I'm writing an opera. With zombies.

A little while back I made a pitch to Andrew Lloyd Webber for a musical (well, not really, I wrote a blog post about it, but you never know, maybe he read it). It was called: Mary Wollstonecraft, a Musical Life. I'm thinking of changing it to Mary Wollstonecraft, a Musical Life with Zombies. For one thing, I've got the material. But mostly, I think it would sell more tickets.



So last January, a theatre group put on Evil Dead, the musical in Ankara. Which just goes to show 1) that Ankara can be pretty cool (on rare occasions) and 2) that there's still money to be made in horror musicals. I actually contemplated going, but could not be arsed to organise a sitter, get hold of tickets, etc, and husband not a fan of horror. But there's definitely a market for that kind of stuff.

What I'm also going to do is make it an opera rather than a musical, just because I like opera better. I've only ever purchased two tickets for musicals (well, four, because I went with someone). One was the Rocky Horrow Show, and the other one Grease. Classics, you will grant. But I prefer the films. Opera, on the other hand, I've bought lots of tickets for. They're cheaper for one thing! (Yes, anti opera people: you can cut the crap about opera being elitist because expensive: it's not!). They're cheaper if you don't mind sitting at the top on fairly uncomfortable seats. If you're going to see Wagner, I recommend you bring a cushion (and a snack) otherwise you'll have a very sore bum.

I once went to the Opera in Verona with Sister 3. We saw Don Carlo, a 'Wagnerian', read long, boring, no tunes, opera by Verdi. We sat for three hours on hard stone. Yep, the Opera at Verona is an old Roman amphitheatre. I suppose I could have thought of it. I think Sister 3, who wasn't all that keen on going in the first place, also reckoned I could have thought of it. But we did have a good time. We got to light little candles at the beginning. Fun.

Now when I go to the Opera, I go the one in Ankara, and still buy dirt cheap tickets. So cheap in fact that when I fancy seeing something, I'll buy four or five and ask friends if they want to come. Peanuts, I tell you. Not only that, but they usually have half-decent singers and the program is ok. I've even managed to hear a couple of things I hadn't heard before.

If I were to be allowed to make one criticism of the Ankara Opera House, it would be that their intermission bar doesn 't sell champagne. It only sells stale sandwiches and cans of cokes, for god's sakes. Not very sophisticated, eh? So one of the last few times we went, one of my friends brought a little something along with him. Can't quite remember what, but agave was involved. And it was disguised as a small bottle of water such as you can buy at the bar (ok, so they don't just sell coke). At the break, we nipped outside and drunk it up. The last act was lively. Mimi did not die in vain.


This was a post for the Weekend Assignment #319, The Play's the Thing, asking if we ever go out to the theatre or the opera or if we're just sad bastards who stay home and stream tv series on their computers. There was a bonus question which was if I'd ever seen Shakespeare plays live. Course I have! Lots!

Oh, one last thing. If you liked this post, would you mind terribly clicking on the RSS feed or the Google connect buttons (top left)? And if you didn't like it, you might still want to look around. There's three of us, you know, so you're (almost) bound to find something you like. And then, if you've still got time, you could share this post or stumble it, or both and get in touch with your local tv station to sing our praises. We'll love you forever.