Great season beginning

Never could I have imagined when I moved to Cape Cod I could enjoy so many first rate performances -- opera, theatre, dance as are on the agenda for this season at the local art movie house, the Dennis Cinema -- all live, simulcasts.  I skipped the fall's first Met Opera simulcast, Verdi's MacBeth, but went to today's Nozzi de Figaro (Mozart). I was aware that the dated form of farce would be tiresome but I went because I realized, although I've heard it often on radio broadcasts, I had not seen it on stage since I was 17. It was the first opera I ever saw and that was way back when I was in Cincinnati for  my first summer of office temping, and went to the outdoor opera at the Cincinnati zoo.  Of course there was no such thing a subtitles at the time and, although I read the plot, I didn't understand anything but the sight jokes and Mozart's brilliant arias. Today's broadcast had good subtitles, the usual intermission features, a cast of mostly non-American singers I had never heard of although all had Met-level voices and James Levine was conducting his 75th Nozzi de Figaro.  

The future holds eight more operas of which I will probably go to five, certainly to the Meistersinger von Nurnberg (Wagner) which I have wanted to see ever since I first heard it back in my teen years of listening to the Saturday broadcasts. 

Besides the Met simulcasts, there well be, for the first time here, four ballets from the Bolshoi that Rachel and I look forward to with excitement. And the list of National Theatre Live broadcasts starts this coming Thursday with Skylight by David Hyde - a play new to me. I skipped their Streetcar Named Desire and will skip the Mice and Men -- fine plays but far too familiar to see again unless some major star were in them.  Add to this stunning array of things to see, the high level of art films at the same theater, the weekly foreign film series at the college and the documentary series I've been attending.  So who needs a TV?  Not me. All of that rounds out my reading in a very nice way. Plus we have here on Cape Cod a very respectable symphony orchestra and occasionally fine theatre at the Cotuit Center for the Arts.  All of these are affordable as such really are not in New York City. Oh, and sometimes there are fairly good art shows both here and in Boston.