Friday night, Maren, Lisa and I went to see Aida, the Opera at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. This was the Genow sister’s first opera at the Met and I must say, there is a reason the Met is The Met. The staging, sets and props were a spectacle to behold. There were horses on the stage! Horses! And not just one horse, several horses on a live opera stage! And there were thirty thousand million cast members. This is only a slight exaggeration. There were enough members of the cast for there to be a parade with at least 100 people in addition to the 50 people already on the stage for the scene.

The stage at the Met is the largest stage I have ever seen! It was gigantic. The sets were lavish. That’s truly the only word. The set was an egyptian temple and it felt like an egyptian temple. And there were moving platforms and entire statues and parts of buildings that dropped down from the ceiling. The space above and below the stage must take up a large portion of the island of Manhattan.

We were in the cheap seats in the highest ring you can get in. We were in the front row of this section in this little box next to two old women who were talking about how they are unemployed and that all they can do is walk on the treadmill and apply for jobs. They also left after the 2nd intermission, which we found odd. But then we had the whole box to ourselves and that was awesome. We felt much fancier than our $38 tickets.

I also liked that we were in the minority at the Met. I would say that the percentage of people over 30 was 90%, leaving Maren and Brianne part of the small minority of young people at the opera. Even old lady Lisa (who’s 30) is too old to fit into this group.

Summary: The Met rocked! Next up, La Boheme in February.