Opera: Commonly Uncultured

It’s one of the ironies in modern society. Opera was designed for the masses, once considered unrefined and not good enough for society’s upper class. Yet today opera is seen — generally by those who haven’t experienced it — as stuffy. Cultured, hoity-toity, and boring. It’s anything but. Now that computer technology translates live the Italian, German or French for audiences, it’s easier to see opera for what it is: seedy, bleedy, greedy, and raw. There isn’t one without some tragic combination of wretched poverty, romance, sex (typically illicit), war, and if not murder, at least death. Imagine these against a backdrop of lavish costumes and sounds so powerfully perfected that the emotion of their deliverance obviates the need for translation; sounds which elicit joy, tears or, at minimum, that quaky feeling in the gut. Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it, and tried it here/ Coeur d’Alene Press . More here.

Question: Do you like opera?