Ask Nick: The Opera

Sell me on going to see the opera. What makes it so magical?

I want to start this by saying that opera is not for everyone. There’s a pernicious assumption among classical music snobs (the type of snobs who use the word “pernicious”) that one graduates to opera if they try hard enough, that the poor dears who are stuck listening to pop music are akin to babies who love Raffi and Baby Shark. With more maturation, you can learn to appreciate Verdi too. Oh, you didn’t like that six-hour Wagner opera? You just aren’t ready. One day you might get it. This is patronizing, self-defeating elitism that serves no one and only continues to ingrain inaccurate stereotypes that a) opera is difficult and engaging with it is work and b) people who like it are assholes or Bond villains. At the same time, nothing is for everyone. We have to live in a world in which there are differences in tastes. I first fell in love with opera when I was 10 not because my musical taste was refined but because the story appealed to me and the music complimented it. There are some excellent arguments that classical music can appeal to everyone (which I agree with), but I don’t think of it as the end of a journey every music lover is on but as a destination you have to choose. 

So, if you’ve chosen opera as your destination in good faith, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. You have to recognize that it is its own thing. One of the reasons nascent opera goers get turned off is that they want it to be something it’s not. Usually, that thing is a musical. There’s a thought that if you enjoy classic musicals like Showboat or Carousel (which you should, by the way), you are already on the road to loving opera. This is not good thinking, they are very different. The earliest American musicals are nearly three hundred years newer than the earliest operas. One art form did not give birth to the other, they are separate art forms. That Rent is based on the opera La Boheme does not mean that fans of one will automatically enjoy the other in the same way that Harry Potter fans are not guaranteed to enjoy the books and the movies equally. Musicals, for the most part, tell their stories primarily through dialogue with music punctuating big moments or allowing characters to state their emotions and desires. Operas tell their stories through music, this is their defining characteristic. Yes, opera characters get to sing about their emotions and desires too but they also sing about everything else. Everything is sung. That this strikes people as bizarre,  I’ve never quite understood. Why is it acceptable for people on stage to say “I’m going to speak this bit but sing this” but it’s weird for people to say “I’m going to only sing for the next three hours, k thanks.” Neither has anything to do with reality, why is it weird if one art form is being consistent?

Next, musicals tell a self-contained story. You don’t have to be familiar with the Bring It On franchise to understand Bring It On: The Musical. I know this because I haven’t seen a single Bring It On movie but I saw the stage show and was able to follow it (it is apparently based on the second movie, controversially). The finer details of the plot of Simon Boccanegra, one of Verdi’s many masterpieces, are very difficult to understand unless you have a working knowledge of 14th century Genoan politics. However, Simon Boccanegra has been continually performed for 150 years and will, with apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda, probably outlast Bring It On: The Musical because it isn’t really about 14th century Genoan politics at all, a subject that even its original Italian audience would have probably been only vaguely familiar with. It’s about loss and reunion and duty to country vs. duty to family, punctuated by music that is easily identified as these concepts whether you even know where Genoa is. It’s the same reason we still create new Hamlets long after we stopped talking like Shakespeare’s characters, because that play is the perfect match of story and storytelling to bring about the idea of inaction, a moral dilemma that is universal and stands outside of time. We go to Mozart operas to be entertained, yes, but also because this little man from 18th century Germany can still teach us about forgiveness with his music. Wagner endures more than a century after his death because we still have things to learn about greed and human frailty. Carmen still works not because we think women should be punished for their ambition but because we punish them for it nevertheless, in spite of our “enlightened” views. This is the magic of the highest order, rendering the range of human emotions and psychological issues not just with words, as plays and novels do, not just with images, as paintings and movies do, but with music, a highly personal medium that is entirely interpretive. I go to the opera because nothing else combines entertainment, aesthetics and personal introspection quite like it. There are many good reasons for going to the opera—the costumes, the drama, the potential for napping—but that’s mine.

If you really want to get into opera, you’re in luck. There has never been a time when opera is more accessible. Anyone with a Spotify account has hundreds of hours of opera at their fingertips. Listen to the classics by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Puccini to normalize the style a little (and to notice the differences in style. Opera is too often accused of being monolithic and that “opera music” is a term that can be used to mean one thing. It’s a 400-year-old art form with entries from Claudio Monteverdi and Alban Berg, it hardly all sounds alike. Think of how different Maroon 5 sounds compared to Elvis, both nominally rock acts, with only 50 years separating them and you get a sense of how varied opera is). The classical style of singing can be off putting to those raised on pop music where personality is key. In opera, clarity and perfection is most valued which can sound sterile on first listen. Trust me, it’s not, and it doesn’t take much listening to realize that. Still, familiarity with the music is only half of the equation, opera is a live art form and should be experienced that way. Every state has either a professional company or a semi-professional outfit (most large cities have several) where opera can be seen live and there are many opportunities to see taped performances. New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the most important company in this country, routinely broadcasts some of its performances in movie theaters and practically every great opera, or at least the 150 most performed around the world, has a filmed version (or two) available on free, ol’ YouTube. We think of opera’s popularity having crested generations ago but think of how much better fans have it now than in year’s past? Let’s say it’s 1925, you live in Charleston, South Carolina (where the first opera in America was performed, by the way) and you want to see La Boheme. Despite having roots with the art form, there is no company in Charleston in 1925 and the closest one is probably the Met in New York, which you’ll have to travel to by train. You know you want to see La Boheme because you’ve spent a fairly good portion of your income on a big thick polyphone album recording and you love the music. It’s possible you would like other operas as well but you can’t risk spending the money to buy the records which are expensive because each opera includes several disks. Luckily, your album of La Boheme came with a printed copy of the libretto (the lyrics of the show) which you’ve studied so you’ll understand the plot when you see it because you don’t speak Italian. You travel to the City, get a ticket and enjoy the show. That’s how you would see one of the world’s most popular operas, the operatic equivalent of Avengers: End Game, 100 years ago—by studying, traveling and paying for it effectively twice (once to buy the recording/libretto and once for a ticket to the show). These days, not only can you access La Boheme and thousands of other operas using digital means, every opera house produces supertitles above the stage or on the seat in front of you that print out the words of the show. It’s a paradise. 

But where to start? Seeing an opera for the first time has the potential for being a life-changing moment or a massive let down and the selection of the piece can be of utmost importance. The first opera I ever saw was Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, I was 10 and it was perfect. It was funny, it was sweet, the music was divine. My appreciation for that show has only increased but the music, while unbelievably sophisticated, was simple enough for a grade-schooler to understand. In contrast, a few years ago I saw a production of Thomas Ades’ Powder Her Face, a modern opera written in 1995 (oh, yes, they write new operas too!), in which the final scene of Act I before intermission included the soprano singing while simulating oral sex while dozens of naked men inexplicably emerged on stage. When the lights came up, the couple in front of me looked at each other and said “Well, we tried,” got up and did not return for the second act. Powder Her Face has its charms but as a first opera the combination of modern music, questionable staging and out-and-out weirdness turned off those two opera-curious patrons forever. I frequently recommend Figaro as a good first opera because it worked for me, there are familiar tunes and it just feels like an opera as most productions include ornate sets and powdered wigs. The previously mentioned La Boheme is a good candidate; it’s charming, digestible, and does indeed share some DNA with what was then emerging as the American musical. Verdi’s Rigoletto is also a fine choice because it’s melodramatic without being too over-the-top, it’s tight dramatically and you are guaranteed to have heard at least one tune. But the truth is you might have to try more than once. Each of the operas I mentioned were written in different centuries (I’m fudging a little, La Boheme was written in 1896 so I’m gifting it to the 20th Century) and are wildly different, it’s very likely you might like one but not the other. If you see all three and don’t like any, try Wagner’s Parsifal (but don’t ask how long it is first, just go see it), which is all mysticism and religiosity through music. If that still doesn’t do it, you can quit, opera just might not be for you. 

At the same time, don’t overthink it, see what your local company is doing and just go. I like to ask opera lovers what opera did it for them because I love hearing the responses, which often don’t correlate with the shows or type of shows I just mentioned. There’s no reason why a first-timer can’t fall in love with Strauss’ Elektra sight unseen or Britten’s Peter Grimes or Handel’s Giulio Cesare. It’s possible that even while Powder Her Face was turning off the couple in front of me, it was hooking someone else in that audience for life.