Kill the Wabbit, Opera- It's All in How You Look at It

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.                                                      Mark Twain

I go to the opera whether I need the sleep or not.                                    Henny Youngman

It's hard to know what something of beauty is if you don't study it.

Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit.  Elmer Fudd

Perhaps the easiest form of music to make fun of is opera. The breast plates on ladies of a certain size, the pagent and the drama that stretches credulity, the length of the productions, the cost of attending. I could go on and on. And yet, opera has thrived for over 400 years and it can undeniably be glorious. However, if it weren't for Bugs Bunny I, as well as many of my generation, would never have heard opera. Thank god for Bugs Bunny, "The Rabbit of Seville" was glorious even though just a cartoon.

Some of my family singing church music for Mom's memorial

By contrast, today's cartoons are nothing short of oblivion for culture: crash, boom, bash and smash every ten seconds. It makes me crazy that this is being served up to our children. What is it teaching them? Interestingly, Bugs and Elmer still have the power to enchant as I witnessed when someone bought my grandkids these old stand bys to watch. How we all laughed.

 Opera is not easily understood and many of the stories make no logical sense whatsoever, but does that stop me for loving it? No. I'm a fan of opera, though quite selective about what appeals to me just as I am with all other forms of music. I wasn't always enamoured of opera, but at age 40 something in me got triggered. It could have been the rich complex tones, the airas, the celestial voices in many part harmony, the goose bumps while listening to the music so beautifully complex.  Recently a friend of mine asked me if I would be willing to do a study course on opera and I jumped at the chance. Studying anything by myself often falls into the "I'll do that later" category. It does help to have a pal to push from behind. Someone nodding in agreement or making astute comments about what we're viewing or seeing, helps with the flow of interest and enriches learning.

Sadly, opera today [and the symphony] is mostly for the well heeled, the prices more costly that taking four people to dinner. This wasn't true in the past. When opera was forming as entertainment 400 years ago, it was for all the people, not just the well heeled. It was political, raucous, hilarious, fun, and inspiring. People would sing along with the performers. Because it's roots are based in Italy most operas were in, guess what, Italian. Interestingly the Italians in the 17th century were enamoured of the Greeks and Greek mythology, so many of those early operas are about that. This is so not true in todays operas. The subject matter is as diverse as a soldier knocking up a teenager in Japan and leaving her and taking the child [Madam Butterfly]; to the fable of Cinderella [Centerolla]; to the Rings cycle; to bohemians living in poverty in Paris [La Boheme]. Any subject is game. I'm thinking of staging one about women of a certain age in Italy...

When I was in Italy last summer, I fully expected the Italians to burst into song, mainly opera, on the street corners on those lush warm summer nights. The only one bursting into an aria on a warm summer night was me, embarrassingly after enjoying a rich meal with wine on the Plaza in Sorrento. We were joined by some very cute teenaged boys who were following us, women of a certain age, merely because we were Americans. How could they tell? They were impressed that I even knew opera and further more in Italian. I had studied with a choral group in my forties and it paid off that night. Another two minutes of fame for me in a minute audience, oh well. Better to have sung and lost than never to have sung at all.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2012 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved