So, it's pretty hard to call me an opera fan. I mean, the only opera I've seen live in the past 30 years has been
Das Rheingold. For reasons I don't even remember, I had to give up my tickets to see
Der Walkurie this year, and if Jamie's enthusiasm to
Das Rheingold was any indication, it's not really worth the weekend trip to Houston to go catch parts 3 and 4.
But, you know, I think its not imperative, but a good idea, to try to see famous works for yourself. That's kind of the stage of life I'm in now I guess. And among operas,
Tosca is more or less a household word. Fortunately, I'm culturally illiterate, so I wasn't actually sure what the word "Tosca" meant when I plunked my butt in the seat at the Wortham Center to see the Houston Grand Opera Saturday night.
Little background: a fellow I was pals with in high school is now a, like, serious opera-performer-type-person,
Weston Hurt (ask for him by name)! Weston has performed all over the US and abroad, but he'd never wound up playing Houston Grand Opera until this recent run of
Tosca at the HGO. And while I've watched YouTube clips of him and whatnot, I hadn't seen him sing since high school where he kind of shamed everyone else during a musical revue where he led the chorus in "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Mis and sounded like a grown-up-type singer among a herd of high school squawkers (I was working crew for that show, so I got to hear it over. And over. And over.) He also did a little Country and Western at the talent show, which left me baffled, but the guy has pipes.