Start Me Up

I'm a firm believer in the no ticket left behind rule. If you've got an extra or can't use them, it's time to get all kindergarten and share.

Which is why I happily accepted the offer of one of my favorite couples to join them this afternoon for Richmond Symphony's "A Night at the Opera."

At my suggestion, we decided to meet first at Comfort for brunch and invited a fourth along who wasn't going to the performance but liked the idea of a convivial Sunday meal.

When I got to Comfort, my friends weren't there, but I got the royal welcome from man-about-town and musician Prabir, who was busy at the bar discussing robot-making with a friend. When I told him of my afternoon plans, a shamefaced look crossed his face.

"I had tickets for last night's performance and didn't use them," he admitted sheepishly. Permission to rant, please.

What in the world, I asked. You couldn't have at least posted a Facebook status saying you had tickets to give away? Called one of your bazillion friends and offered them up?

No, he hadn't had time to do that, he said. Further berating and his friend jumped on board with me, saying he'd have loved to have used the tickets.

Prabir finally admitted that we'd made him feel sufficiently awful for wasting his tickets and depriving somebody without the funds but with the desire to have experienced the evening at the opera with the symphony. Mission accomplished.

My friends came in and we chose my favorite booth, the one with the heat vent that blows directly on your legs providing you know where to sit (I do). Bloody Marys ripe with horseradish and mimosas sweet with peach Schnapps were ordered.

We ran the brunch gamut with the couple doing soft scrambled eggs, Surry sausage and biscuits, the fourth doing just a side of squash casserole (having eaten fried chicken, grits, biscuit and bacon an hour earlier; yes, we gave her crap about that decision. You're not supposed to have brunch before brunch) and me doing a cheeseburger with a side of roasted asparagus.

As the male half of the couple has been telling me for years, "Not everyone can do eggs well," but Comfort doesn't have that problem. The female portion of the couple deemed them the best eggs she'd ever had.

After they asked me to run down my leisure activities of the past 48 hours, we all shared the conversational floor. Always happy to share if people ask. From there, though, they lost me as the discussion turned to Taylor Swift, Nieman-Marcus' Last Call stores and football coaches with foot fetishes.

The last course was chocolate mousse and banana pudding, putting the dessert-eaters right over the edge before we left to sit for the next two hours. Sometimes I am so weak.

At Center Stage, my first stop was the ladies' room, where I overheard the following exchange:
#1: "Oh! This is all brand new!"
#2: "Everything's up to date in River City. I love it!"
It's good to know that if the theater itself doesn't impress a guest, the lavatory can.

The program started with selections from Britten's Four Sea Interludes and after "Storm," my friend leaned over and said, "Start me up!" using a Stones metaphor for the kick-ass tone of the piece. I couldn't have put it better myself, at least not so succinctly.

Soprano Kelley Nassief joined the company for selections from Ravel's Sheherazade and her stellar voice and presence was the talk of the intermission crowd.

I ran into Six Burner's owner, completely surprising him by being out of context. My buddy-in-nerdom, James, was there and I chatted with him and my friend Treesa, one of the Symphony's violinists (and partner in crime musically with Prabir), about the performance.

The Symphony Chorus appeared after intermission for parts of Bizet's Carmen. Introducing Pucini selections, conductor Steven Smith explained that Pucini's publisher warned him against rewriting a French story, especially one full of minuets and powdered wigs.

"But he did it the Italian way, full of desperate passion," Smith explained. That's what we like, desperate passion. Okay, maybe that's just me.

Verdi's "Triumphal March" from Aida ended the program on a stirring note, proving that there's nothing quite like an evening of opera in the afternoon.

Especially after a good cheeseburger.