Feb. 7th, 2009 07:35 pm
How we lost a horse: Part 2
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muckefuckWhen we arrived at the theatre for the noon showing of Lucia of Lammermoor, Nuphy was nowhere to be seen. We waited outside for a bit, but I began to get nervous about securing decent seats and rang him. When there was no answer, I left a message and went in--to find him on his way out. He apologised for the miscommunication, but the bastard still hadn't saved us any seats.
So I clambered into the row behind where Don Jaime was sitting and held two places as the Old Man finished his atrocious cinema hotdog. Still rather put out about how things had gone so far, I sat and stewed. Projected on the screen were scenes from the opera accompanied by facts about the performers. After a few minutes, there was a sudden squawk from the speakers and several seconds of alien footage appeared, which I just had time enough to identify as part of an ad for some cleaning product.
Some minutes later, it happened again. And again. I began to get a bad feeling, and--sure enough--a clip of a woman vacuuming intruded on the overture. This happened twice more, and finally the projection switched entirely over to an Oreck infomercial. Lucia hadn't even made her entrance, and people were booing and demanding refunds. Now, perhaps I should explain again that this is a live broadcast. That means that every minute we were subjected to a bald man talking about suction was a minute of the performance we would never see.
A miserable spokesperson tried to explain that the problem was on the Met's end; none of us believed that. After all, Nuphy's been to see at least four of these presentations without any glitches. The difference, though, was that all the others were run by Cinemark; the City North is owned by Kerasotes. Eventually, they got the proper video feed, but with no audio. This led to some tension-reducing moments of found comedy as Lucia sang "regnava nel silenzio" ("silence reigns") and "qual di chi parla muoversi il labbro suo" ("her lips move as if to speak"). But then we had only the Blue Screen of Death.
After twenty minutes of the projectionist dickery, we had had it. The best I can say about the management is that they gave us a full refund. As we were leaving, they were saying that they were negotiating with the Met to broadcast the performance on a time delay so they could start again from the top. But![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu and I had no confidence in their ability to pull this off; I haven't talked to Nuphy yet so, I still don't know whether it actually happened or not.
So this is how we found ourselves on the corner of Western and Schubert on the middle of an absurdly warm Saturday in February with nothing to do.
So I clambered into the row behind where Don Jaime was sitting and held two places as the Old Man finished his atrocious cinema hotdog. Still rather put out about how things had gone so far, I sat and stewed. Projected on the screen were scenes from the opera accompanied by facts about the performers. After a few minutes, there was a sudden squawk from the speakers and several seconds of alien footage appeared, which I just had time enough to identify as part of an ad for some cleaning product.
Some minutes later, it happened again. And again. I began to get a bad feeling, and--sure enough--a clip of a woman vacuuming intruded on the overture. This happened twice more, and finally the projection switched entirely over to an Oreck infomercial. Lucia hadn't even made her entrance, and people were booing and demanding refunds. Now, perhaps I should explain again that this is a live broadcast. That means that every minute we were subjected to a bald man talking about suction was a minute of the performance we would never see.
A miserable spokesperson tried to explain that the problem was on the Met's end; none of us believed that. After all, Nuphy's been to see at least four of these presentations without any glitches. The difference, though, was that all the others were run by Cinemark; the City North is owned by Kerasotes. Eventually, they got the proper video feed, but with no audio. This led to some tension-reducing moments of found comedy as Lucia sang "regnava nel silenzio" ("silence reigns") and "qual di chi parla muoversi il labbro suo" ("her lips move as if to speak"). But then we had only the Blue Screen of Death.
After twenty minutes of the projectionist dickery, we had had it. The best I can say about the management is that they gave us a full refund. As we were leaving, they were saying that they were negotiating with the Met to broadcast the performance on a time delay so they could start again from the top. But
monshu and I had no confidence in their ability to pull this off; I haven't talked to Nuphy yet so, I still don't know whether it actually happened or not.So this is how we found ourselves on the corner of Western and Schubert on the middle of an absurdly warm Saturday in February with nothing to do.