Opera: La Boheme (UCH)

It was months ago that we saw La Boheme advertised at the University Concert Hall, Limerick. We were actually at another opera at the time - either Aida or Nabucco, I forget which. They generally run as a pair. Anyway, we booked tickets on the spot and kept those tickets safe ever since - they were a bit dog-eared by this evening!

As normal, we decided to eat at the Merry Pedlar pub in the Castletroy Park Hotel beforehand. It's just across the road from the university, and the cuisine is mild enough to suit my mother, who wouldn't eat in Chung's Cuisine Chinese restaurant, in the same complex. So anyway, we took a table - we were early enough to beat the pre-concert rush - and soon had our orders taken. My mother went for the salmon, as usual, and I decided to try one of the specials - the chicken parmiganna (sic) - chicken fillet with a cheese sauce topping, served on pasta.

The pinot grigio we ordered was quite nice. However, I do not know what it is, but it takes forever for food to arrive in this establishment. Granted, we could have had a starter to pass the time, but still, half an hour for mains to arrive seems excessive. And, while you could argue that they were cooking the food from fresh, neither of us thought our food smacked of freshness, although I could be wrong. Finally, in my case at least, despite chicken that had a breadcrumb coating and a covering of cheese sauce, and pasta immersed in tomato sauce, my dinner tasted of very little. We decided, despite being quite early, that we wouldn't risk a dessert - despite a tempting list, we had no idea how long it would take to arrive. And so, two glasses of wine and two main courses (at least one bland) cost us over €42. Seems excessive.

We got a parking space quite near the door, and entered the lobby area of the concert hall. They have a new idea - a concession stand. Quite a great idea, as alcohol ain't the only thing customers want - this stand contains crisps and chocolate, and provides a base for people to stand while selling ice cream from the portable cart - the solitary barman certainly didn't have much time to sell anything other than alcohol. So we bought a couple of ice creams and headed to the cafe at the side to find a seat - there is hardly any seating in the main lobby area. And we people-watched - the crowd that comes to the concert hall tends to dress up, and we found many outfits to comment on. As well as the fact that there were a couple of dogs around! - one on a lead, one carried in a handbag. "Oh yes," remarked one woman when we mentioned it, "quite a few people do that." Well, what a treat to find a dog-friendly venue.

I queued for another glass of wine, and reflected that the barman could hardly have gone slower if he'd tried. It did give me time to watch the group of people in the glass lift - dressed up and obviously headed to my level - who mistakenly pushed the button for the level above, and were quite visibly surprised when they sailed up past where they needed to be. You see, from the car park, you enter at basement level, not ground, so they thought they were higher than they were..

At about the time they normally open the doors, there was an announcement about "technical difficulties", which, as usual, trailed off into muttering, so that not a single person knew what had been said. Well, the doors themselves are not mechanical, so I figured that wasn't it, and maybe they were talking about the wheelchair lifts or something. So we headed for the door by which we were to enter. And there we waited.. and waited.. returning to our seats in the cafe wasn't an option; by now, the place was packed (the show was sold out) and our seats were probably gone. And there was nowhere nearby to sit. And we were told it would just be a few minutes. Well, it was about fifteen minutes, with a mostly elderly crowd, some disabled, before we were let in. As we took our seats in the auditorium, I guessed that the technical difficulties might be with the surtitle display, which was currently displaying something weird.

We had the usual problems with sitting on the aisle (having to let people past every so often), and did some more people-watching. This time, we had a mini-drama to watch, as a group of four arrived to take their seats in the row in front of us, only to find two of them already occupied. Double-booked, it seems! Combined with the surtitle problems - which led to a late start - and what the lady sitting inside me told me about the heating not working during the show she attended last week, this is not painting a good picture of the concert hall..

Anyway, the show got underway, and it soon became apparent that the surtitles were, indeed, not working. There was much muttering in the crowd about this, and I had to whisper major plot points to my mother every so often. The opera is in Italian, so if you don't speak it, well.. Someone reviewed this production, by Ellen Kent, as the best they've ever seen. While I can't fault the performances, neither can I describe the show in such glowing terms. In particular, the first scene change took an inordinate amount of time, with what sounded like hammering, sawing and drilling offstage. Were they still building the set?! Still, the music was as stunning as ever, I remembered the gist of what was going on, and the little dog in the cafe scene bore a striking resemblance to the one we'd seen outside, on the lead.

At the interval, there was an apology about the late start, and an explanation that they had been unable to get the surtitles working, they wouldn't work for the remainder of the production, and they hoped it wouldn't impair our enjoyment too much. The crowd didn't appreciate that too much. And I ended up explaining what had happened in the first half, and what would happen in the second, not only to my mother, but to the woman on the other side as well. After a bit, we saw a woman carrying the self-same dog that been onstage! She and her doggy took a seat just down from us, and, as people were ooh-ing and aah-ing over the doggy, she explained that, actually, this wasn't the starring doggy. This was the doggy understudy, in case the starring doggy became incapacitated! Fancy that..

After the interval, the couple behind us didn't return, although most people stuck it out. In the end, as ever, I came out humming the music. But I wouldn't describe this as the best performance I've ever attended..

Well, tomorrow we're planning to head to my old school, Scarriff Community College, for the annual Clare Drama Festival. It's always interesting to head back there - the plays are staged in the gym, and well attended by staff and locals; you never know whom you'll run into. On Friday, we're heading back to the UCH for A Skull in Connemara, which is a comedy that's quite good, and shouldn't require surtitles. And on Saturday, we've booked another opera, Noye's Fludde, by Britten, in St Mary's Cathedral..