MADAM MISTY MERKEL: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

By Madam Misty Merkel
The weather is going to remain hot and dry and unfortunately, I predict a record number of forest fires this year. Global temperatures will continue to rise and the North Pole will disappear. That’s not my prediction. It’s just as I sit here I’m reading the global warming prediction off the back of a cereal box. I guess this global warming thing means that igloos will be a thing of the past just like the VCR. I always wanted to build an igloo to live in. I guess I’ll never get the chance. I also need a VCR since I have about 500 tapes of old TV shows I’d like to watch again someday.

I am predicting that Interlocken Arts Academy will have a great season this year. That has some really cool concerts with a variety of musicians. A lot of arts places just play like opera music. I once had a friend named George that insisted that I go to an opera with him. I went but when I got there I wished I hadn’t. Everyone there was dressed up real fancy and I just wore a pair of slacks and a blouse. I figured everyone would be looking up at the stage and not at each other in the audience.

As far as the music goes they did have some pretty good tunes especially, the music that the orchestra played before the singing began. For me the entertainment was pretty much over once the singers took the stage. For one thing they didn’t speak English. George told me they were singing in Italian. He told me that most operas were sung in Italian or German. I told him that if they were singing in a language other than American English they needed a screen up on stage with sub-titles in English. I’m part German but, except for the words to “Auld Lang Seine” I can’t speak another word of that language.

Another problem I had with the singing is that the singers all sang different stuff at the same time so ,even if you had an Italian to English translating manual in your hand you could never flip though the pages fast enough to look up all the different words that were bantered about at the same time. It wasn’t long and I was getting a headache. My head ached even more since the two characters that seemed to be constantly singing (a man and a woman), seemed to hold on to their high notes way too long. If they did that where I live the dog catcher would be right their to haul them off to the pound. Those opera singers needed to take some singing lessons from Willie Nelson. He knows when to let go of a note at just the right time.

Finally, George noticed that I was getting real fidgety so he explained the plot to me. It seems the opera was about a husband and wife and they were fighting. Of course I guess in Italy people sing at each other when they fight. Where I come from they yell and throw things at each other like empty beer cans. Most people have a lot of empty beer cans sitting all around their house so, that makes the empties the most convenient thing to throw. Of course no one would ever dream of throwing a full can of beer at someone because it might pop open and then a whole can of beer would go to waste.

The end of the opera was really depressing. It seems everyone just killed themselves and that was the end. I could kind of understand why they did what they did. After sitting threw the whole show I was starting to think of doing the same. Actually, I really wanted to kill George for talking me into going to the opera. I did not understand the words at all or the plot very well. On top of that I was humiliated since everyone stared at me because of the way I was dressed. I was also humiliated in one other way. You would think that in a big room like that no one would be able to hear someone like me out in the audience blow their nose. Well, everyone heard me and I think I got “Shushed” by the whole audience.

P.S. I have a suggestion for the opera operators. They should let the audience bring in pop and pop corn during the opera. The operators could make more money and like during a boring movie, at least the audience could keep itself entertained by eating. That’s just some food for thought.