What makes opera good

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But sometimes, being too simple can Opera is the embodiment of an essential human instinct: telling stories through music. It links modern, liberal intellectual and artistic culture with our primitive ritualistic origins. Since the principal language of opera is music, and music is essentially an abstract language, it cannot be a tool for explicit political or even emotional ideas, but it does express emotional and imaginative truths that lie behind material realities. And because the experience of it is communal, it is one of the essential ways in which society can express the imaginative and emotional truths about itself which are frequently more important than the material realities.

At the opera we experience emotional and imaginative truths not in private, as we may do with a poem, but in the company of strangers with whom we tacitly share these profound and transformative cultural experiences. That is an essential part of our civilised, democratic culture. Finally, opera as the most international of cultural genres is the art-form which most reminds us that even the British are part of a great European tradition of imaginative endeavour.

It is in all these respects a vital tool and a barometer of our social civilisation. Best for a first-timer Any! A first-timer is by definition innocent of prejudice. It is people who think they know about opera who are sometimes affected by prejudice. Quite simply, opera is the stuff of life. It is the ultimate expression through live performance of the human condition, of all that we feel, fear and care about.

Storytelling is a fundamental human need, and there is nothing that can beat opera as a way of telling the stories that need telling, the stories that help us to understand what it is to be human. The combination of music, singing and drama creates a full experience with unparalleled power to move.

At its best it is truly exhilarating. We all possess the means to enjoy it — the emotional equipment to appreciate it — but it does require concentration. It challenges you to engage but, as with all the good things in life, the more you immerse yourself the more rewarding it is. It can feel hard to get started on that journey, and that's why it's important that we who make opera take every opportunity to reduce barriers, demythologise, and demystify what it's all about. Best for a first-timer I think Madama Butterfly is a great place to start.

Of all art forms opera feels the most complete. This coming from the man who gave us white bread opera for ages. Years of dull, correct singing in Seattle Opera. I may not be a subscriber to the opera, but I have enjoyed a range of opera from the traditionally classic to contemporary, many times in my life. This article is spot on in my opinion and reflects very well what we currently try to achieve at Hallmark of Harmony, one of the best barbershop choruses in the UK, whilst the musical leadership also spend a great deal of time on vocal technique as well as on how we articulate the words, how we shape our mouths to deliver them, as well as, essentially, engaging our minds with the emotional content of a song.

There are singers today who can transmit that emotional thrill. Rene Pape, as Gurnemanz—I did not hear this in the theater, but even via my car speakers, I paid attention and, for the first time, saw the point of the Act 3 narration. Kelly Kaduce is a singer who has more than once kept me awake for hours after a performance.

You are so right in your comment about the emotional commitment and expression of great singers of the past and that this is an essential element that made them great. On the other hand, it is quite amazing to see, as you have also commented, that the numbers of graduates from music conservatories around the world seems to be growing exponentially. What are these young singers all to do? The development of a greater functional understanding of the mechanics of the voice has been intellectually stimulating and, in the hands of a few good teachers, of benefit.

But interestingly there is not necessarily a lager volume of real singing super stars in the modern opera world. I am beginning to become aware of a rumbling counter movement…a move in some sections of the singing fraternity towards more interest in the teaching of meaning. It is important to encourage all our singers to feel the meaning and colour of words not just the voice!

Thank you for your contribution towards the debate…. Callas would never have performed many of the contemporary productions we see today on the stages of major opera houses. Most of her legendary performances were traditional productions. Anybody who aims for a career as an opera singer is passionate about it — it is certainly not an easy way to build a career or a life. It is a tribute to the power of opera as an art form that so many talented people are drawn to it.

In the best singers, after years of disciplined study, this passion combines with technical mastery which Callas and Rysanek certainly had to create breathtaking performances.

So was the case in the past, and such is the case today. It is up to us to support venues where such outstanding singers can share their art with us. These days, there seems to be great interest in personal beauty, but much less interest in unique expression. Corelli, Callas, Kraus, Gruberova, Sills, Gobbi, and many others knew how to inhabit a character AND play to the audience — even if sometimes the results were imperfect.

The result: a rather more generic art form, increasingly devoid of the mercurial stars badly needed to buoy its popularity. Also, I believe we go at auditions in a completely backwards fashion. I think, as Mr. The challenge for artists is to attain a discipline that will enable the art.

Whereas it is impossible to teach someone who is not artistic the magic that is art. No music in schools …. Hockey is good, band is better.. They binge-watch. These kids sit there for eleven hours at a stretch.

Trust me, their attention span is fine and generally outlasts their parents — there is no truth to the above claim whatsoever. Most of the movies targeting the millennial generation push three hours in length if not more. Every Marvel movie and Lord of the Rings epic has long running times. Time to ditch the attention span blame game as an explanation. This is a marketing problem, and the fact that we do not have opera stars to rally around that produce the performances worthy of chatter is one of the big branding issues.

Many productions are either too safe overall or overblown in the wrong places. Opera is comedy, sex, murder, violence, everything you see on TV and in movies today.

Houses that rework the marketing formula to the contemporary American audience will find success. Houses that bank on pleasing old money will continue to decline. Your comment is very interesting.

I am well aware of the capacity of people in their thirties and forties, as well as teenagers and twenty-year-olds sitting in one chair and playing a game for hours. So why have I heard from people in the thirty and forty age group that our operas are too long, that I should abbreviate them? Since I never hear that from older opera attendees, I attribute it to the inability of watching something that takes concentration for longer than a TV show. Maybe this is because when they are playing a game, they are in action; when they are attending an opera, they are watching and listening, not in action.

Of course you point out that many can watch television for long hours; I can only argue that the stories on television are never very long; they change quickly and are often broken up by advertisements.

In opera one must focus on the same story for a longer period of time as one does in a play. My basic argument is that with charismatic artists onstage who have both voice and the ability to act, we can overcome the problem. Or it could just be that the seats are uncomfortable. I love attending live opera, but, being tall and wide, I find it difficult to appreciate the music when the seats are so narrow my knees are scraping the seat in front of me.

Even more to the point, there is a strong likelihood that they are also on their electronic devices tweeting, texting, whatever throughout — perhaps also eating, drinking, taking phone calls, etc. In other words, the collected stimuli add up to something very different than sitting quietly in the operahouse no noise, no texting, no interruptions which seems nearly impossible for the younger generations to endure. You have written a truly important article. I have been in the opera world for over 43 years now.

I agree totally with you. I was friends with Licia Albanese from till her passing away in August They were not needed. I am very happy that I started my own opera company, Opera Classica Europa, without help from anyone and our attendence is at an all time high. Opera is exciting when singers are set free to display their understanding of the great operas written by Verdi or Puccini or all other great composers.

Thank you for an excellent article. Another contributing factor to the lack of emotion in performances throughout the classical world is the widespread use of beta blockers for performance anxiety. Many commenters are merely out to show off their mastery of the snarky putdown. And of course nothing in the digital world can be forgotten.

It is, however, possible to sing both accurately and with enormous emotional depth. One need not exclude the other. I loved this article by Speight.