In my case it was very nearly a year ago. A contemporary opera, which I had my doubts about - having only seen one about 30 years back and finding it immensely dull (I should have twigged since they were handing out free tickets: the only reason I went. However this one was actually pretty good: Violet by Tom Could and Alice Birch - a metaphor on climate change with a great concept and some memorable performances.
It was part of a festival, and I also saw a couple of comedy shows in the fringe, both needing a deal of work before they would be going much further.
I was surprised to realise how long back these were. There was a time when I would expect to get to some type of stage performance at least every few months or so. However, I live in a fairly rural situation now, and it doesn’t happen so often.
How about you?
I believe it was Tosca, which I saw on a student ticket many years ago. The plot is a working man’s wife being forced to sleep with the local tyrant, Scarpia, to free her husband, Mario, from his clutches, but Mario dies anyway. I remember being very interested in the following line to his underling, Spoletta, as Scarpia orders him to spare Mario and fake the execution:
Two possibilities there the opera leaves you with. One, this worked successfully with Count Palmieri Mario, was the victim of a screw up. We see Spoletta present at the execution stopping the sergeant from giving Mario a mercy kill after the firing squad do their part, so he seemed to be helping the ploy. Scarpia also wrote out a free travel pass for Tosca to leave his domain with her husband afterwards, so it seemed he was dealing honestly with her.
Or, two. Scarpia wanted to keep Tosca to himself. The pass he wrote out was a fake, or he wasn’t going to give it to her, and he spared neither Count Palmieri nor Mario. His orders to Spoletta, given in front of Tosca, referenced Count Palmieri because he’s pulled this same trick before and likes getting women to, ah, service him in exchange for favours before betraying them for kicks. The stage directions call for significant glances between him and Spoletta, which could mean anything.