On Tuesday morning, Brian showed me a New York Times article about Saturday’s premiere performance of Parsifal at the new opera house. This was a fortunate reminder since only then did I feel a sense of urgency about my season tickets which hadn’t arrived. When I called up Seattle Opera, I found out that my first ticket was actually for that evening’s show, that they had probably been sent to my old address, but I could pick up reprints at the box office.

So not having mentally prepared myself for a four hour assault of Wagner (with two half hour intermissions), at 6:30 I found myself inside the new hall waiting for the curtain to rise. Overall it was quite the experience. The acoustics in the hall are very, very good, much better than the interim converted hockey arena they were using last year, and seems quite comparable to Benaroya Hall. From where I was sitting, the music and singing always sounded rich and almost felt tangible at times.

Music wise: the opera orchestra bills itself as one of the best Wagner orchestras in the world, and for once I couldn’t complain, not even about the brass section. And this year around I was smart enough to make sure I had tickets for the primary cast, and it was immediately apparent what the difference was - all the singers were well and equally matched, unlike some of last year’s secondary casts where it was sometimes painfully obvious that some of the singers were much weaker. Christopher Ventris’ Parsifal in particular was amazing: you could watch and believe him transition over the evening from village fool to wise Grail Knight.

As for the opera itself: it’s obviously very long, not very rich on the spectacle moments, and not at all that interesting plot wise. It also didn’t have any recognizable musical moments for me, unlike say the Ring cycle, or Tristan und Isolde. I tried to listen for leitmotifs but gave up; Wagner never stops long enough for you to collect your thoughts. I did manage to stay absorbed and awake for the entire thing, although it was difficult especially when the subtitle projection machinery broke down twice during two crucial moments. And the last half hour was rather tortuous - I had to physically restrain myself from fidgeting too much. So: I’m still undecided about Wagner. I definitely still want to see the full Ring cycle, and I think Nietzsche was being pretty harsh about the entire “Wagner is a disease” thing, but Parsifal was a pretty difficult opera to start with.

I had taken Wednesday to Friday off in anticipation of the Summer Sanitarium 2003 tour on Thursday. Greg and his two friends Mark and Darren showed up on Wednesday evening, and after a late dinner of hamburgers I got absolutely smashed on home made margaritas. Thursday morning I endured the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life. It was all I could do keep from throwing up until Darren forced me to take a Gravol; washed down with an Advil, I was in passable shape within half an hour. Pharmaceuticals are so cool. After killing time downtown we ended up at Seahawk Stadium at 8 pm (skipping all the opening acts). We were lucky timing wise; got there just in time to catch Metallica’s traditional Ecstacy of Gold opening. From then it was almost old school Metallica all the way - the set opened with Battery, Master of Puppets, Harvester of Sorrow, and Sanitarium. Two songs from the new album were played: Frantic and St. Anger. The only other song later than the black album was Fuel. Nothing was cut short, and the new bassist Robert Trujillo acquitted himself very well - not just musically, but physically: at times, hopping about the stage like a possessed crab, dressed in blue denim overalls, tossing his long black hair back and forth and overall looking very much like the badass metal bassist he ought to be.

Metallica ended their two hour set with lots of pyrotechnics, One, and finally closed with Enter Sandman. No matter what you might think of them from the Napster debacle, or the latest chord transition trademark hoax, they are consummate live musicians, yet also take the time to appear gracious to their fans. James Hetfield took a moment to introduce everyone during an early break, and after the show all four came out and thanked the crowd profusely for showing up and supporting them over the last twenty years.

So that was the spectrum of music this week. If anyone else in Seattle can claim to also be in the intersection of that Venn diagram, I’d certainly like to meet you.