it might be interesting to see how two different companies handle the same work.

(I believe the Met will be showing tonight's opening gala performance of "Butterfly" on a big screen at the Lincoln Center plaza, as well as on the Times Square Jumbotron.)

Saturday, as promised, Chico, Pyrimyd and I went and performed in a John Cage tribute at the Brecht Forum.  I played AM radio in "Radio Music" by Cage, and also played CD player in John McDonough's Cage tribute "Landscape Under Construction."  Possibly even more fun than playing in these pieces was watching the audience reactions...which ranged from light dozing through bafflement to rapt attention. 

And yesterday?  I did absolutely nothing, and it was delightful.  B. returned from Connecticut, and we slept late, watched DVDs, hung out, made dinner, and prepped our lunches for next week.

P.S.:  Oh, didja catch Clinton's smackdown of Chris Wallace and Fox News?  It's definitely worth watching.

You know, Fox News, your "fair and balanced" channel.