Lots of young faces at Rigoletto's closing night

I finally had a chance to check out Vancouver Opera's production of Rigoletto last night, which happened to be the final evening of the show.

It was a bold and avant-garde production, as Janet Smith described in her review, with plenty of dark symbolism scattered throughout its set and constumes—Gilda's dress changing for virginal white to blood red following her seduction (or, more accurately, rape) for instance).

What struck me however was the number of young faces in the audience. Of course, the largest contingent was, as always, the over-50 set, but there were definitely quite a few twentysomethings soaking it all in.

Perhaps the VO's forays into online social marketing is paying off? It's definitely taking the potential of the web very seriously. Last night was a "Facebook Fan Night", where fans of its Facebook page were given a two-for-one deal and allowed into a VIP reception.