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Monday, September 14, 2026
The Metropolitan Opera reimagines Mozart at Coney Island. It involves snakes
NPR: The Metropolitan Opera has reimagined a version of Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" set at Coney Island in the 1950s. Live snakes were auditioned and a large boa constrictor named Princess has been cast.
2 comments:
chris
said...
As a person who did not have access to musicals during high school, I personally think the idea of 2,000 free Broadway tickets for NYC high schoolers is quite tempting. Since New York's most famous part is Broadway, I hope those free tickets spark new people's interest in musicals and in the stage in general. The stage is something truly magical for me, and I wish for those high school students to also feel that magic and be captivated! Though the number of tickets is small compared to the large number of high school students, I think having the opportunity is enough for people to get a taste of theatre. I think the most important part is that people will not be scared off by how expensive tickets are, and will actually get the chance to be part of it! Also, every student who entered the lottery got a free two month TDF membership, including the ones who lost. So really, they just have to enter, and they get cheap shows out of it either way!
Reimagining of operas can always result in some interesting elements on stage, holding auditions to cast a snake is just part of that fun. Princess and her understudy, Nala, sound like they beat out a lot of other snakes to get their roles as if they were any other human actor. I really want to see this now and watch Princess in her ‘staring’ role on the Met stage. I wish the article went into a little more detail about what the snake would be doing onstage and how they go about training it. With having live animals onstage there must be a lot of precautions the show has to adopt to make sure the snake doesn’t get scared or what happens if it strays from the blocking. I would have liked to read a little more about that, but maybe that will be a future article.
2 comments:
As a person who did not have access to musicals during high school, I personally think the idea of 2,000 free Broadway tickets for NYC high schoolers is quite tempting. Since New York's most famous part is Broadway, I hope those free tickets spark new people's interest in musicals and in the stage in general. The stage is something truly magical for me, and I wish for those high school students to also feel that magic and be captivated! Though the number of tickets is small compared to the large number of high school students, I think having the opportunity is enough for people to get a taste of theatre. I think the most important part is that people will not be scared off by how expensive tickets are, and will actually get the chance to be part of it! Also, every student who entered the lottery got a free two month TDF membership, including the ones who lost. So really, they just have to enter, and they get cheap shows out of it either way!
Reimagining of operas can always result in some interesting elements on stage, holding auditions to cast a snake is just part of that fun. Princess and her understudy, Nala, sound like they beat out a lot of other snakes to get their roles as if they were any other human actor. I really want to see this now and watch Princess in her ‘staring’ role on the Met stage. I wish the article went into a little more detail about what the snake would be doing onstage and how they go about training it. With having live animals onstage there must be a lot of precautions the show has to adopt to make sure the snake doesn’t get scared or what happens if it strays from the blocking. I would have liked to read a little more about that, but maybe that will be a future article.
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