The Family Barber (of Seville)

When I saw The Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera in October, I declared it my new favorite opera and left McCaw Hall determined to come back with my whole family. That proved easier said than done, but I did it. Here’s how.

The “Plan”

It turns out the hardest part of taking the whole family to the opera is finding a day when everyone is free. After I watched Barber on opening weekend, I checked the remaining shows, and the only performance that we didn’t already have a scheduling conflict for was the second Sunday matinee, which also happened to be Seattle Opera’s Family Day. Even that day came on the heels of two nights out in a row (a birthday party on Friday and Coriolanus on Saturday) so I hesitated to buy tickets for fear of a revolt from overscheduled family members.

Family Day dawned, and we really did feel like laying around. Even though both girls usually love dressing up to go out, my 13-year-old refused to change clothes in protest (she wanted to stay home and watch cartoons), but when I did the math on ticket purchases, even my exhausted spouse had to agree it was too good to pass up.

See, on Family Day, everyone under the age of 18 gets $15 tickets, almost anywhere in the venue. But on top of that, my oldest daughter has a Teen Tix membership, which means that she gets $5 rush tickets any time she goes to the opera. For certain performances, Teen Tix members can bring a guest of any age for the same price.

So, for the Sunday, October 22, performance of the Barber of Seville, my family paid:

• Dad: $80 full price, 2^nd balcony front
• Youngest Child: $15 Family Day rate
• Mom: $5 guest of Teen Tix member
• Oldest Child: $5 Teen Tix

Including taxes and fees, the four tickets came in just under $120.

The Talk

You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I took my kids to the pre-performance lecture. They used to cost $7, but now they are free. They start one hour before the show and end 15-20 minutes before curtain – just enough time to run to the bathroom and take your seat.

Since this was Family Day, the talk was geared to all ages, although I’ve found them to be pretty accessible every time I’ve gone. Both of my girls enjoyed the talk (even the 13-year-old who defines “lecture” as “boring”). Jonathan Dean used animation and audio clips to present the story and history of the opera. He played The Dating Game using clips of the various male roles in Barber and asking the audience to guess from their voices what kind of characters they were. After dinner that night, my 8-year-old made us all watch Bugs Bunny.

The Catch

Since we were buying tickets at the very last minute, the cheapest balcony seats were sold out. If we had been faster, we might have spent even less for our one full-price seat. Also, we couldn’t get four seats together in the balcony. We either had to fork out more to get the whole family on the main floor, or split up. For many families, this would have been a deal breaker, but everyone in my family has been to the opera before, so we were okay splitting up. In fact, we even felt comfortable letting the girls sit together in the better seats on the main floor while my husband and I took the cheaper seats up in the balcony.

My husband helped the girls find their seats and picked a spot to meet in the lobby during intermission, while I pre-ordered snacks. Then we met at our seats upstairs. We joined the girls in the lower lobby during each intermission and again after the show. They were not nervous being alone, and they both have enough experience as theater-goers that we didn’t have to worry about their behavior without us. The only down side is that I would really have liked to watch their reactions to the show, but had to settle for talking about it during the intermission.

The Bottom Line

In the end, it was a small price to pay. Everyone enjoyed the opera, and we all enjoyed talking about it together afterwards (“Did you see the old servant guy hanging from the chandelier?). I got to see both casts perform, which is always a delight. It’s so fun to see how the secondary characters, who perform in every show, interact differently (or not) with the alternate leads. Even though I heart Will Liverman, I have to admit that I might like John Moore’s voice better. I couldn’t pick between the Rosinas. Sofia Fomina’s crystalline voice seemed to have an almost Lestat-like effortlessness but Sabina Puertolas sounded richer.

I cringed at the $120 cost when I handed over the credit card. Parking added another $20, and I knew we would end up spending extra on intermission snacks, too. But then my husband reminded me that we spent $120 the last time all four of us went out to dinner – at a brew pub.

Paying for parking is inevitable these days (unless you take the bus, but that’s $5 roundtrip per person, so driving and parking still usually makes sense.) A real grownup would hold the line against expensive snacks – my kids didn’t actually need that $10 package of macarons any more than my husband and I needed the reusable McCaw Hall sippy cup that allows us to drink overpriced wine in the auditorium. So the only cost that matters is the $120 for tickets.

$120 sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But when you live in Seattle, you can hardly leave your house for less. I’ll happily skip a burger for three hours of Rossini. And so will my kids.

The Deets

The next Family Day at Seattle Opera is the May 13, 2 p.m. performance of Aida.

If you can’t wait for Aida to take the fam to the opera, there are lots of other ways to save. Teen Tix, student rush, standing room tickets, and more sneaky discounts are available. Actually, they’re not even sneaky. They are all spelled out on the website, and the friendly folks at the box office won’t even judge you if you ask them to help you find the cheapest possible way to get your family’s butts into McCaw Hall seats.