Candelabras and Cone-heads - Sevilla

Day 5 (cont'd)
The reason we’d skipped off to Spain in the first place stood modeling her curved, ivory cone-head in the dressing room. Landing the role of Freia in Wagner’s, Das Rheingold, my soprano singing sis (in-law), Keri, and her husband, Chris, had been living in Sevilla for six weeks.

Spanish sonata: If you hear “opera” and think “yawn”, this Cirquel de Soleil-like rendition might change your tune. Giants towered with massive, metal limbs like Transformers (robots in disguise) and floated across the stage with the ease of Rosy from The Jetsons, their claw-like paws pinching as though they might pull a prize from a boardwalk, crane machine. Androgynous acrobats mastered gravity-defying skills and even the Devil rode a segway.

The only problem:
Wagner opera = singing in German
Singing in German = translated on screen
Translated on screen in Spain = translated into Spanish

Needless to say, though we’d studied the plot beforehand, there were a few moments in the underworld where I found myself a little lost. But that didn’t dampen the brightness of Freia’s glowing apple (her signature prop) or radiant voice…the queen of cone-head concertos.

Pre-show mojitos: My mind went fuzzy to an old black and white film, as if we’d stumbled upon one of Greta Garbo’s former haunts. El Cafetin de los Remidios was a classy joint, where cigarettes deserved to be smoked in long-stemmed holders and coquettish glances would fit in famously beneath the glow of bar-top candelabras…cordial elegance matched with elegant cordials.

After opera tapas: Dolled up in our opera duds, we straggled into Taberna Coloniales and were told to order quickly. But not impolitely, in fact, even though the crowd was thinning out, they had another table move seats to accommodate the six of us.

Chris, the most fluent of the bunch, mis-ordered and ended up with an open-faced, anchovy sandwich, which he ate anyway (and thoroughly enjoyed). Who needs to call it a mistake, when you can call it an experience?

The pictures don't do it justice, but the chicken in almond sauce was delicious (once it got a few shakes of salt).

Goat cheese rounds with honey and figs were decent, but a far cry from the perfection at Casa Paco.