My First Opera

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In a foreign language, anyway, having been to a high school production of The Mikado many years ago. This one was Rossini’s Italian Girl in Algiers.

Now, when the Ms. and I tied the knot, one of the conditions I insisted on, short of a pre-nup (damn the oversight), was no operas and no dancing venues of any sort (Nutcracker excepted). Up until now she’s been pretty good about not pestering me about going out to see a bunch of men in tights or a bunch of sweaty candidates for The Biggest Loser bellowing in Italian. But this particular presentation was featuring a woman who grew up in Fairbanks, a local celebrity, if you will (we have so few; it’s pathetic, really; there’s a yawning gap between Vivica Genaux and Scotty Gomez, filled only with failed Olympic hopefuls and people we claim as ours because they visited here once, e.g., George Bush).

But I digress.

So through weeks of cajoling and promises of how wonderful it all would be, I finally (and reluctantly) agreed to go, on the condition that we could leave at half-time, should my capacity for shrieking females peak out. Last night was the night, and after a day of trying the Headache Ploy, the I’m Tired From The Week’s Work Manuever, and the usually successful Streets Are Icy Gambit, I found myself sitting in the Performing Arts Center listening to the band tune up.

So the music cranked up and people began singing in Italian. The PAC has one of those translator boards at the top, sort of a closed caption for the Italian impaired. The voices were pleasant enough, I guess, but I quickly came to the conclusion that the whole thing suffered from a lack of editing. By singing the same lines a minimum of 12 times, the bloody event was made to last nearly three hours. Sing it once and get it over with, IMO. The dialogue was truly bizarre, and the plot was nearly incomprehensible. It’s in no danger of being made into a Major Motion Picture.

Ms. Genaux was surprisingly svelte for an opera diva, but I couldn’t get past her oral contortions long enough to decide whether or not her voice was any good; quivering lips, shuddering jaw, grimacing mouth, and none of it seemingly improving things one bit.

The guy playing Mustafa was amusing and energetic, but in the end the whole thing was just a lot of noise and nonsense (you didn’t really think I was going to get away with leaving at half-time, did you?).

2

There are few operas that couldn’t be improved by having Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny run through them in seven minutes. :slight_smile:

3

Opera is (As Mark Twain said about Wagner’s music) better than it sounds. A lot of the problem is people take it much to seriously. A glass of wine before and another at the intermission helps put me in the right frame of mind.

Reading the libratto beforehand helps quite a bit. So do decent seats. (Still most modern opera houses have no bad seats.) I like to dress down for the opera, No need to wear uncomfortable clothes.

Heck, just go to have a good time. Rock along with a clever tune, gasp at the aria (Breath woman! Breathe!), admire the costumes. Boo the tenor. (OK, you can’t do that in the US so much.)

It was meant to be a popular art form before it went all up market.

Next time, try Carmen!

4

You made the mistake of reading the subtitles. I’ve found that opera is a lot more enjoyable if I make up my own lyrics.

“Why am I standing out here in my bathrobe? My baaaathrobe?”
“I don’t know, I’m only the busboy!”
“Where oh where oh where are my bloody car keys? I need more lettuce and tomaaaaaaatoes!”

:smiley:

5

Surtitles are a difficult compromise…they certainly help people follow the plot, but the difficulty (as unintentionally demonstrated by the OP) is that they suggest the music to be secondary. Music, in good opera (you did mention Rossini however :wink: ), is absolutely integral to driving the pace of the dramatic action.

The whole ‘sing one word for five minutes’ thing is very much about hearing a great singer show off. There’s two problems with this: (1) if you dislike the style, or simply are not very familiar with it, this can seem verrrry boring. It’s not just opera that has this problem - the same boredom would afflict initiates presented with a ten-minute sax solo, or a raga, or whatever. And (2) if the singer isn’t all that great, it’s not much fun, full stop.
While you had one indifferent experience with Rossini, don’t take that as an indication that you won’t like any opera. Next time, whenever it is, insist it’s something very very different…some Wagner, or Berg, somethign with a very different approach.

6

Next time? :eek:

7

Yep :wink:

Reminds me of one composer’s attitude to Brahms…couldn’t stand his music, but would spend a while playing it & listening to it every six months, just to see if he’d worked out what he was missing.

What I’m saying is that dismissing ‘opera’ on one experience is like dismissing ‘painting’ because you don’t like Van Gogh’s sunflowers. To be truly open-minded you need to give it more than one attempt, but also to make sure you try something very different, for comparison.

8

While I like some ‘cuts’ from different operas, I think I’ll have to stick with “catch the wabbit” for future full-length experiences.

9

You philistine – it’s “kill the wabbit”! :rolleyes:

10

Wagner? Wagner? :eek:

What are you trying to do, kill him?

Chefguy, I don’t care how much you love the Mrs., do not get talked into seeing Wagner. No matter what she promises, even if it involves twins and whipped cream. It just isn’t worth it!

11

I saw my first opera at the PAC!

I still have dreams about the carpeting in that joint.

If my memory serves, it was Aida, but staged as if taking place in 1950s South America.

I enjoyed it.

My husband accompanied me to Carmen last year, here in Victoria. While not his first choice of entertainment, he seemed to enjoy it. At the least, he was a very good sport.

Opera’s funny stuff. Love it or hate it.

12

My first and only opera was Die Fledermaus about twenty-five years ago. I’m still not eager to see another opera.

13

The carpet! The goggles, zey do nossing! Man, whoever approved the design on that place shoulda been forced to live there.

14

Hahaha. But that’s the whole POINT of opera. Once you can stretch out 4 lines to last 5 minutes, you’ve mastered your craft. If you don’t like this style you can always switch to Peking opera, where instead of repeating lines they hold one word for 30 seconds, then move on to the next, etc…

15

So opera singers are sort of the bureaucrats and politicians of the music world?

16

That’s precisely the sort of assumption I was hinting at, about what will or will not be appreciated by a newcomer. I know people who know nothing about music, have no interest in symphonies or Verdi or Mozart, but adore Wagner and Strauss. An hour of Wagner went down a treat at the Glastonbury festival this year - I can’t see Rossini getting such a reception.