I thought the show was beautiful, though sad as operas usually are, and well performed by everyone, though I’m not an opera aficionado. The sound was great and the voices were powerful. The orchestra was on point, and the somewhat minimalistic sets left something to be desired, but it didn’t detract from the show for me.

As we walked out in the mass of opera goers headed for BART, a woman behind us critiqued the performance in her intellectual accent, criticizing the sets and some of the performers, and how they compared to those at a show she’d seen in some other city. Portland, I think. And then we walked past a drug-fueled brawl outside a rave at the Civic Auditorium and her complaints disappeared into the crowd.