Overactive imagination at work again: Sat down to enjoy Das Rheingold at the Met the other
night, and noticed that an elderly gentlemen a few seats to my right was
already asleep. I had always supposed that, at least, people waited until the
opera actually started before they dropped off. O.K., he wasn’t bothering me
and he wasn’t even snoring.
Shortly after the show started, I noticed that another man,
just to my left, was bent far over, also apparently asleep as well. I was
afraid that he would fall against me, but that didn’t happen. As the excellent performance
progressed, I noticed that he wasn’t waking up. Was he dead? Immediately,
ominous thoughts of summoning an usher who would call for an EMT flooded my
mind. Would I have to stay around and be a witness? He had come to the opera
alone. Would I have to do the Good Samaritan thing? I trusted that the applause
at the end would wake him up first.
Of course, he wasn’t dead at all and even stirred a few
times during Rheingold’s two and one-half
hours. He fled as soon as the curtain came down. I wonder if he remembered
anything of the very fine performance. Even the Met’s infamous Robert Lepage
Machine, much despised by the critics, made very little noise. There were only
a few slight rumbles as the Rhine maidens descended into the deep at the end of
their scene. The audience, except for the two snoozers, responded with vociferous appreciation at the opera's conclusion.
