“How hard can it be to tap into the Met Opera pay-per-view site?”

It is astonishingly difficult to send them money.  I had nearly finished my exquisite, multifaceted lettuce-and-tomatoes salad by the time I heard the opening bars of the prelude.

Already exhausted from a week of work, and in need of diversion and music, I did not want to point and click through someone else’s web design problems.

When I am that worn down, things like movies and jokes don’t make any sense to me.  So too with the opera, which was disappointing in its partly inscrutable story, unrealistic plot twists, and complete lack of a famous and tuneful Verdi Opera Chorus!

I may need to watch it again.

Yesterday morning, I had played a 5-minute “Intro to La Traviata” which I found online, and it helped me only a little.  It did raise my expectations, though.  I should have heeded the obvious warning: Watch this one when you are awake, NOT when you are asleep!

Anita Rachvelishvili (whom I know as “Carmen”) gave the nice introduction, as they do for the Met online shows.   But I might have missed some of what she said after she claimed that we were about to see the “debut of only the third music director in the Met’s 135 year history”.  I’m calculating here, eating salad, and ignoring Carmen’s speech: so the other two music directors had an average tenure of 67 ½ years when they quit? 

Is that true?  They began directing as youngsters?  Or they each ran their career at the Met up into their ‘90’s?

Say again, Anita? 

I just listened to her again.  She says clearly that Violetta was a “tragic courtesan”.  I missed the import there, because I don’t know the word “courtesan”. 

This explains why I was so confused when Alfredo’s sister’s guy refused to marry into the family.  I get it now.  He didn’t want to be in any way associated with a courtesan.  Certainly not.  Even though the word sounds courtly, court-appointed, part of the royal court.  (On paper, I would take this job.)

But last night, I spent a lot of time thinking, “Come on, why not?  She’s just her brother’s girlfriend; why is the father going berserk here?”  It’s a key plot point – the main conflict doesn’t make any sense if you don’t understand Anita R when she’s telling you that she (Violetta) is a prostitute.

I caught that Violetta died in the very first scene. I remembered Anita “Carmen” telling me that what follows was a “fever dream”.  (Actually, what she says is “what follows is a fever dream of her memories of her life” – and that makes more sense than going into the opera thinking that this entire story is a fever dream.  Which is what I did.) 

Anyway, one does not have dreams of any sort if they have just died, so I was distracted by the task of making even widely-licensed dramatic sense from this.

But for most of the evening, I was not sure whether the main title character was dead or alive.

(I had not bought a case of “Jolt” to wash down my big bowl of post-salad popcorn, and this oversight might have been an important error also.)

Still in Paris, Violetta spends plenty of time working out whether or not she wants to hook up with Alfredo, and treating him with what I would call frustrating ambiguity.  (Not like Tatiana, who immediately devotes herself to ‘Gene Onegin and writes him a torrid letter.) 

What threw me at this point was that she finally made up her mind, and sang heartily that she had decided to “devote her life to freedom and fun”.

But what was her decision?  I couldn’t tell whether this meant she was throwing her lot in with Alfredo, OR staying away from him, free and happy as she already is (being a courtesan).  I really didn’t know until they showed up together out at the country place.  Come on, Giuseppe – run it by your editor first!

Finally Violetta referred to herself as a “fallen woman”, so OK, the story starts to make sense, toward the beginning of Act III. 

But then she heads off to Paris for the day to raise money by “selling her belongings”.  I’m going: Has she become wealthy by being a prostitute?  She has a lot of stuff to sell?  Isn’t she just selling the belongings or gifts of the baron who supported her in town?  Is this legal?

Then Alf learns what Vi is doing and states that he himself is going to town the next day to “take care of” the mounting debt instead. 

How?  What in the world can he do in 1 day to reverse this level of financial crisis?  I need to know.

(A reference to realistic money pressures is a rare thing on any stage, isn’t it?  Seemed out of context.)

It was at this point that the show became an engaging opera, because Alfredo’s father has more than one excellent aria or duet, and his voice and presentation greatly overcome both (a) the confusing plot around him, and (b) Quinn Kelsey’s frighteningly homely facial features.

So then she dies for sure, and we have to wonder: OK, the family already knew she was doomed with consumption, so why didn’t they just humor her (and Alfredo) and let their romance go along unhindered?  Violetta was such a short-timer.  Surely the sister and her fella could simply wait until after the funeral, and then go ahead with their own wedding.

I’m committed to reading more of the extended synopsis, and looking up a little more background information about this story and why La Traviata is considered an outstanding piece.  Then I will select either this version, or an alternative, and see the whole thing again, starting with a clear head, awake and alert to the subtleties of the story.

Five stars!  Boffo fun for the whole family!  Take note, Oscar nominators!