20 Bucks?!

I'm currently in the early stages of a cold which means that in addition to my usual apathy towards doing anything besides reading and listening to/watching QI, I feel like crap and can't really swallow (damn you sore throat of death!). However I have some news and really want to talk about the opera I went to last night, so I'm going to beat back my desire to read trivia articles and write. Hopefully this will make writing the paper I have due tomorrow easier.
Let's start with the opera (The Elixir of Love in case you're wondering). I had read somewhere on the English National Opera website that all operas are performed in English, but it didn't really sink in until a nattily dressed gentleman made the following announcement before the start of the performance: The original Nemorino was sick and his understudy was "unavailable." I want to know how the understudy could possibly be "unavailable" but we'll move beyond that to the next part of the announcement. Because of the illness/unavailability of the two people who know the English translation of the opera, the company pulled in a tenor who knew the original Italian libretto. So everyone else (save for a wonderful performance by Andrew Shore) was singing only in English. The tenor (who's name I didn't hear and therefore don't know) would be singing only in Italian (except for when he said "20 bucks?" which was amusing.) Needless to say, it was very interesting.
The Elixir of Love, as performed by the ENO, is set in a middle-of-nowhere 1950's American town, primarily at Adina's Diner. While I appreciate the idea of updating operas and can even understand the idea of translating original libretti to English, every once in awhile they'd use cutesy Americana slang and I would just be irked. However the performances, especially Andrew Shore who'll I get to in a minute, were top notch and the staging was such that, even from the balcony you could always make out what was going on, on stage. Other perks of the staging included a rotating room so that action could happen both inside and outside the diner with minimal fuss and a real car that was quite shiny.
The best performance, or at least the best performance given the circumstances, was that of Andrew Shore, a baritone who performed the part of Dr. Dulcamara. Shore had performed the role in another ENO performance of The Elixir of Love and deftly moved between English (when everyone else was singing in English, when he was soloing or when his part was meant to be contrast to Nemorino) and Italian (when he was conversing only with Nemorino). It was a well played choice by Shore and pulled off very well and with little confusion thanks in part to the subtitles showed above the stage. It also helped to cement the idea that Nemorino is outside the main players, both in intelligence and in culture, something that's made clear in the way the character is written anyway. That and Shore had the best "American" singing accent, something that I appreciated greatly.
In other news, despite this damnable cold, I'm going to see The 39 Steps tomorrow and I have housing (which is more important really.) After much drama (something seems part in parcel with anything to do with UMW bureaucracy) we (me, Stephanie, and newcomer Kelley) got our first choice apartment. I get my own room which means I'll have somewhere to put all the postcards I'm collecting. Happy St. Patrick's day and hopefully I'll update at least one more time before I leave for Cardiff. Finally, Spaced inspired flash mob this Saturday, expect photos either on Sunday or after the break. Until then, don't panic.