The rare staging of a Ring Cycle means that the Wagner crowd will be out in full force. As I spend the rest of my week attending the Mariinksy Theater's Kirov Opera production at the Metropolitan Opera, I'll be surveying the crowd and posting photos of some of the enthusiastic Wagnerites I meet. Last night's performance of "Das Rheingold" gave us a glimpse of what's to come. First up, Karyn and Scott smile for the camera.
I spotted this woman in the crowd after the performance but couldn't catch up to her. She looked grandmotherly and cute.
And this woman just looks completely unsatisfied, but her Valkyrie helmet does seem a bit tight.
The Met has its own Alberich, who I like to call the Ticket Troll. He can often be found outside any theater in Manhattan begging for soon-to-be unused tickets. His usual mating call is "Does anyone have an extra ticket?" and he approaches everyone in vicinity, whether or not they're actually attending the performance or just happen to be standing nearby. Should we pity him? Obviously he's too poor to buy his own entry and I'm all for getting people in to see theater, having given away full-priced tickets to strangers so they don't go unused — the tickets, not the strangers. But he goes a bit over the edge in his desperation. At a performance of Philip Glass's "The Juniper Tree" I saw this past spring, a patron chastised him and he reacted a bit too violently for someone in his position. Beware of the Ticket Troll if you see him. He'll turn on you at the slightest provocation.
Notice how far away I stood and used my zoom lens to capture this photo of him. That's because I'm not stupid. I don't want to end up like the Nibelungen.
