Have you been listening to the Hell Gate Podcast? You can catch last week's episode here.
Because I was late, I watched act one of "La Bohéme" from what I started calling the Met Opera's "naughty room"—a small theater where delinquents like myself and Daniel, a fellow straggler in a tuxedo with his mother in tow, watched a broadcast of the performance on a projector. We walked in while the tenor Long Long, who stars as the poet Rodolfo, was performing what I know from musical theater is called an "I wish" song, one where the protagonist describes their aspirations to kick off the plot, in which he was telling his newly found love interest Mimi all about the life he leads.
The 1895 opera, which returned to the Met on Saturday, has been performed here almost every year for more than a century—the kind of classic that I didn't see at the ballet—and was the first performance broadcast on PBS's "Live From the Met" in 1977. Back in February, when I presciently quoted the grand dames seated behind me chatting serenely about Timotheé Chalamet, how could I have known the vibrations I was picking up on? Since the Oscar-nominated actor uttered his now-infamous comments about how no one cares about the ballet or opera, I've been practically begging the Met's press office to allow me in. A rave review of "La Bohéme"—and perhaps even some residual spite from Chalamet's (astute, if you ask me) gaffe—had been driving sold-out audiences to Lincoln Center; I wanted to experience it for myself.