I had a very culturally enriching weekend this past weekend. I was able to go to two operas and to visit an Islamic Center. I didn't plan for it to be such an opera packed weekend, it just happened.
The first opera I got to see was La Boheme, which is a very famous opera by Puccini. I wasn't sure how much I would like La Boheme because it's a tragedy and I'm not a huge fan of tragedy, however there was a fair amount of comedy in the opera and so I did indeed enjoy it. The music was beautiful and beautifully sung. If you get the chance you should see this opera.
The next event of the weekend was visiting a local Islamic Center. My friend's co-worker invited her to come and have a tour and to be able to talk to the Iman (the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center) and my friend invited me. When we got to the Center I realized that I'd actually been there a few years earlier on a field trip. The building itself isn't exactly what one might think of when they think of an Islamic place of worship (aka a mosque, however I found out that mosque isn't really what it's called but I forget the other name), I think of the grand mosques like Dome of the Rock, etc. which are exquisitely beautiful. The Islamic Center I went to is a more humble building, many of it's patrons are immigrants and refugees, but it is still a lovely building.


It was very interesting as the Iman showed us around the building and told us about his religion, correcting popular assumptions as he went. We were able to observe as members of the community gathered for their prayers and afterwords the Iman and those who were there taught us more about some of the essentials of the Muslim faith. It's really very interesting and intriguing to see how very similar the beliefs of different religions are. Islam is a fascinating and very simple, yet complex religion. If you'd like to learn more about the religion find your local Islamic Center and ask about a tour etc.
The last big event of the weekend was seeing Mozart's The Magic Flute, I've been interested in this opera for a while, I had a brief introduction to it when I first saw the movie Amadeus, years ago. I really enjoyed this opera, if you're new to opera this is a good opera to see, the music is beautiful, the plot intriguing and comical. This opera was a little different from other opera's that I've seen, the music was sung in German and then there was dialogue in English, I enjoyed the opera but all the same I would have preferred language continuity. In a lot of opera's rather than spoken dialogue they have would sing/speak along with piano/harpsichord accompaniment and this was called recitative. German didn't lend itself very well to recitative and so instead they did Singspiel. In singspiel they sang the music and then spoke the dialogue making it a bit like a musical today. The plot of The Magic Flute is very fantastical and also contains a lot of Free Masonry connections which are really cool. I whole heatedly recommend The Magic Flute. PS the queen of the night's aria is insane.