Carmen

Man cannot survive on The Big Lebowski and soccer games alone (though Lord knows I have tried), so this weekend I decided to take in some culture. Weeks ago, Kate and I were dining on the Subway sandwiches she still brings me from my former school (thanks again!) when we happened on a remarkably stupid Letterman skit her friend had posted to Facebook. Stupid as it was, it reminded me that while in Daegu I had seen a poster advertising Carmen in Korea. Seeing this show was a life-long dream, so we booked our tickets pronto, later adding Courtney to our entourage. As my mom described it, Americans and a Canadian watching a French version of an Italian art form about Spain, performed by a Russian company in Korea.

The concert was Sunday, but Courtney was under the weather so only Kate had the foresight to head up on Saturday. My excuse? Bolton. I'm not ashamed. Sunday afternoon, then, I suited up hopped on the KTX, meeting the girls near the Seoul Arts Center. It had been raining on and off all day, but we somehow managed to avoid the bulk of it. We found a decent deli/coffee shop for lunch/dinner, then we embarked to the Opera House. It's nice enough on the inside, but ugly as sin on the outside. Inside, by coincidence, we met our friend Lydia from Seoul, who apparently is also a keen patron of the arts.

Remember, Carmen is in French. Kate is fluent, but it can be hard to understand when the speakers are Russians doing Spanish accents, and also bellowing at the top of their lungs. The smart thing to do in this scenario would be to read a synopsis beforehand, yet bafflingly none of us had the foresight to do this. We had been counting on the "supertitles" common to opera houses. And supertitles there were . . . in Korean. Consequently, we had trouble understanding much more than "that soldier likes Carmen, but she likes that bullfighter in the funny outfit" (we found out upon reading the summary that that's actually pretty much the gist of it).

But you don't go to Carmen for the story, and the music was excellent, as were the costumes and the sets. We went to a nearby classy wine bar after. Perhaps the second bottle of wine was a bad choice, as by the time we got back to Seoul Station, we had missed the last KTX and had to take the slow train back. We didn't get home until 1AM, but it was well worth the trip!

Pictures