Packing Your Bag (or Pockets) for a Night at the Opera


While I was graduating in Manhattan, my friend Bernard and I went to the opera without dinner.

Bernard and I met at an upscale food market in SoHo, where we both worked part-time behind the bread station. I was going to be a famous writer, he was a famous set designer. But meanwhile, we spent our bread and butter on the cheapest Family Circle tickets. Metropolitan Opera, then hummed arias from “Eugene Onegin” and “La Bohème” as we sliced ​​seven grains and stacked the drumsticks.

Our shift was past dinner, and champagne sandwiches and flutes at break bars were way beyond our students’ budget. That’s why we’ve always come to pack snacks – hearty, hearty bites could have kept us going throughout the “Götterdämmerung”, but were small enough to stash in my old beaded bag.

We ate in fine weather egg salad sandwiches and homemade chocolate truffles Perched on the edge of the fountain in Damrosch Park, adjacent to Lincoln Center. When the weather was stormy, we would dine leaning against the balcony railings, watching the fancy patrons enjoying the occasional cooked Alaskan at the Grand Tier restaurant downstairs, assuming it would be us someday in the distant future.

That distant future has arrived and I’m still trying to take a break from the Met in the same vintage bag. I plan to continue this season as well (Met reopens on Monday). But these days, my husband Daniel accompanies me, whose main contribution is a (possibly illegal) bottle of bourbon or a premixed bottle. Manhattans he put it in his pocket.

Now we used to crave for sandwiches and champagne at the bar or even at the Grand Tier, but we rarely do. My made-to-order picnics—and, I think, a much more fun way to get through the 30 to 40 minutes of an average Met break—have become part of the opera ritual. And this year, picnicking offers another perk: Pulling your mask down to dine out in Damrosch Park may be a way to know Delta variants.

Over the years Falstaffs and Salomes have learned a few best practices when it comes to packing these little opera cookies.

First and foremost is to minimize clutter by avoiding sloppy, gravy bites. I like to think of opera snacks as I choose hors d’oeuvres for a party. Clean, independent finger foods that can be bitten off while holding a drink work best, preferably things that taste good at room temperature.

I’m fond of stacked little tea sandwiches onion, cucumbers or Smoked Salmon for the first break, followed by some kind of sweet bite – for example, almond persimmon or homemade brownie cookie sticks, for a sugar shake – to get me through this final act. Duffels stuffed with anything ground lamb and feta cheese with pumpkin and mintor any kind of sweet or salty hand pies, it can also work well.

Then there are the maki rolls, as long as they’re loaded with vegetables or something cooked. You don’t want raw fish sitting under your arm for the entire 100 minutes of the first two acts of “Don Carlos”.

counter tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo’s photo., who reincarnates the stellar return Ahnaten Homemade in the 2021-22 season kimbap or avocado-cucumber scrub to eat on a park bench when you were a student, and these are a great option that you can make or buy.

“I would definitely picnic a lot when I went to the opera when I was younger,” she said. “As an artist, a backstage picnic is another level of intrigue with food that will make you sing well but don’t show up in your costume.” (Perhaps especially since Mr Costanzo spent part of Akhnaten almost without any costumes.)

Once you’ve decided what snacks to bring, you should consider the packing container (you’ll want something that can fit in a small purse or purse). That old plastic yogurt cup might work just fine, but a cute and colorful bento box or metal tiffin cup is much more stylish to put on your lap. And a thin linen napkin can protect your opera chic from splashes and drips.

One thing you should avoid is going to the opera hungry. Writing in the mid-20th century, Joseph Wechsberg describes the consequences at the Vienna opera house in his epicurean memoirs:Blue Trout and Black Truffle Mushrooms

“Sometimes when I was singing a tenor pianissimo my stomach would start making rumbling noises and everyone would look at me. Some well-fed people say ‘shhhh!’ It was very embarrassing,” wrote Mr. Wechsberg.

His response was to bring in raw bacon sandwiches sprinkled with paprika in the first act of “Die Walküre.”

“As Siegmund and Sieglinde sang their beautiful duet about sweet Love and Spring, the sweet scent of paprika seemed to descend all over the fourth gallery like a light mist.”

Of course, eating in the auditorium during the opera on the Met is always prohibited, and especially now. But eat the sandwiches sprinkled with cayenne pepper in the second interval and the sweet smell will take you to III. It will carry most of the way through the curtain.

Bernard and I made one of Mr. Wechsberg’s opera sandwiches once, but I have to admit, after much thought, we cooked the bacon before showering on the paprika and stuffed it all in between slices of sourdough, courtesy of the fancy food shop where we work. .

As Brünnhilde fell into dreaming in the magic ring of fire, we were still enveloped in the light mist of red pepper, with our stomachs full, all our senses alert, our hearts full.

I wish my past self could see what a culinary gift has passed to my future me. And a number of opera patrons were spared the idle chatter during the pianissimos.



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