A young woman's first time is special. It should be with an opera that cares, that wants to understand—well, no, really her first time should be with a sensually profligate, super-modern piece of crazy. And so, Mary HK Choi attended composer Alban Berg's 1937 opera, "Lulu" at the Met on Saturday. In it, she witnessed the tale of a woman whose unparalleled ability to manipulate members of the so-called "stronger" sex leads, ultimately, to a grim finale, with lots of lurid 12-tone music throughout.

Opera-goers don't usually care about "spoilers," so we can tell you that Lulu burns through three husbands, one of whom she murders, before taking up with his son. Some time later, after escaping from jail and fleeing to London, she gets murdered on her first night as a prostitute by none other than Jack the Ripper, who also does away with Lulu's lesbian admirer, THE END.

Seth Colter Walls: So, to begin...

Mary HK Choi: We went to the opera! And it was my first time!

Seth: You asked me to pick one, and I thought you might like this.

Mary: I KNOW! Because, as you had all discussed, it was about "a crazy bitch!"

Seth: So did you like it?

Mary: Lulu was awesome. Totally out-of-her-tree batshit psychotic crazypants!

Seth: For real. (Also: I am now a little bit in love with Marlis Petersen, who sang the v. difficult lead role with real skill.)

Mary: OH FOR GOOD REASON! BUT let's pan out a bit. The venue was amazing! I had never ever been to Lincoln Center ever at all (other than the IMAX, obvs).

Mary: I enjoyed the well-heeled whites. Your people are divine!

Seth: Oh, I always think I look out of place?

Mary: It's part of your charm. You looked perfectly in place. I like that we got to drink early. Always helps.

Seth: Drinking at 12:45 in the afternoon is pretty great.

Mary: And they had Lindt candy bars and giant Toblerone, like duty-free size.

Seth: You asked if I wanted one, and then you were like, psych! And that's fun...

Mary: Well, because I was kidding except I was serious and then I thought you were just being nice and then I didn't know and THAT'S WHY DRINKING.

Seth: So WHY had you never been to Lincoln Center before? Was it because you thought, UGH BORESIES?

Mary: Well, no...

Seth: Or no one had ever invited you?

Seth: Or you thought it was just for olds?

Mary: I guess. I mean, I had no reason to go.

Mary: It's sort of like a hansom cab in that way—that you could live here and just never do it.

Mary: It's so NYC drag.

Mary: Or so I thought.

Mary: Drag like draggy not like boring. It's so Sex and the City season six, you know?

Seth: Well, I would *not* know. But I think I get you.

Mary: I loved the décor and the chocolates.

Seth: I knew you'd like it when the chandeliers retracted toward the ceiling.

Mary: YES! And the Christmassy feeling. They're like Neiman's ornaments. That cost 1.5 bajillion dollars.

Seth: I also knew you'd like the Chagall costumes.

Mary: YES. Because: CHAGALL MADE COSTUMES. I did not know this. I don't actually even like Chagall's colorways but man that is COOL on GP.

Mary: AND you get the English subtitles, which you switched on for me in an avuncular fashion.

Seth: I gave you the choice of being your "own adult person," but you seemed to want the avuncular. Did you find that the user experience was intuitive?

Mary: YES. I liked how the screen split into two when two people are singing.

Seth: Now you don't need to know all the languages to enjoy the opera! POPULISM.

Mary: And I liked how you can't see your neighbor's screen.

Seth: Right, you thought I was all on my German tip, which does not exist.

Mary: I thought you hadn't switched yours on and you were being all SCHMANCY. And not trying to make me feel comfortable by smiling and putting it on English like mine.

Seth: Hah!

Mary: And you had opera PEEPS! Which I didn't know was a thing. There was nodding.

Seth: Oh, a couple people recognized me.

Mary: I was WAY impressed

Seth: That doesn't always happen.

Seth: Or actually, I TOLD THEM ALL TO COME SAY HI ON EMAIL BEFOREHAND TO IMPRESS MY KOREAN LADYFRIEND.

Mary: They were like THERE! OVER THERE! I SEE A NON-WHITE LADY!

Seth: Heh.

Mary: People were SO rich. I could SMELL IT. You wore French cuffs. Do you always roll like that?

Seth: I have one such shirt. My, like, two other nice shirts were at the dry-cleaner.

Mary: I have decided to believe you.

Mary: But I liked your cufflinks, that you were all chagriny about.

Seth: Well, I did at least coordinate them with my tie correctly, right?

Mary: YES. And they're the kind Alec Baldwin wears and that is winner winner chicken dinner. Now. On to the show.

Mary: I loved the story.

Mary: You were saying that Lulu has more narrative than typical operas.

Seth: Well, lots of operas have plots—but sometimes it's all business for the sake of business and thus pointless.

Mary: And how Lulu used to be weaksauce cause it was two acts only, because Berg's widow pulled the ill Courtney Love cock block.

Seth: TOTALLY. Berg finished composing Act III in short form, but she wouldn't let anyone orchestrate it, ever.

Mary: Which is BULLSHIT.

Mary: So then everyone had to wait for her to die until they could do the damn thing.

Seth: And there was an Act III vocal score that had been prepared, and was waiting all that time. But anyway: now we get the full power of the piece.

Seth: Which is that Lulu comes to no good in the end.

Mary: Yeah, and you need that.

Seth: It's palindromic right?

Mary: YES.

Seth: She starts off popular, and then dies at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

Mary: Who I am OBSESSED WITH!

Seth: Oh yeah, tell me why.

Mary: Have you ever read the graphic novel FROM HELL? THAT is why.

Mary: Also, weirdly I was thinking about fashion. Haaaate late Victorian/Edwardian.

Seth: But you LOVED LULU'S fashions in this production

Mary: YES! I loved the costuming in this!

Mary: LULU always looked like a flying squirrel.

Seth: You used the word "diaphanous" at intermish.

Mary: She was wearing the BEST silk charmeuse palazzo pant number in the beginning! And it's ivory!

Mary: So creamy. So childlike.

Mary: She's like Joan Allen in Pleasantville meets Precious Moments and acting like Kirsten Dunst.

Mary: I couldn't believe what's-her-lungs could sing like that!

Seth: PETERSEN.

Seth: MARLIS.

Seth: She ROCKED it

Mary: Totally. Amazing! So slight. I liked at certain parts she looked like she was retching.

Seth: She was in Hamlet a couple months back and apparently was inaudible, cuz the Met's a big house.

Seth: You saw, I took you up to the top.

Mary: Yes! The tippy top is boss.

Seth: The tippy top has the best sound in the house, by the way, and if you want to go to one of the FINAL TWO PERFORMANCES, you should not feel bad about snagging the cheap seats up there. Around $25 at the cheaper end.

Mary: Whoa! Um. Actually... is that low?

Seth: People think it's SO expensive to go to the opera... But if you sit up high... it's like only marginally more expensive than the movies (in Manhattan, anyway).

Seth: It can really be rather affordable, compared to other live theater and B'way.

Mary: I don't like live theater or B'way.

Seth: ME EITHER, on B'way.

Mary: AND I didn't hate this even though obvs the opera is a musical.

Mary: I hate musicals. Why doesn't the opera bother me?

Seth: Whole different beast.

Mary: But WHY?

Seth: I think it's powerful in a kind of ritualistic way—even savage and grand—that musicals just can never touch, because they can't COMMIT to the singing or the full-on live orchestra.

Seth: Musicals are like, 'Oh we're gonna talk talk here for a bit.'

Seth: 'Because we're tired of belting.'

Seth: 'And now whenever we feel like it, we're gonna do a lil' ditty for y'all.'

Mary: Total bullshit! And savage is an interesting word.

Seth: Also, it's SEXY right?

Mary: Very. I mean that's the thing. It's, and this feels obvs to have to say out loud, but it really is sensual. It's totally overwhelming at times.

Mary: We have discussed that I have no attention span.

Seth: You talked about there being a lot of "information." And it's true!

Mary: So all this information gets pelted at you forcibly by EVERYONE all at the same time.

Mary: And it feels SO FUCKING GOOD.

Seth: It wasn't intimidating for you? Because that's what opera administrators think—that if they do a complex piece like this, no new listeners will come to it. But I think they're wrong and need to market better.

Mary: I worried that I'd be one of those people who would fall asleep but it's so not that.

Mary: I mean, the opera is scary.

Mary: It just feels not up my alley.

Mary: But I LOVE the live orchestra.

Seth: I think smart young people with an interest in aesthetics are really a natural audience.

Mary: FASHION for sure. I liked how her hair changed throughout.

Seth: Oddly, I didn't keep track of this as much.

Mary: She looked like Kristen Wiig by the end of it.

Seth: Oh, kinda spent?

Mary: DAMP.

Mary: I liked how capricious she was.

Seth: So talk to me about the psychology of the character.

Mary: I really admired how her seducing wasn't ever for one specific end game.

Mary: I'd feared that she would just be a gold digger. BORING.

Seth: Do you think LULU ever lusted? Or was she just like, gobsmacked that men kept coming up to her all the time? I never saw her sweat to draw a man.

Mary: But sweat's not how you draw a man. At all.

Mary: You allow him to think it's all by his own volition, when it never ever is.

Mary: That's what was so G.

Mary: It was all truly for sport. This is how she spends her time.

Seth: Ugh, I would have walked away with Lulu AT ANY TIME.

Mary: Well sure.

Seth: Like sure, shoot me afterward, I don't care.

Seth: "Isn't this the couch where your father bled to death?"

Mary: That couch line was full on DURING PENETRATION, btws.

Seth: Right?

Mary: Props to Alwa for being able to finish!

Seth: Ha! Also? I liked how they kept the throat-slicing offstage.

Mary: YES.

Seth: It can very easily be overplayed.

Mary: It was way more dramatic that way.

Seth: They kept all the carnality onstage and the blood offstage.

Mary: YES. Good point. I was actually surprised by how much LEG there was at all time. And how much supine-ness.

Seth: It made the feeling of allure that much easier to understand. Like the men never even could see the blood around the corner—all they could see was the sex. And that's all we got to see.

Mary: And it was always delivered in a really childlike innocent way. Beguiling.

Mary: I thought it was interesting how infantilized she was by everyone other than the strongman and the gay dude who wanted to blackmail her and sell her into white slavery.

Seth: Yeah, that's when she was at her most interesting, when she was rebelling against a man's desire.

Mary: What happened to the little boy? I wondered if he was intended to be one of her visitors at the end when she becomes a whore.

Seth: Oh, nope!

Seth: Diff characters... they represent her three husbands!

Mary: OH! Hence palindrome!

Seth: The silent professor = the first husband.

Mary: RIGHT.

Seth: And Jack the Ripper is played by the same singer who does Dr. Schon.

Mary: But what about the black dude?

Seth: Oh, the African prince! Sort of a doppleganger for the painter, I suppose. (The one with the well-appointed apartment.) But he's also referenced in the second act, actually!

Seth: When she's dancing in Paris.

Mary: OH RIGHT.

Seth: There's an "African prince" who might take her away

Seth: And then he visits her in the brothel in London. It's just a well-written piece that way!

Mary: YES. Man, the second act! And the emotional blackmail with the letter writing!

Mary: Dude, that was amazing when she dictates what Dr. Schon should write to break off his engagement. Just wow.

Seth: OH THAT WAS GRIM. And awesome.

Mary: SO AWESOME. It was so expertly played.

Mary: Perfectly choreographed.

Mary: Did you like how the dictation starts off so genteel and agreeable? Then by the end it's just Lulu strumming strings.

Seth: But then it's about humans' inexhaustible ability to degrade and frustrate themselves.

Mary: So boss!

Mary: That was a huge part of it, the masochism.

Mary: I thought the gender shit was pretty spot on.

Mary: Like the flavors of crazy specific to each gender.

Seth: DETAILS. How you see it, boo?

Mary: Well.... the fact that no one calls her by her name.

Mary: The fact that the bum who is for all intents and purposes her dad still wants to fuck the shit outta her.

Mary: The fact that it's not so much about having her, it's about owning her so that no one else can have her.

Seth: Well, that they all have different names for her, right?

Mary: Other than the countess. They call her Mignon, Nelly.

Seth: They're just discoursing with THEIR VISIONS of her.

Mary: She's basically the Julia Roberts movie The Runaway Bride, except with way more death. And fuckery.

Seth: That's gonna end up on a Met billboard someday.

Mary: It's all about power in the end. And it's never about power being applied to anything for a goal. Just people holding it at different times.

Seth: Right, there are NO ends!

Mary: I did love how easily she killed. I found that entirely realistic. People are SO hopelessly replaceable.

Seth: It's like Beyonce said....

Mary: YES. TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT.

Seth: But! Oh! They LEFT SOMETHING OUT. Because this jam is 1930s. Berg wanted to get all multimedia.

Seth: He expressly wrote that he wanted there to be a projected FILM in that BANGO interlude in act II, where Lulu goes to jail, gets cholera...

Mary: I loved the interlude.

Seth: ...and busts herself out via the underwear switcheroo with the lesbian.

Seth: So it's supposed to be filmed for EVERY production by the cast in that production. It's obviously... an EXPENSIVE requirement.

Mary: But how expensive? So as to be prohibitive? I mean, that seems to be kinda a big deal to include, right?

Seth: The Met had a wussy kind of series of drawings 30 years ago that they used, and decided not to use this time. I think it's six one way, half a dozen the other, unless you're really gonna produce something top-notch.

Mary: Ew. Bullshit. I'm not mad though.

Seth: I mean, opera composers sometimes make unreasonable demands.

Seth: The Met lost many millions of dollars this year.

Seth: So the three-minute film to be made spesh for Lulu wasn't in the cards.

Mary: That is CRAZY to me, that the Met could lose many millions and still be chilling.

Seth: Well, that is a subject of fierce debate!

Mary: That is some rich white people shit right there.

Mary: Yo, Asians who are down with the rich whites always wear the weirdest shoes. They always dressed like Scandinavians.

Seth: Well, opera's just never going to be a moneymaker again. It will require lots of donations from fancy types.

Mary: I am DOWN with other people being DOWN and doling out tons of cash.

Mary: My experience was a TREASURE.

Seth: I hope more people get to go!

Mary: Also it was nice to see Matt Gallaway. Who you are apparently BESTIES with. Which I did not know. He is the most soothingest human being in the world.

Seth: RIGHT?

Mary: He is a clawfoot bathtub.

Seth: Uh. May not co-sign on that.

Mary: So nice to get to see him in the middle of the day. Oh and we met other pals too!

Seth: La Cieca?

Mary: YES. He was lovely.

Seth: Nice dude.

Mary: McGotes! Made me feel 100% not moronic. Which is the mark of a truly good egg.

Seth: See, that's a big part of opera's bad rap. People think they're gonna get pointed at and laughed at if they go and do something "wrong"? But really everyone should feel welcome to come and enjoy the music.

Mary: I mean, for sure. You can't just go cold. That would be mondo weird.

Seth: Well, I did. But I'm a weirdo.

Mary: Right. Remember when I had a panic attack when I heard the bells or whatevs?

Seth: That was funny. And I explained it's just a whazup, get to your seats, for the older, not-as-fast patrons.

Mary: Yeah, I didn't know it was for all the oldies to gather their girdles and crawl back. I was like, MEEP!

Seth: You and I had time to visit the bathroom.

Seth: Did you do a bump there before Act III?

Mary: Of course! From my obsidian poison ring that matches mah shuz.

Mary: So, I would go again. And I think Lulu was a good choice.

Mary: But I can't wait to see one of the ones where they use the whole stage.

Mary: Go like super deep.

Mary: Ahem... is what she said.

Mary: I want an elaborate one.

Seth: You want your staging g-spot to be reached.

Seth: The new Wagner ring cycle is going to be mad deep.

Seth: Debuts next season.

Mary: This all sounds hella cervical.

Seth: He's gonna get all gesamtkunstwerk in your vagina.

Seth: (Too far?)

Mary: Ha! UM. I like how people say VAHGNER.

Mary: Sorta like how people say BEARRG.

Mary: Like Serge in Beverly Hills Cop.

Seth: Serge was my name in French class.

Mary: Mine was Marie Claire. How much French have you taken?

Seth: Enough to pick up a French hottie at the first opera I ever attended, in Paris!

Mary: Your opera origin story is pretty swell.

Seth: Guys, listen up. There are PICKUP opportunities here. Probably healthier and different from whatever's in that THE GAME book.

Mary: I love that book.

Seth: Haven't read. Is opera in it at all?

Mary: No it's not in the book.

Seth: Opera's some slept-on game. Just like my ... what did you call it?

Mary: Oh how obliging and pliant you are.

Seth: My agreeableness.

Mary: YES. Your agreeableness is slept on.

Mary: In summation: I am into opera. Five jalapenos is my official rating.

Because all of the DVDs of Lulu have been straight up terrible and lame productions, we didn't embed YouTubes of them here. The last two performances of Lulu for like, probably another decade, are on Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon. Cheap seats are sold out for the former, though you can always buy $15 or $25 standing room tickets on the day of each performance, starting at 10am, by calling 212-362-6000. And rush seats are theoretically available, though you have to wait in line a long-ass time. Check the Met's website for more details. And yes, Mary had already signed off while Seth was writing this part.

Mary and Seth would totally go again!