Miscommunications

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Flanders-centric programming to bring you an update from the end of last week. Maggie's college friend Sarah visited from Wednesday afternoon to Sunday morning, and great fun was had by all. Except Thursday night.

See, Richard Strauss's Salomé is playing at the Opéra, and as Salomé is just about my favorite opera ever, we decided to try for rush tickets. We were all going to meet at 5:30 to get in line, but Maggie called at 5 to let me know that she and Sarah were second in line, and that I didn't need to come. They'd get the tickets and return home for dinner, then we'd all go back together. So I made a spinach, tomato, and red onion quiche.

Then I checked my phone and saw that Maggie had texted me right after our phone conversation to say that she had already picked up some surprises for dinner, and all I needed to do was get bread and make salad. Oops. Miscommunication #2.

#2?? What happened to #1? Here's what happened: Maggie called back around 6:15 to say that the ticket windows were just opening, so they probably couldn't make it home. Thinking I'd bring dinner to them, I packed up some quiche, salad, and water, and headed out. Two minutes later, Maggie called again to say they had mistakenly gotten tickets for a ballet rather than Salomé. That's weird, I thought. I didn't know they were giving a ballet tonight. Maybe I got the date wrong. When I arrived at Bastille, I called Maggie to find out where they were (they had gone to get bread) and she told me to meet them across from the Uniqlo. That's weird, I thought. I didn't know they'd opened a Uniqlo at Bastille.

It was only when I happened to pass by a poster advertising the evening's cultural offerings that I realized, with disbelief, the nature of Miscommunication #1.

We were at different opera houses.

Maggie and Sarah had gone to the Palais Garnier - you know, the one that looks like an opulent opera house.

I, on the other hand, had gone to the place where I knew Salomé was playing, which looks very little like an opera house, and which is always called "l'Opéra Bastille," while the older building is commonly called "l'Opéra".

Miscommunication #3 actually occurred between Maggie/Sarah and the establishment of the Opéra (Garnier). These ladies never looked at the tickets to see what time the ballet started - since Salomé was supposed to start at 8, they assumed the ballet started at 8, too - and when I called Maggie to tell her that we were in different places, I also ended up informing her that the ballet started at 7:30. So we weren't going to have time to eat, and I had to rush over from Bastille.

Ultimately, I arrived a few minutes late, but luckily we had "loge" (ground-floor box) seats, so they could let us in even though the performance had already started. The evening was split into three ballets by three different choreographers. The first ballet was minimalist through and through, with musical extracts from Phillip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, the dancers wearing only primary colors (and green), and the "set" consisting of a screen on which was projected many slowly moving, primary colored-lines, which created accidental optical illusions. The second ballet, choreographed to Georg Ligeti, was most notable for having made two-way mirrors out of the scrims. It was also the première run of that ballet. We didn't stay for the third ballet, due to the combination of miscommunications, dance semiotics incomprehension, ultra-repetitive/unpalatable music, and hunger. Luckily the NYT published a review of the evening, and you can see pictures and read all about it there. (That's 6 articles about Paris or Parisian events just this week.)

We learned the following lessons: always specify which Opéra you're meeting at. Never bake a surprise quiche. And if you find yourself disliking whatever's being performed at Opéra Garnier, you can always draw strength from the heavens above:

Ceiling art by Marc Chagall.