Krabuljnom plesu

I had no plans in Zagreb on a Friday night, so I decided to make a solo cultured evening out of it. I walked the one block to the National Theater (see photo below) and bought a ticket to the opera. I knew it was Verdi, but the name Krabuljnom plesu did not give me a lot to go on in figuring out the English (or Italian) title.

I had an hour to wait after buying my ticket, so I walked across the street to the Arts and Crafts Museum which currently has an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus – a collection of his drawings and writings on architecture, geography, engineering, and weaponry. I think of Leonardo as an artist and a researcher of movement of the human body, but had no idea the he was also a brilliant mechanical engineer. What was interesting is that his inventions and designs had very little text to go with them and mostly were captured in detailed drawings with incredible perspective. I also learned that Leo was left handed and actually wrote from right to left, so that each letter is in reverse order

!daer ot tluciffid yreV

Included in his drawings was a design for an incredibly modern looking bicycle. There is some dispute as to whether this particular drawing is authentic, but if it is then he beat the ‘inventor’ of the bicycle by centuries. I would not be at all surprised if it were authentic given some of Leo’s other inventions including a deep sea diving suit, a glider, a parachute and lots of weaponry.

The opera turned out to be Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball). I managed to figure out the very basic plot (man falls in love with friend’s wife and ends up dead) but would not recommend going to an opera with translation into Croatian and no clue as to the plot. I even thought about leaving at intermission (1.5 hours into the show), but the music was good, besides, I didn't want to offend. It was a packed house (I got one of the last tickets) and people from all generations from young children out with their parents to older couples and everything in between were enjoying the show.