Rinaldo - Skip The Opera - Listen At Home - Better Yet, Take The Bus.

We have never left the opera early.  Not until last week.  Rinaldo by Handel.  Beautiful music at times.
Act One:

Repetitive, very Handel-like.  Sort of like an organ recital with costumes and special effects.
Can't appreciate counter tenor voices.  Everyone sounded alike - men and women - come to think of it they looked alike too.
Intermission One:
Decided over champagne that we'd leave at the second intermission.
Act Two:
Finally, some action and some male voices - well, one bass voice.  A superb vocal and dramatic  performance by Elsa Van Den Heever as the evil Armida ended with a bang.  Really, a bang.

It almost made us change our minds about leaving at intermission. Well, almost.
Intermission Two:
We left.  Walking into the balmy Chicago air.  Yes, balmy.

Act Three:
The #146 bus home. 
Stage right. Obese Lesbian couple PDA being observed by a Judgemental Geezer in a suit with a chamber music program in his pocket. An old fart hitting on a young woman with crutches. 
Stage left.  No English spoken here VERY LOUDLY.

Center stage.  Frantic woman with suitcase madly searching for something in her purse all the way up Michigan Avenue.  Bicycle messenger not able to load his bike without help from driver.
Hmmmm.  I see an Opera in this bus drama.  Really, see what we'd have missed if we had walked.  Really.
Skip Rinaldo and take a bus ride.