It's Christmas in New York and young widowed bookkeeper Loretta Castorini (Cher) stands anxiously outside the Metropolitan opera house scanning the crowd. On the other side of the Lincoln Center plaza, also scanning the people arriving past the illuminated fountain and vast Christmas tree, is Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage), angst-ridden one-handed baker, and brother of her fiance.
Loretta has reluctantly agreed to accompany the opera-obsessed Ronny to a performance of La Boheme. It is a decision that somewhat undercuts her avowed intention of calling a halt to their amour fou which had exploded the night before on their first meeting. She's had the grey taken out of her hair, he's in a tux as Puccini's treacly music swells around them and they finally catch each other's eye. We know before they do that any efforts to give up their taboo relationship will be futile as they take each other by the arm and enter the opera house.
Cher won an Oscar for her performance in Norman Jewison's 1987 film Moonstruck, but in any objective terms it is just another scene from an (admittedly superior) rom-com. However, as a direct result of stumbling across Moonstruck on TV one night, my whole family found ourselves, just a few weeks later, standing on exactly the same spot as Loretta and Ronny outside the huge arches of the Met clutching our tickets to the very same Franco Zeffirelli production of La Boheme.
Of course, measured against historic standards of disproportionately extravagant responses -- I'm thinking here of someone like Elton John -- it was small beer. And I should add that I was going to New York anyway and the initial impulsive decision to include the family was made -- how do we phrase it? -- after dinner.
But for my family, the whole episode remains quite a big deal. Especially as up until that point neither my son nor daughter -- aged 13 and 11 -- had ever expressed even the slightest interest in going to the opera (there is still dispute as to whether they even did that night). But they had always very much fancied a trip to New York.
In the movie, Cher lives in Brooklyn, but while we valued verisimilitude we would not enslaved by it. Instead, our hotel, On the Ave (www.ontheave-nyc.com), was 15 blocks north of the Lincoln Centre at 77th and Broadway. There were free cookies and a pianist in the lobby and smartly functional rooms with just a twist of chic in the form of tiny flat-screen televisions in the bathroom.
The location was a hit in that it felt more of an authentic neighborhood than midtown, but there were still the facilities that tourists need. Three blocks away was the 77th St entrance to Central Park, and to get there we had to pass the American Museum of Natural History. The main museum was interesting enough, but it was the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and the 3D film Passport to the Universe shown in the ultra hi-tech planetarium, that
provided the real thrill, despite Tom Hanks's achingly worthy voice-over: "Citizenship has its rewards, but it also brings certain responsibilities," Hanks dutifully intoned. "Among them is understanding where we are in the vastness of space and time."
That's great Tom, the audience silently responded as one. But now take us to Pluto.
PHOTO: AFP
Moonstruck is full of eating scenes and the diner opposite On the Ave, Manhattan Diner (2180 Broadway) -- admittedly just like 90 per cent of New York diners -- was perfect film-set material with central-casting ancient waiters. We were smugly blase about ordering "eggs over easy'' and most of the rest of the diner menu, but "eggs with a kind word'' stumped us. "What's the kind word?" we smilingly walked into the trap. "Don't have the eggs," snapped back the deadpan reply. (If only the chicken at Madison Square Garden had come with a kind word when we went to see the Knicks play basketball.)
Innumerable movies -- and a Pogues song -- have rammed home the connection between Manhattan and Christmas and they really do do it in style. The cold can literally take your breath away, the ice rink at the Rockefeller Center is a bun-fight, but in a good way, especially after dark, and the green and red lighting theme on the Empire State Building turns it into a Christmas tree for the whole city. Even the incessant Christmas music in every shop, hotel lobby and other public space stays on the right side of the atmospheric/irritating divide. Or at least it does for a few days.
For younger kids, the Children's Museum of Manhattan is a short walk away on 83rd St but the 1600㎡ of the Lincoln Centre complex, the world's largest performing arts centre, is pretty child-friendly too. It is home to not only the Metropolitan Opera but also the Juilliard music school, the New York City Ballet, Opera and Philharmonic orchestra, among many other arts institutions. But if that's not enough classical music then it's just a 10-minute walk to Carnegie Hall on 57th St.
The Zeffirelli La Boheme is still a stalwart of the Met programme and tickets are straightforwardly available on the Internet at prices comparable to London.
Loretta and Ronny were dressed to the nines for their Met date (incidentally, it's worth keeping an eye on the erratic comings and goings of the gray patches in Cher's hair as the continuity goes awry in the movie). The only source of anxiety was a potentially aria-busting cough developed by our daughter, Connie, in the hours before the performance. But we needn't have worried. The house was packed with people like Cher's father from the film -- a wealthy owner of a plumbing firm who takes his mistress to the opera -- and they seemed to have little compunction about shuffling around, sneezing and occasionally talking, which more than drowned out my daughter's occasional Mimi-like weak coughs.
The seat-back screens showing subtitles made life easier for the children and the opportunity for sugar-infusion via a dessert from the restaurant in the second interval kept us all awake, despite the jet-lag, to the end of the opera, and of Mimi. Leaving the Met, the moon was out. Maybe not as spectacularly huge in the sky as the moon that dominated the movie, but good enough for us.
The movie's soundtrack is split between Puccini and some Italian American classics, and as we walked up Broadway how could we not join in with Dino? Altogether now, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."
Getting there:
nThe average temperature in New York for December is between -1℃ and 5℃.
A return flight with Cathay Pacific costs NT$31,600 including tax from Champion Travel (02) 2516 5189. Booking online with www.eztravel.com.tw, Northwest Airlines has flights at NT$27,890 excluding airport tax.
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