{"id":91972,"date":"2020-10-18T00:10:33","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T21:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/these-women-have-watched-over-200-operas-virtually-since-march\/"},"modified":"2020-10-18T00:10:33","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T21:10:33","slug":"these-women-have-watched-over-200-operas-virtually-since-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/these-women-have-watched-over-200-operas-virtually-since-march\/","title":{"rendered":"#These women have watched over 200 operas virtually since March"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#These women have watched over 200 operas virtually since March<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Marion Chalat and Carolyn Starry would wow Wagner if he were alive today. And Verdi. And Donizetti.<\/p>\n

The friends have spent every evening for the past seven months enjoying an encore performance by the Metropolitan Opera \u2014 more than 200 of them \u2014 ever since the company had to close in mid-March because of the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n

Chalat and Starry, both longtime Met subscribers, started their binge-watching on March 16, the day the company\u2019s general<\/a> manager, Peter Gelb, launched the nightly streams. So far, according to Met spokesman Michael San Gabino, the series<\/a> has had an impressive 14.4 million views.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so thrilled that Peter Gelb was offering something to people who had to stay inside mostly,\u201d Starry told The Post. \u201cFor those few hours, we can focus on something beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Chalat, 80, the programs were an escape \u2014 both from the pandemic and the death of her partner of 34 years, Wayne Foote. \u201cThe operas provided solace and sanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women came to love opera early on, growing up in families that listened to \u201cTosca\u201d and \u201cRigoletto\u201d and \u201cLa Traviata\u201d on the radio \u2014 and music has always played an outsized role in their lives. Starry, 74, is a lyric soprano who taught vocal music and sang on many international cruises. Chalat taught high school biology \u2014 but she was married 10 years to an opera singer, Marc Belfort, and they have two sons. Belfort was with the Zurich Opera when he died in 1998.<\/p>\n

\"A
A social media<\/a> post of Marion Chalat and Carolyn Starry<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Starry and Chalat became fast friends at the New York Historical Society, where they volunteer. One day about a decade ago they were chatting and learned they both had tickets to the opera \u2014 Chalat on Tuesdays and Starry for Saturday matinees.<\/p>\n

From the very beginning, the opera aficionados have emailed each other their thoughts on the shows. After all, Starry pointed out, they were just sitting inside their apartments on the Upper West Side with nothing much else to do.<\/p>\n

Starry takes her laptop into the kitchen so she can spread out and take notes; Chalat is more free-flowing, watching on her iPad after she catches the news<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to call them reviews so we settled on \u2018book reports,’\u201d she said. \u201cInitially, we were very, very serious. Now, we\u2019re very, very relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the time, their tastes are similar. But sometimes they don\u2019t see eye to eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes one might like an opera better,\u201d Chalat told The Post. \u201cAnd we sometimes disagree on opera singers \u2014 but I\u2019m not going to mention any names.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Chalat wasn\u2019t keeping track, but Starry was \u2014 printing out the operas and numbering them.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 16, they marked their half-year streak \u2014 176 operas \u2014 with an outdoor lunch of burgers. Sunday night will be No. 208 \u2014 Donizetti\u2019s \u201cDon Pasquale.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After the Met canceled the entire 2020-21 season,\u00a0Starry and Chalat drowned their sorrow by \u2014 what else? \u2014 watching another opera.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause that\u2019s what we do,\u201d Starry said. \u201cThat\u2019s our therapy in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Met has 14 years of operas to keep them entertained.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#These women have watched over 200 operas virtually since March” Marion Chalat and Carolyn Starry would wow Wagner if he were alive today. And Verdi. And Donizetti. The friends have spent every evening for the past seven months enjoying an encore performance by the Metropolitan Opera \u2014 more than 200 of them \u2014 ever since…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/10\/carolyn-starry-marion-chalat-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[76135,70344,72314,46289,72033],"class_list":["post-91972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-10-17-20","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-metropolitan-opera","tag-opera","tag-upper-west-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}