Just like the huge show at Christmas, there were hundreds of people involved in this production. The orchestra played inside the Teatro Amazonas on stage with the full chorus behind us. Maestro Malheiro conducted us live while huge monitors of him outside the theater led the singers. There were also gigantic screens set-up outside to show the main action on stage with portuguese sub-titles. The entire side of the theater, and then some, was used as a stage for the singers, dancers, actors, children, and animals, and there were chairs throughout the whole area for the crowd.
Jay came to see the opera and did a good job documenting it with pictures....
You can see the festive atmosphere before we started,
complete with cotton candy!
The stage is lined in red and one of those monitors faces
the singers (the conductor) and one faces the public.
A cool part of the opera with fireworks
on top of the Teatro.
Lots of actors portraying the natives on stage
while others climb the sides of the Teatro.
Normally the orchestra is stuck in the pit and has no idea or view of what the singers are doing on stage. Fortunately for us this time, they brought in a big flat-screen tv for us to see the action. It was actually kind of distracting because it was hard to focus on the conductor when there was a tv a few feet beside him, but it was nice to know what was happening in the opera. It was especially funny to watch the reaction of one of the lead singers singing an aria while riding a horse who preferred to trot instead of walk at that moment. He continued to sing perfectly, but I can only imagine what must have been going through his mind!
Jay and I both walked away from this performance amazed that a city in the middle of the Amazon can produce such a large-scale, well-made production, and I am grateful to have been a part of it! But even more grateful to know we are done with operas for another year :)
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