By Elli Stuhler

The other day I was watching Marie Antoinette –a personal favourite for reasons mainly to do with costumes and a certain Jason Schwartzman- and during the two scenes where Marie goes to the opera I found myself wondering whatever happened to this classic, refined form of entertainment?

Turns out nothing happened to it, but its refined nature pushed it out of my budget boundaries of my “money spent on entertainment” category. However, Toronto’s own Opera Atelier is offering two-for-one operatix to those of us under 30 (for a mere $20!) for their Halloween performance of Iphigénie en Touride at the charming Elgin Theatre. And with regular tickets costing up to $135, this is quite the sweet little steal.

Bloody enough for Halloween, the tale of Iphigénie en Touride is an 18th century operatic adaptation of the Ancient Greek drama by Christoph Willibald Gluck. The plot revolves around the Greek princess Iphigénie who is abandoned on the island of Tauride during the Trojan War. After her mother is murdered she reunites with her brother and must find a way to return to Greece. The performance is sung in French with English surtitles projected above the stage.

A night at the opera would offer an alternative to the generic Halloween plan of putting on lingerie and bunny ears*, going out and spending too much money on too much booze, all for a night like New Years or Nuit Blanche, of inevitable disappointment.

Appropriate for Halloween, the company is encouraging guests to dress up, and is offering a chance to those in costume to win tickets to next season’s performance of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. For any of you actually dressing up as royalty this year, taking your hairspray and lace to the opera would be taking Hallows Eve to a whole new level.

*Not that any of our readers actually do that, right?