Opera For People Who Don’t Like It
There was a time in the history of opera when singers ruled. If you had a great voice, it wouldn’t matter if you looked like a gorilla. You were in. Stage directors would never dare […]
Tag: music
Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
The So-Called Life of an Opera Singer Life upon the wicked stage ain’t nothin’ for a girl. Ellie in Jerome Kern’s and Oscar Hammerstein II’s musical Show Boat* People outside “The Business” are fascinated when […]
Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
THE FRENCH AND THE RUSSIANS Once everybody else saw that the Italians had come up with a Good Thing, other countries wanted to get in on it. I already covered the Germans in an earlier […]
Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
DEATH, OPERATIC STYLE In most operas, somebody dies. Usually it’s the hero or the heroine, or both of them. Occasionally, someone else will get in on the act, too, not wanting to be left out […]
Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
Those Crazy Germans In my last lesson, I mentioned opera plots and how they are reminiscent of lurid cable TV channels that specialize in re-enacted crimes. As an example, I gave the plot of Verdi’s […]
Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
The Stories Opera is more than just middle-aged fat people in period costumes making funny sounds. An opera is a play, with a plot. The only differences between operas and spoken plays are: (1) operas […]
And Yet More Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
The Men (i.e. Tenors, Baritones and Basses) Male opera singers are just as crazy as the females, and just as likely to flay you alive if you get them mad, especially at performance time. Add […]
Yet More Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
Female Opera Singers and Other Wild Animals Most people think female opera singers look like this: Some of us look more like this: Most of us are somewhere in between: We’ve all heard the saying, […]
More Opera for People Who Don’t Like It
In my last post, I talked about prostitutes, psychos and tuberculosis. In this one, I will discuss various violent means by which operatic characters meet their ends. Some of these would make the ID Channel […]
Opera For People Who Don’t Like It
It has come to my attention that there are people who don’t like opera. My opinion is that we all have a right to dislike whatever we feel like disliking because we have free will, […]