Happy National Best Friends Day from Lyric!

Happy National Best Friends Day from Lyric! To celebrate, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the loyal — and often complicated — friendships from the 2016/17 season.

In Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, novice priestess Adalgisa finds herself in love with Pollione, a Roman proconsul with whom the high priestess, Norma, has two children. When the two women realize they are in love with the same man, Norma is furious, but Adalgisa tells Norma she would rather die than steal him from her. 

In Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Prince Tamino and Papageno, the queen’s birdcatcher, form a powerful friendship as they face trials of life and death- and love- in Sarastro’s Temple of Wisdom. Though Papageno has no sweetheart himself, he does his best to ensure Tamino and Pamina are united. And in the end, he finds the love he’s been searching for as well, with Papagena!

Sometimes, our friends can lead us on some pretty wild misadventures. Nobody knows this better than Sancho, of Massenet’s Don Quichotte, whose best friend is the opera’s sometimes delusional title character. Though their friendship, at times, is exasperating to Sancho, he follows Quichotte through the Spanish countryside, facing ridicule, bandits, and some particularly mean-looking windmills.

Treat your best friend to a night at the opera! Single tickets for Lyric’s 2017-18 season go on sale July 10th!