So the thing about opera is that I've always wanted to like it, and always felt as though I should like it, but generally found it quite difficult to actually get into, and had definitely come to think of myself as "someone who doesn't really get opera".
And then in the last couple of pre-pandemic years I went to a handful of operas that I did actually enjoy - The Gondoliers (but that doesn't count, cos Gilbert and Sullivan isn't really opera, right), and The Marriage of Figaro and the Magic Flute (but that doesn't count because Mozart is pretty light and fluffy as opera goes, right?) but it wasn't quite enough to shift that perception of myself.
And then![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bella_luugosi and fluffymark were in town to see Die Walküre, and I wanted to see them, so I figured I'd give it my best, expecting to struggle, because of the many things one could say about Wagner "light and fluffy" and "not really opera" are not amongst them. But I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, so I guess I'm someone who likes opera now. It helped, of course, that it was performed extremely well. The singing was outstanding, and the acting was also top notch. I wasn't completely convinced by all of the staging and prop decisions, but some of them worked well, and of the ones that didn't only one actually got in the way.
I was particularly taken aback by the bit in the third act when all of the Valkyries were singing together. Because I think that usually you have soloists with the sort of incredibly powerful voices that can fill the Albert Hall, who tend to sing alone or in duets. And then you've got choruses, who sing together, and don't generally have, or need, quite that same power. But for a brief while we had nine operatic soloists all singing together at full volume, in a space somewhat smaller than the Albert Hall, and it was just an overwhelming wall of sound. It wasn't a completely unfamiliar sensation, because I've been to rock concerts, where you can feel the sound as much as you can hear it. But rock concerts use amplifiers. I did not know the human body could do that.
And then in the last couple of pre-pandemic years I went to a handful of operas that I did actually enjoy - The Gondoliers (but that doesn't count, cos Gilbert and Sullivan isn't really opera, right), and The Marriage of Figaro and the Magic Flute (but that doesn't count because Mozart is pretty light and fluffy as opera goes, right?) but it wasn't quite enough to shift that perception of myself.
And then
bella_luugosi and fluffymark were in town to see Die Walküre, and I wanted to see them, so I figured I'd give it my best, expecting to struggle, because of the many things one could say about Wagner "light and fluffy" and "not really opera" are not amongst them. But I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, so I guess I'm someone who likes opera now. It helped, of course, that it was performed extremely well. The singing was outstanding, and the acting was also top notch. I wasn't completely convinced by all of the staging and prop decisions, but some of them worked well, and of the ones that didn't only one actually got in the way. I was particularly taken aback by the bit in the third act when all of the Valkyries were singing together. Because I think that usually you have soloists with the sort of incredibly powerful voices that can fill the Albert Hall, who tend to sing alone or in duets. And then you've got choruses, who sing together, and don't generally have, or need, quite that same power. But for a brief while we had nine operatic soloists all singing together at full volume, in a space somewhat smaller than the Albert Hall, and it was just an overwhelming wall of sound. It wasn't a completely unfamiliar sensation, because I've been to rock concerts, where you can feel the sound as much as you can hear it. But rock concerts use amplifiers. I did not know the human body could do that.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-03 03:27 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-06-03 07:41 pm (UTC)From:I never really "got" Wagner until I went to a Ring cycle. Seeing it live is a very different experience to just listening to the music.
Do you know about Operavision? https://operavision.eu/performances
no subject
Date: 2023-06-06 03:12 pm (UTC)From:I didn't know about Operavision. I feel a bit unsure about watching opera televised; I'm not sure why, but it feels like there would be more lost than with filming theatre (and I find quite a lot gets lost there). I think I might try to see a bit more on stage first, and maybe then try to broaden my horizons with televised performances.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 08:20 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 10:13 am (UTC)From:Glad to catch up with you and hear you being enthusiastic about it during the intervals. Sad we somehow managed to miss each other at the end, we went to congratulate Catherine (Brünnhilde) and could not find you after that.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-06 03:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 07:34 pm (UTC)From:Like everything else, some of it is not very good - there are a bunch of modern operas that hardly anyone's going to do in a hundred years, and there were doubtless a bunch of forgotten ones from a century ago - but the good ones are truly fabulous.
The only one of the Ring I really like is Rheingold, where I can forgive that it takes about two and a half hours to say what the Beatles said in two minutes eleven seconds in Can't Buy Me Love.
During 2020, New York's Met opera put most of its video archive online, one per day, and I saved nearly all of those. They include by far the best Ring I've seen - so good, I'll even watch its Siegfried...