I admit it, I used to think opera was silly, stupid, something Tony Randall would talk about on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. But, with age comes wisdom (that’s about it) and the appreciation of  the finer things like jazz, classical music, children and maybe even Captain Beefheart. (I think I’m still a little young for the Captain.) Last night was our second XRT Night at The Opera, a production of La Tragedie De Carmen by the Chicago Opera Theater at the Harris Theater at Millennium Park. This is a reimagined version of Bizet’s 1875 masterpiece, distilled to its dramatic essence. The stage is simple, but imaginatively set and lit. The libretto is in French with English supertitles, and clocks in at about ninety minutes with no intermission; relatively brief for an opera, but still plenty of time to leave the stage littered with bodies (it is a tragedy.) The singing by every member of the cast is phenomenal: sublime, seemingly effortless with swelling notes that cross the threshold between this world and the next. It only runs for five performances, it could make you a convert. Get more info at ChicagoOperaTheater.org.