Regina and Cousin Christopher

A week ago, my grandparents had two extra tickets for the opera. Their usual friends were indisposed, so they gave yours truly a call.

"Do you and your mom want to go to the opera?"
Me: "YES!"
Mum: "NO!"
Me: silence...
Me (to Grandmother): "Give Christopher a call and see if he'll be our fourth."

My cousin Christopher is a musician. He plays the piano, the bagpipes, the tin whistle, and he's starting on the guitar. He played his bagpipes for my auntie's wedding. I texted him last week and told him he should wear his seriously awesome kilt to the opera. (Kindof because I knew it would irk his mom and kindof because I thought it would be fantastic!)

We had dinner at The Olive Garden at bopped over to the Capitol Theatre for their pre-show synopsis/background thingy on the opera Regina.

Basically, the story was this: Manipulative sister out-manipulates her manipulative brothers to gain money, watching her un-loved husband die in the process.

The characters were captivating, the music appropriately discordant, and the lyrics completely asinine. For example, "Money can get me things and the things that go with things." Seriously, what the hell is that?

The best part of the evening though was watching Christopher. I was flipping through my program before the show and mentioned that it was going to be sung in English with English supertitles. Christopher looked at me quizzically and I said, "They project the lyrics over the stage, so you know what they're saying." He thought this was pretty cool, but not as cool as the fact that the music "wasn't canned," and that there was a symphony orchestra down in the pit. Not only that, but Keith Lockhart himself was conducting. (OK, I was probably more excited about that than Christopher was. Keith "Cutie-Pants" Lockhart has always been a favorite of mine.)

At the end of the night, Christopher was beside himself with delight at the whole thing. He was so gracious and thankful.

He also got many appreciative glances and compliments regarding his kilt. Only a couple were from me.