Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

Last week, I got to see my favorite opera, “The Magic Flute” by Mozart at Wolf Trap. Normally I don’t care for German operas, but the Queen of the Night aria is spectacular. The Pamina role was fantastic, we all agreed she was the best singer in the production we saw. I was worried about the Queen of the Night. Her voice was weak in the first act, but we think that’s because of the funny staging apparatus she was standing upon. She seemed kind of shaky. All was well when she came out for the second act with THE SONG. She was breathtaking. (FWIW, opera trivia: The highest note written for the human voice is in the Queen of the Night’s aria. However, I’ve been told now that the aria sung in The Fifth Element has the highest notes now, but I don’t think that’s true. Can anyone verify this?) Oh the other thing is that often the Three Spirits in this opera are sung by young boys. They were adorable, but terrible. That was part of their charm. They forgot their staging and were off-key a lot. It was really funny.

We sat in Center Loge seats at Wolf Trap. They’re the cheapest ones you can get under the roof. For dinner, we got a large bucket of chicken to feed 5. It was about $35 with lots of sides and extra for white meat. That was about the price of a single opera ticket. The store manager even gave us sodas for free! (Because apparently they’re not included.)

You can go cheaper for the opera by doing these things:

1) Go to an opera in the park event. They have them in San Francisco and NY. The singers are usually from young opera singer programs. It’s the best part of the opera without all the expensive staging, i.e. the arias in fully costumed singers. Usually these are free events sponsored by corporate donations.

2) Get a libretto and get lawn seating. You can enjoy the music and sit back and read along with the opera. Tickets often push down to less than $20 if you do this route. IIRC, in San Francisco, SRO tickets are $25, but there really is no seating and you cannot see the staging at all. Librettos are de rigeur there, unless you know the opera really well yourself. (Fat chance. I can’t afford to go often enough!)

3) Student discounts. If you are young enough, try to find student ticket pricing.

4) Student operas. I went to college affiliated with a conservatory and the voice students were pretty amazing. I got to go to a few operas for cheap or free at the conservatory. (Though I did miss one of my classmates doing the Queen of the Night role. One of the biggest regrets of my life. She was an amazing coloratura soprano.)

5) Volunteer! At Wolf Trap, they need ushers for the event. I am always being ushered by senior citizens who love the music there. You have to work, but in the end, it’s a very economical thing to do for shows that can cost as much as $90 for orchestra seats.

6) Pick your opera carefully. At Wolf Trap, different operas cost different amounts. Denyce Graves sang Carmen this summer and tickets for that show were $42, but the seats for the Magic Flute were $36. The Mikado, $28. It all depends on the stage production and the costs. The trick for the Mikado is that it was the NY Gilbert and Sullivan Players, which reuses their costumes and sets, unlike an original production of Carmen.

7) Recital vs. Full performance. Much like #1, you can often see stuff in recital with just singers vs full stage productions. Frequently a master class or graduate student will have to do a recital and you can see them for cheap or free. See #4.

Go cheap on the trappings: We did a fancy steak and arugula salad and wine the first time we went. The second, we decided to go with KFC. We saw some other people bring fast food, and couldn’t see a reason not to do it ourselves. Three adults and two kids. We dined at my friend’s house so we could feed her kids and then left them to their own devices for the night. If you want to get all fancied up for the event, go for it, but the beauty of outdoor productions is that it’s fine to show up in shorts and dress shirt.

9) Wolf Trap in particular allows you to bring water into the formal seating area. We always bring our own water from home to sip in the heat.

That’s all I have for you. Next time you see people with KFC and PBR at Wolf Trap, it might just be us.