Stepping into the world of Austen, Edgeworth, Burney, and Wharton for a night out at the Theater

Ever since I started reading 19^th century fiction, there are some things that I have always wanted to do.  I’ve had this vision of what people used to do in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Because of my fascination with works from that era, I’ve always been interested in the things that men and women from the 1800s did for entertainment.

I really enjoy seeing plays, concerts, and dances—I love watching the performers on stage because to me, it seems more real than going to the cinema to watch a film.  There is something about entering a theater with plush red seats and individual boxes for those willing to pay more, dressed up in a fancy outfit, sipping wine and chatting with those around you that just drags me straight back to the someone in a Jane Austen novel, or maybe a scene from a Frances Burney novel or perhaps even the more recent Edith Wharton.  At any rate, to me, spending a night out at the theater feels like something that only the aristocracy would do.

This is just how I felt on Florence.  Over my easter holidays, my mother decided to come with me to explore northern Italy.  Partly because we wer both very busy, but mostly because we both despise planning, we decided that instead of making extensive plans, we would just buy the flight there and back to Milan, and then we would go from there wherever we decided.  In the end, it was an adventure trip, which ended up being really great.  But this also meant that we were deciding want we wanted to do the night before.  Sitting in our suite in Florence, I mentioned that I was interested in maybe seeing a show or concert.  Of course, I don’t speak Italian, so a play was out. I did a little research, and discovered that the Russian ballet was stopping in Teatro Verdi for one night on their way to Rome.  I was excited—they were performing the classic Swan Lake, and I had never seen it.  Suddenly, I was intrigued. I felt a shiver of excitement run down my spine—and later that afternoon, I was the proud owner of two tickets to see Swan Lake the next evening.

The theater was just what I was hoping it would be.  We were on the very top floor—but we had our own box. Sitting in those plush seats, I settled down to wait for the start of the ballet.  Wearing a flowing dress and heels and waiting for the curtain to raise, I immediately felt like I had been transported to the 18^th or 19^th century. They didn’t have a TV or the internet that they could easily turn on and use at any moment of the day.  Instead, going to see a ballet would have been something they did only when they went to town, and for most (except for the very rich), it would have been something very special, just like it was for me.

Two weeks later, I visited Vienna, city of music.  I had a friend, a music major, who was studying there, that I was excited to visit.  We did the usual tourist things—visiting museums, churches, palaces, the Danube, and we did a lot of walking, including down the famous Ringstrausse.  But she also decided to take me to the opera.  I was more exited for that than anything I had been for awhile.  The Opera—that was even classier than a concert or a ballet.  The only time I’d ever heard of anyone going to an opera was in films and books written during or about the 18^th or 19^th (maybe into the early 20^th) centuries—and now I was going!  The ballet had been like a fairy tale—it had been so quintessentially Jane Austen or Frances Burney or Maria Edgeworth that I had felt like one of their characters.  I thought that the opera was going to be the same way.

However, as students, we were short on cash, so instead of buying a box, we spent €4 to stand.  I wasn’t really sure what that entailed—but you couldn’t beat €4!  It turned out that you walked into the theater from the back to the area directly behind the orchestra seats—seats that cost about €100 where there was the occasional woman in a long, very formal dress and (in the winter) poufy fur coats.  There were about eight to ten rows of these metal barriers, each about half a meter apart.  A woman ushered us into one of these rows, jamming people where only four were meant to stand.  When everyone was pushed in, we tied scarves to the banister (following the tradition to save our place), and headed out to grab a quick sandwich for dinner.  Back in our places, we squished into our places.

The warm air was filled with sounds of different languages, people of all kinds of cultures who had all come here because of an appreciation of fine arts.  We may not have been in a roomy box like a character from Edgeworth’s novels, we may not be wearing silk gowns—but everyone there was united in their interest in opera.  €4 or €100, we all got to see the same beautiful opera—Aida, an older opera about a young princess turned slavegirl’s love for the leader of her enemy’s army—listen to the same wonderful voices. It may not have been as glamorous as Evelina’s visit to the opera in Burney’s novel, but it was still magical.  It is one of my favorite memories from this trip so far—because it made me fall in love with going to theaters and ballets—and now operas.  It made me appreciate performance arts, and it let me connect with characters from novels that I love through the arts.