Each week I like to do something culturally enriching.

But while in the midst of a head cold, my plans to go to a museum were right out.

Opera.

I love it.

It speaks to my soul. I don’t even need subtitles if I know the story (wiki). The vocals make my heart soar and ache. The arias are gut wrenching.

It’s orchestra, play, costumes, vocals, set design…ballet.

I have seen many symphonies live and while it sounds glamorous, it’s a bit awkward.

“What do I look at?”

The cellists’s shoes?

The triangle player’s hair?

Never go see Handel’s “Messiah”.

Trust me on that one.

I haven’t seen most of the operas yet but I heard a chilling aria the other day.

So I had to investigate.

“Donetta’s Dream” from La Rondine (The Swallow) by Puccini.

Opera is available on Amazon video and this one had English subtitles.

We live in amazing times. So much content at our fingertips.

In 2 days I watched La Rondine, La Traviata and Tosca.

The arias are still playing in my head.

I loaded up on some of my favs on my phone for takeoff and landing from Phoenix to Houston.

The Metropolitan Opera offers a subscription to stream their operas in HD for $99 a year. I may need to bite in 2016. I can stream on my tablet and hook it up to the TV.

I have tried YouTube and Amazon but the production value is pretty poor; bad costumes and bad sets are just distracting.

Wouldn’t you rather go in person?

No.

You can’t see as well and there aren’t enough restroom breaks.

I don’t know how ladies of the 19th century did this. Probably no Diet Cokes…

Props to Julia Roberts for wearing a tight red gown. I bet the ladies’ room was in the basement with a loooong line.

Incidentally in Pretty Woman, they were watching “La Traviata”, ” The Fallen Woman”, the tragic story of a party girl from Paris who moves to the countryside for love and returns on the request of her potential father-in-law to save family honor, contracts TB, and dies.

Hey, it’s opera..

It’s okay, you can wipe your eyes and noseth on your pajama sleeveth.

Pretty Woman.1990. New Line Cinema (Julia Roberts as Vivian)