I knew that I loved the music from listening to a CD but I didn't expect such a clever and amusing staging to go with it. I saw the Saturday night cast and they were superb! My only regret is that we had trouble hearing Bartolo's voice from the balcony seats when there was more than one person singing. That was a shame because from what i could hear he did a excellent job with some very challenging lyrics. I would have loved to hear them all. I went with my mother-in-law who knows little about western music and nothing about opera and she loved it also. Our seats were high but center stage. We had a great view of the stage and had as thorough an opera experience as anyone. We went to the pre-opera lecture which helped us appreciate the intricacies of the opera.