I’ve been to more performances of Don Giovanni than I’ve been to all rock concerts.
Hell, I’ve been to more ballets than rock concerts.
I have no interest in going to an opera. I wouldn’t mind a greatest hits concert but there seems to be a lot of filler in between highlights. No opera deep cuts for me.
Same!
I can also report that if you live somewhere with a good quality music conservatoire you can often watch excellent student opera performances for free or a low price.
I went to student performances of opera when i was in college. My father may also have dragged me to an opera or two. I’m not much of an opera fan, and have never paid to attend a professional performance. But according to the description in the poll, i have certainly attended operas.
I’ve been to exactly one opera, but what a locale: Verdi’s Rigoletto, in Savonlinna, a town amid the lakes of central (meaning, quite northern) Finland.
I’ve only attended two operas:
- An oratorio-style (just singing, no staging or costumes) performance of Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera. I was in college, and my then-girlfriend, who was big into classical music, asked me to attend with her.
- A performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, done by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, sometime in the 1990s, which was very enjoyable.
I had a boss who really became smitten with Italy and all things Italian. He spent a summer in an immersive language program in Italy that included field trips, one of which was to an opera in an outdoor amphitheater. He described the experience as being like the bastard child of a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show and Verdi: The crowd was responding to/engaging with the performers, and they actually did the wave, as if they were at an American football game. It blew his mind.
My “none of the above” for rodeo isn’t because I’ve never seen a rodeo. I once stayed at a hotel that was also hosting a rodeo, and live video from the rodeo was available in the bar and other public places, so I watched a lot of that rodeo.
And mostly, i felt bad for the animals. Terrified animals with humans jumping on them to force them to the ground, or do other scary and unpleasant things.
I also felt bad for the humans, who were not paid a lot and had racked up a lot of injuries. The announcer kept talking about how badly they’d been mauled, the “famous” ones who were no longer competing due to permanent injuries…
I get the value of some of those skills in certain ranching situations. But a lot of them aren’t needed any more. And i didn’t really enjoy watching. (Although it was hard to look away.)
Rodeos are inhumane. Not as much as bullfights, but still inhumane. Were I a rodeo bull, not only would I try to freight train you, I’d try to rip you to shreds with my horns for pulling on my nuts like that.
(Yes, I realize it’s not the cowboy who actually yanks on the bulls balls, but somebody is gonna pay for it.)
Nothing is yanking the bull’s balls in bull riding—that’s not where the strap goes.
Wow. A little googling shows I believed the myth for a very long time. Thanks for setting me straight. My opinion of rodeos may change. I’m going to have to think on it a bit, especially since our new DIL grew up in cowboy country and rodeos were a big part of her childhood.
Our friend’s dad was on the opera board, and so we saw Cecilia Bartoli three times over the years, plus some other random operas. In general I liked opera, though I liked it better when it had a translation board.
Nashville Opera has a monitor over the stage for subtitles, and their translator has a sense of humor.
I’ve never been to a rodeo. But if I ever do go, I’ll be sure to go to more than one.
Can’t wait to tell someone that this isn’t my first rodeo.
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I’ve never been to a rodeo. I’d consider going to one, but I’d want to know before deciding what the events were and what the reputation was of the people running the particular rodeo.
Didn’t vote.
Thanks for taking the time to confirm my claim.
There are always a lot of different events at rodeos, but not all rodeos include the same events. (Some don’t have bull riding at all, for example.) It’s reasonable for a well-informed person to object to how animals are treated in some events and not others. As you discovered, informing oneself about how the animals are actually treated in each event isn’t too hard. 
Rodeos were a memorable part of my childhood, too. I grew up in a place that hosts the country’s largest annual livestock show, which includes a top-tier, six-day rodeo. In my last few grades of elementary school, the entire class would be taken there as a field trip. The teachers would turn us loose at the gate and let us wander the grounds for the whole day. We would spend our time visiting the livestock pens, chatting with the equipment exhibitors, sitting in on the auctions, and watching the qualifying rounds of the rodeo events. Many of us would return with our parents on the last day to watch the rodeo finals.
I once dislocated my elbow skimboarding and had to wear a sling all summer. I told everybody at work that it happened on my weekend job as a rodeo clown and everybody bought the story. Alas, I have only attended a rodeo as a spectator. The highpoint was always the mutton busting. The last rodeo I went to was about twenty years ago. It dawned on me that it was pretty unpleasant for many of the animals and the crowd was a little too demonstrably right wing and gun happy, for me to feel comfortable around.
I only missed one!
ETA: Forgot to mention I’ve also seen live Kodo performances.