Please stop trying to derail this thread with factual data. We have already established in the OP that “only old people like opera”. The question now before us is “why”.
I was exposed to many different forms of music starting fairly young, and I like almost everything with the exception of the really whiney countyr garbage, really juvenile bubble gum pop [lots of boy bands, girl bands, the 12-16 demographic classically through the 70s 80s and 90s - what a buddy described as the harlequin romance of music] the really atonal violent rap [though I like the early stuff like Curtis Blow] and a lot of the atonal rock that sounds like the 100 monkey version of music instead of shakespear.
I always thought the orchestral bit known as “The Ride of the Valkyries” was the first ~400 bars of Act III, ending with a big crashing B major chord after a full phrase of the theme in B major. (And who the hell makes the brasses play in B Major? Idiomatic writing, my ass!) The vocal part comes in later - it’s the equivalent of an overture, except I don’t think he called it that. Ironically, I’ve just packed all my scores and taken them to the lockup for the summer, so I can’t check that until later this week. I don’t remember one way or the other about the film.
Damn, but Wagner could set the tone of a scene with a few (hundred) bars of music. Bit long winded on the singy bits, but still…
Opera tickets are not any more expensive than any other type of ticket for a live performance. As with most performances, there are expensive seats and cheap seats. Opera may just seem expensive because everyone likes to dress up (or at least, that is what we see on TV but that 's usually because of a big opening or something). I saw many live opera performances at the Met in NY as a poor college student - you just have to sit way in the back. I also saw a couple of free opera concerts in the park so I think it’s a very accessible medium.
Also, I agree with another poster here about the English operas - I don’t especially like them. Opera seems more mysterious when you cannot understand a word of it!
No score here, but the first voice enters at 1:30 on my recording, prior to the ‘big tune’. And I think the use of B major is well-chosen for the brass sound, giving it a stridency you don’t get in tedious triumphal E flat major sounds.
And my memory wasn’t deceiving me about the film, it does have the singing, at about the 5 minute mark on that clip, although the editing doesn’t make it clear where this comes in the original score.
Edit: the Good Friday Music from Parsifal is another example of where his writing lends itself to being taken and used basically as it is, but without singers, for orchestra performance. In this case, it’s even from the middle of a scene.
IMO, it’s for 2 reasons: one is the whole opera schtick that seems to haunt it–fat lady singing, Society types with tiaras and patrician noses looking down upon others and two, IMO, opera is where wine was about 25 years ago–the “masses” were too intimidated by the so called “experts” to even try it.
I’m not much of an opera fan (I’ve got 2 opera snobs right here in my own family–and opera snobs are some of the most obnoxious people on the planet), but I will admit to liking the Barber of Seville and Carmen and the bit made (more) famous by the Idol Welsh singer doing it–the name escapes me at present. I think it was also used as a theme song to something. Carmen I like because in 8th grade, we had to “deconstruct” it in music class.
Oh, I thought of a third reason: opera can be pretty heavy going: heavy drama and complicated plots. I prefer humorous approaches and more light hearted stuff–musicals (not a Sweeny Todd fan), and operettas (G&S). English pantomime is great.
My own personal thing about opera: I can’t understand the words and I don’t mean I don’t speak Italian or French or whatever. Even in English–the diction is not clear, the volume (?), projection(?)–not sure what it’s called, but the way the voice is sent out and delivered obscures the lyrics for me–it could be in Valley Speak and I still wouldn’t get it.
I bought my first CD of opera (Carmen, naturally) at 25 or 26. I attended my first operas shortly thereafter, in Anchorage, AK.
I was inadvertently exposed to it on CBC radio and came to enjoy it without intending to.
When I’ve been to the opera here in Victoria, BC, the audience has certainly not been entirely 55 and up. And I’ve yet to see a tiara. (I have seem some people who really do enjoy the chance to dress up for it, though! Which I think is great fun. People watching between acts is fabulous.)
I am 39 and completely ignorant about opera. Can any opera lovers in this thread recommend a friendly starter? I’m fluent in English and Spanish. Because of the Spanish, I can follow some French and Italian. Where to start? I see Savannah was exposed on radio…can I listen to a recording, or do I really need to start by watching?
I am extremely interested in learning more about it so I can be fully versed, and like it, by the time I, too, am “older.” 
Are you near enough to Santa Fe that you could go to a show there? Santo Rugger just saw the Falstaff that’s playing there, and by this thread he really liked it. Marriage of Figaro is also a good choice. Billy Budd wouldn’t be my usual recommendation - even though I love it, it depends tremendously on how you feel about Britten’s music. Dramatically, Billy Budd is outstanding. The music has really captured the characterization and the story; my hesitation is based entirely on the modernity of Britten’s musical language and the fact I know nothing about your personal musical tastes.
The other two are perhaps more for afficionados; the opinions of others may differ. But Falstaff or Marriage of Figaro - definitely. Billy Budd - test your personal reaction to Britten first.
Thank you! I am close enough to Santa Fe to go see something, good suggestion! Would personal musical tastes in general tell you anything about what someone might like? I tend toward indie/alt-country/folkish, though my latest infatuation is Gogol Bordello.
Anyway, I will check out some recordings of the works you mentioned…thanks again!
Hubby and I have been to a few operas and we enjoyed them, and we aren’t old. The cost of tickets is a slight deterrent, but the upper-crust atmosphere of the audience is more off-putting. I’d just rather kick back in casual clothes and watch a movie rather than get all dressed up. Now, if they made more good movies out of operas, I’d be delighted to go see them or rent them on DVD. It’s not the opera I don’t like, it’s the cost, snobbish setting and inflexible scheduling.
Aww, I venture into Cafe Society about three times a year, and you guys are mentioning me in here? I feel special. 
misshannah, the Santa Fe Opera has subtitles on screens built into the backs of the chairs, so I had little trouble following Falstaff, which was in Italian. Great stuff, though, I highly recommend it. I have no idea how it compares to any other performances, but I had a great time.
My mom loves opera, so I was exposed to it as a kid–she was listening to opera when she was 30, so I did too. I really liked it then. I’m not quite so big on it now, but yeah, it’s partly the expense and the fact that I’d have to drive 100 miles to see an opera live. I’d watch one on TV!
Which does lead to the odd issues involving the suspension of disbelief required to see Mimi as a frail consumptive while looking heartily like a brick battleship, or that, as I saw in one performance, the fabulously beautiful Princess Turandot does not actually resemble the Goodyear blimp.
An opera loving friend has asserted that not knowing the language is actually a boon… and if you were translating then a wonderfully lyrical Italian duet could end up as something like:
“The door”
“The what?”
“The door!”
“The door?”
“The DOOR!”
“I’ll get the door!”
“Go get the door!”
etc
For the OP: 40coughsomething, and I some like opera, but don’t like sopranos much… which rather limits things. A personal favourite is Il Commendatore scene from Don Giovanni; a bass and two baritones or bass-baritones… shiver.
I like Opera. I don’t know much about it, or what they are saying, but I enjoy going and absorbing the atmosphere. The music, the passion… it comes across even in another language.
It was great when I lived in a city that had an Opera Lover’s club for the younger set (18-35). I got one free ticket a season, and any other tickets were twenty each and the best seats available an hour before the show. I sat anywhere from right next to the orchestra pit or just below the first balcony. We also got free beer and pizza during intermission on weeknights.
I haven’t been to any since, but I keep thinking I should go to the theatre for one of their airings of the shows from the Metropolitan Opera. More expensive than a movie ticket, but cheaper than an opera ticket and the only way I’ll get to see these as its unlikely I’ll get to New York anytime soon…
I’m in my mid-twenties and I started listening to some when I was in my late teens.
I can’t admit to being overwhelmed.
I saw the whole of the Nibelungenlied once and it was fine, but still a far cry from godly.
…Oops! I thought the thread’s title said “Oprah”!
You might enjoy this…
Hitler was a huge Wagner fan, and under him, the Nazis adopted Wagner as an official religion. The only problem: Wagner’s stuff is LONG and BORING…so much that the top Nazi bigwigs would fall asleeep during performances.
But Wagner fitted well with the nazis…so much so that the “Gotterdamerung-Twilight of the Gods” was being performed as the Russian tanks broke through ino Berlin, in 1945!
Don’t forget that when you are young, (in school) you’re idea of an “old” person is quite different than your idea of an “old” person when you are 25.