May 18, 2011: Rigoletto at the Opera House

May 18, 2011: On May 17th, I picked up my mother from the airport and brought her downtown to give her a brief tour of Vaci utca and the Danube River. What better way can one be introduced to Budapest than to see those places! After that it was home where we finished off the leftover beef stroganoff that I had prepared the other day and gave her time to rest after her long flight.

The following day (May 18th) happened to be her birthday so to celebrate, I took her out to dinner and to see/hear Verdi's Rigoletto at the Opera House. It turned out that one of the people on my Transylvania tour was in town to pick up her cousin and she e-mailed to see if I was free for dinner and when I told her about the opera, she asked if she and her cousin could join us. I arranged for getting two extra tickets and so the four of us had a nice dinner at Liszt Ferenz ter where we shared stories about each of our travels while we ate delicious Hungarian specialties and drank Hungarian beer. After dinner, we went to Alexandra's Bookstore for coffee and walked nearby to the Opera House. 

Alexandra's Bookstore Coffeeshop

Budapest Opera House

As was true for the other operas I had seen at the Opera House, I found that it took time for the voices to warm up for the production -- it seemed to me that the singing was a bit flat at first but when all the singers had tuned up, the voices were spectacular, especially Gilda who achieved singing high notes effortlessly and with considerable elegance. The male voices were also very good but it was Gilda who stole the show in my mind. Several of the arias were very familiar and on whole, the production was very enjoyable. What's not to like by soaking in an opera in this enchanting opera house and hear great voices. Never mind that there was only one casualty in the production (unlike Tosca where all three main characters died)!

At any rate, I hope that this was a birthday celebration that my mom will long remember.