mice at the opera!
La Cieca has to say that the funniest health code violation story she’s read in, well, days and days is the AP item entitled “NYC Health Department: Mice at Met Opera.” The hilarity begins in the very lede of the piece, which reads
On-stage villains aren’t the only vermin at the Metropolitan Opera.
Just as the headline promises, somewhere within the Met building were found mice or anyway “evidence of mice or live mice.” (La Cieca is not sure which of these possibilities is more likely to provoke her to behave like women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sitcoms.) Anyway, the final line of the story provides what is surely the most delicious double entrendre of the year so far:
The Met, which opened in 1966, also was penalized for using “unacceptable material.”
maybe someone finally got spooked by seeing the pricy muffins in unsanitary containers on the floor at various delivery points in Lincoln Center – yes, the ones they see to the audiences in intermissions.
I have known of similiar instances in other opera houses and Art complexes. Where performers and staff have eaten at the ‘in house’ cafeteria, not open to the public. At one complex, I have no doubt it was not a coincidence. In quick succession, a star in a play got severe stomach complants on stage which forced the performance’s cancellation whilst simu;taneously elsewhere in the complex, chorus members during a performance of Cav/ Pag were deleting in numbers….coming down also ‘with the ‘shits’. Common denominator in both sets of cases: using the one same cafeteria.Problem: Big complexes, loads of staff, tons of ever changing bored ‘pissed off’ people working odd shifts and giving orders., without an overall overseer in charge at all times, maintaining hygiene. IE: “Who forget to dismantle and wash in boiling water the food blender which was used over days, for all those lovely cream sauces, you are eating….the bacteria and fungus adds to the flavour, dont you think?”
What the eye does not see, the mind does suffer offence, but your stomach will! Eating out ‘commerically’ is not my idea of safe eating!
I’m guessing the picture is The Rake’s Progress, the scene at Mother Goose’s. As a second possibility, Act II of Ballo in Maschera.
The picture is from that hilarious Erfurt Ballo–hard to forget!
When I sent around this story earlier today, an executive of another opera company replied:
“Well, DUH. This will not be news to anyone who’s eaten in the Met cafeteria….”
And a soprano on the Met roster asked:
“And just how will Gelb make mouse droppings sexy?”
anyone who works at the met knows there are mice…and not just mice, great big “mice” have been spotted in the mens dressing room…finally the health department is involved…can they do anything about the mold? (and not just on the salad bar)