NEW YORK CITY — Self-described classical music aficionado Michael Rangel’s night at the Metropolitan Opera House was met with disappointment after realizing the experience was nothing like the popular JG Wentworth commercials depicted, venue staff have reported.
“I’ve always thought of myself as a man of taste and culture, so forgive me for asking what the actual hell is going on in ‘The Magic Flute.’ It’s been two hours and I’m still waiting for a single character to show up who’s won a large settlement but needs cash on the spot. Either this Mozart guy dropped the ball or all those JG Wentworth commercials I watched as a kid were bullshit,” said Rangel. “I came for the out of shape vikings and annuity payouts, and I’m getting birdcatchers and serpents. I’m starting to worry Wentworth himself isn’t going to show up in a cameo at the end and I just wasted $500.”
The opera house’s director saw the commercial’s popularity as a blessing and a curse.
“This is a dying medium and we should be happy anyone is showing up, but that fucking commerical’s depiction of what the opera is all about is why we have to refund 40% of our ticket sales. Every performance, dozens of people demand the box office workers explain why we ‘took out the scene on the bus’ and why the actors are singing in German,” said Claire Henderson. “Honestly at this rate we may as well throw together a 10-minute production of the understudies singing the commercial over and over. At least then everyone complaining can’t whine that our shows conflict with them going to night school.”
The marketing team behind the famous ad admitted they didn’t think it would spiral out of hand.
“The Wentworth opera was our magnum opus, but I’ll admit we have a habit of inadvertently warping daytime television viewers’ perceptions. I’ll never forget all those people going onto the Education Connection website and got upset that none of the trade schools offered courses on being a rapping waitress,” said Alan Watson. “I do feel bad though, because if I were some classically trained singer and some asshole started yelling ‘it’s my money and I need it now,’ I’d be pissed too.”
As of press time, Rangel stormed out of the theater after realizing the opera would not be followed by a two hour block of Maury Povich show reruns.