"This is the most bizarre circumstance," snake charmer Zoe Ziegfeld said. "I never imagined being on the Met stage, ever."
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Ziegfeld and other carnival performers may not seem to have much in common with opera stars, but they all make it work to tell a story
"The beauty of it is finding these sort of dissimilar entities all coming together into a similar game," contortionist Jonathan Nosan said. "Initially, we're brought out, and you don't know exactly who these band of mistfits are. But we learn that they're all these really unique gems that just sparkle in the whole jewel that becomes the opera."
The performances can definitely be considered collaborative.
"It sounded like an amazingly fun and creative show, and I was dying to be a part of it," contortionist Anna Venizelos said. "It was huge admiration for each other. Especially for us, what we do is very extreme in our bodies. And what they do vocally is very extreme. So it was a nice kind of trade off."
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Strongman Titano Oddfellow said it was like two families coming together.
"Combining the sideshow and the opera, it was a perfect fit," strongman Titano Oddfellow said. "It was seamless and very smooth. You get to do so many random things, but the opera was a whole different thing. I didn't know what to expect, other than it would be awesome. It was one of the greatest stages, maybe the greatest stage in the world."
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