Yesterday evening my friend and I donned our prettiest dresses and went to see The Marriage of Figaro. Neither of us had ever been to the opera before, and we weren't the only ones - it was “student night” where they sell cheap tickets to the final dress rehearsal, so the vast majority of the audience were young people who had probably never even step foot inside the concert hall.

At some points it was a bit obvious that we were new to the opera. People didn't always know when to applaud, and when the curtain fell some students started leaving without waiting for the actors to do their final bow. (“Maybe they've only been to movie theatres?” suggested my friend.) But I noticed as the performance went on that everyone seemed to really be getting into it. The laughs got bigger at each joke as the audience got more comfortable, and the actors got a great round of applause at the end. Even the really young high school students seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Personally I never thought I'd enjoy an opera. I never particularly liked the music itself when my dad tried to play it for me as a kid, and that was compounded by my inability to understand anything that was being said. I was pleasantly surprised, first of all, that modern operas now project “surtitles” above the performers, translating the original language into English. I also hadn't looked into the story at all and hadn't been expecting a comedy - certainly not such a clever, funny one. I can definitely see myself attending more operas in the future…er, providing the tickets are only $12.50 again. I'm still a student, after all.

Have you had a chance to experience something new recently? Is there anything that you're really into now that you never thought you'd enjoy before you tried it for the first time?


I apologize that today's newspost wasn't comic related! I have a great one planned for next week, but I got home pretty late and didn't want to rush it.

SECRET SANTA SIGN-UPS

Be sure to sign up for this year's DD Secret Santa! It's a really fun opportunity to get some fanart and to make someone's day with a goofy holiday drawing. And also if you don't sign up, you're actually the Grinch. Stop stealing Christmas, Grinch.

Sign up thread is here: http://theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177384/

MILESTONES



From Stellar:
"Deadgirl & Sue's current Misadventure, Desolate Love, is going on hiatus after Thursday the 12th.
The following Thursday Madder Affairs will begin, which I'm super excited about. The prologue, Ink, got people asking the right questions, now it's time to introduce a couple new characters and more mind melting concepts."


From usedbooks:
"On Thursday, Used Books will hit the page 1250 mark, a nice round number. It's also the end of a chapter with one left in the current story arc."

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