Cocktail Corner: Opera + Booze = Happy Hour!
Whether you’re a gift-giving, carol-singing ball of joy or a dismal combination of Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch, everyone can agree that when the holidays arrive, there’s often a good reason to celebrate with (or drown one’s sorrows in) a fancy cocktail.
We like to err on the celebratory side of things, and what better way to enjoy a frosty evening than at the warm, cozy Metropolitan Opera, seeing one of the many amazing shows on the boards during the holiday season. To add to your evening, we shall offer you some appropriate cocktails to pair with your festive theater outing. Cheers, and enjoy!
The Queen of Spades (Runs Nov. 29th-Dec. 21st):
Photo: Shutterstock
Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous, melancholy work deserves the majority of your attention, so I won’t get too complicated here. The costumes gravitate towards an elegant black-and-white theme, and a classic White Russian cocktail will warm the cockles of your heart before (or after) your operatic trip to St. Petersburg. Simply combine one part Kahlua, one part vodka (we recommend Russian Standard here, but drinker’s choice, as always), and one part heavy cream. You can either pop everything in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously, or, as the Kahlua website recommends, you can fill a rocks glass with ice, pour in the Kahlua, the vodka, and then finish up with the cream, poured slowly over the back of a spoon to create a pleasing ombre effect. За здоровье!
Der Rosenkavalier (Runs Dec. 13th-Jan. 4th):
Robert Carsen’s updated staging places the action of Der Rosenkavalier around the time it was composed, that is, in 1911, in pre-war Vienna. It’s classy, it’s chic, and it deserves a hint of the rose that is featured so prominently in the first act duet between Octavian and Sophie. So fashion yourself one of these beauties:
Photo: Susannah Brinkley Henry
Ingredients:
2 ounces gin
1 1/2 ounce St. Germain
1 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/2 teaspoon rose water
rose petals for garnish
Instructions: In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine gin, St. Germain, lime juice, simple syrup and rose water. Shake vigorously and pour contents, ice and all into a rocks glass filled with ice or a cocktail glass, neat. Garnish with a rose petal.
(Thank you to the blog Feast and West for this delicious recipe!)
The Magic Flute (Runs Dec. 15th-Jan. 4th)
This family-friendly Met favorite deserves a celebratory cocktail for the adults, and a delicious non-alcoholic beverage for the kids (and the abstaining adults). The delightful yellowish-green hue to the Beetlejuice cocktail (created by bartender Brian Gall of Portland’s Bacchus Bar) will match nicely with the brilliant color palate of Juile Taymor’s visually-pleasing production.
Beetlejuice Cocktail
Photo credit: Allison Ferre
1.5 oz. calvados apple brandy
1 oz. apple cider
.5 oz. rosemary simple syrup
lemon juice
5-7 basil leaves
Combine first five ingredients and shake with ice; strain into martini glass and garnish with fresh basil.
For a non-alcoholic treat, may we suggest the Slow Cooker Wassail Punch, which can be easily whipped up in your crock pot. With delicious notes of ginger, apple, orange, lemon, and cinnamon (to name a few), you’ll want to keep this one in the holiday rotation! Check out the recipe here, with thanks to The Kitchn blog.
Wozzeck (runs Dec. 27th-Jan. 22nd):
William Kentridge’s appropriately eerie production of Berg’s psychologically probing masterpiece is not for the faint of heart. Death & despair are some of the predominant themes in the life of the troubled Wozzeck, so I thought the classic Blood & Sand cocktail would pair nicely. To fashion this boozy and surprisingly-quaffable cocktail, shake the following ingredients over ice: 1 oz. scotch, a 0.5 oz. each of cherry liqueur and sweet vermouth, 0.75 oz. of orange juice and a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice. Strain into a coupe, and garnish with a cherry. Wozzeck probably wished he had something this delicious to distract him from the trials of life. Alas, we’ll just have to drink it for him. (Thanks to this blog for Death & Company’s modern take on the ol’ Savoy Cocktail Book’s classic recipe.)
New Year’s Eve Gala Featuring Anna Netrebko (1 night only: Dec. 31st!)
Credit: shutterstock.com
This pairing was both the easiest and the most difficult: easy because ANYTHING with champagne would work perfectly, and difficult because there are a glut of options to consider! Nevertheless, I’ve narrowed it down to what I think is the easiest of the champagne-y cocktail options: the Kir Royale. There are ‘recipes’ online, but the thing itself is elegant in its simplicity: pour yourself a glass of champagne (or any sparkling wine, really. Who am I to judge?) and top it with a splash (or two) of crème de cassis. Garnish with a lemon twist. If blackcurrant liquor isn’t your thing, you can also make a Royale with Chambord (or another raspberry liqueur), and if you’re looking for a drink that packs more of a punch, try a white velvet (which is a glass of champagne spiked with a bit of Fino sherry). So many reasons to celebrate!
La Traviata (Runs Jan. 10th-Mar. 19th):
Please forgive me, as I’ve taken a slightly irreverent approach to Michael Mayer’s effervescently colorful production of La Traviata. Still, hear me out on this: at the risk of ruining the surprise, during the overture, we find Violetta on her deathbed surrounded by her loved ones. She dies just as Act I explodes onto the stage, thereby interpreting the entirety of the opera as a deathbed hallucination of various memories. So, I thought the most appropriate choice for this cocktail pairing was the perennially-delicious craft cocktail favorite: the Corpse Reviver (well, technically it’s known as the Corpse Reviver No. 2. I’m not sure where the first one went…).
Corpse Reviver No. 2 (Courtesy of Saveur.com)
Photo: Shutterstock
1 oz Gin
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 dash absinthe
Orange peel, for garnish
Shake all ingredients together in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with orange peel. (Editor’s note: I also enjoy a chilled coupe glass or a Nick & Nora for this cocktail.)
Do let us know if you end up trying these pairings, or if you have any other creative ideas for operatic cocktails! And don’t forget, you have to buy the ticket to take the ride, so head on over to the Metropolitan Opera website and consider gifting a night at the opera (and a tasty adult beverage) to the party people in your lives!
Photo: Joshua South Photography
Lianne Coble-Dispensa joined the Metropolitan Opera as a member of the extra chorus in 2010, and went full time in 2015. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Met Artists Newsletter, and is a member of the Met Chorus Artists executive board. When she's not singing opera or furiously copy editing this month's newsletter, she enjoys spending the lion's share of her free time cooking various delights in the kitchen, reading non-fiction, Crossfitting, and running moderately impressive distances. She is married to fellow chorister (and ultramarathoner/Crossfitter) Scott Dispensa, and they live in Teaneck, NJ with their cat, Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, and one derpy puppy named Finnegan McCloud.
