What are you gonna sing?

Yesterday, after a gym-full morning, and rainy afternoon shopping excursion, Robert, Amanda, and I decided to be singer-y, and go to Cafe Tacci.Caffe Taci is a little Italian restaraunt turned Opera Karaoke on Friday and Saturday nights. I guess karaoke is the wrong word, since there is an actual accompanist and not a CD. Singers (I assumed from the music schools in the city), grace the patrons with arias, art song, duets, trios, etc., while people wine and dine, late-night.
We arrived, un-warmed-up, and were pleasantly surprised at the large, warm tenor voice that could be heard on the sidewalk. There were 4 singers on the docket for the evening, all with big voices. I think we heard most of Boheme in our 2 hours there. The singing was pretty good, for the most part, although some of the singers performed rep they would NEVER be hired to sing. (I.E.- big black girl with mezzo/big soprano voice singing Susanna from Figaro.) I must admit, although the 3 of us are not your typical classical singers (in that we don't constantly talk shop and bust out trios at parties), it was nice and a relief to be able to talk about singing last night. We critiqued the performances, and made plans of what we will sing upon our return.