Opera 101....GUEST BLOG by Elizabeth!

"An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long fter it hs come down." ~Maria Callas

One of the fantastic people I worked with in San Francisco was Elizabeth. She's one of the sweetest people in the world.....and I seriously think that she's the biggest opera fan in the world! You have just never seen anyone get so excited when talking about opreas. She knows everything about it, she discusses all the composers and names and songs.....imagine someone talking about opera the way I enjoy talking about college football. That's Elizabeth.

Anyway, she reads the blog, so I was so excited when she agreed to guest blog about opera for me!

So....here's Elizabeth!

Opera is the greatest of all art forms because it combines every method of artistic expression. Music, acting, scenery, costumes and dance all work together to form a perfect evening of entertainment. It is therefore unfortunate, even tragic, that opera has been saddled with the reputation of being a high-minded, inaccessible and elitist form of art, for indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. 19th century composers wrote their operas for a broad, populist audience, and were constantly at pains to choose works guaranteed to be crowd pleasers.

Opera’s current, unfortunate reputation may have several sources. For one, modern audiences of opera often find themselves on the wrong side of a language barrier. This problem did not exist in the 19th century, when composers fully expected their operas to be performed in the language of the audience. Giuseppe Verdi would often translate his operas into French from Italian or vice versa. Gaetano Donizetti not only wrote in French, but wrote on subjects designed to appeal to the local audience. His charming comedy, Daughter of the Regiment, tells the story of a young girl raised by a regiment of Napoleon’s army, only to fall in love with an enemy Tyrolean, who promptly joins the regiment to win his beloved’s hand. The effervescently patriotic finale, ‘Salut a la France,’ became something of a second national anthem in France, despite having been written by a committed Italian patriot.

Verdi too was not above shameless patriotic pandering in his choice of subjects. His works The Lombards on the First Crusade and The Battle of Legnano were specifically chosen for their interest to the audience. Lombards had its premiere in Milan (the Lombardi region of Italy), and the story served as something of a crutch to the young and still insecure composer, lest his music should fail to please in its own right. Even in his later years, when his reputation was secure, Verdi thought to use a subject from Venetian history for Simon Boccanegra when commissioned to write an opera for Venice’s house. Unfortunately, the ploy was unsuccessful, with Verdi describing the reception of his work as a ‘fiasco.’

Though Verdi successfully revised the music of Simon Boccanegra following its premiere, it is still an opera known for having a particularly confusing plot. In addition to a twenty year leap forward between the prologue and Act 1, several characters spend much of the opera either concealing, or else being unaware of their true identities. Plots such as these sometimes act as a turn off to modern audiences. However, in Verdi’s day, opera plots were specifically chosen for their complicated and often unrealistic dramatic twists. Verdi’s audiences wanted to be entertained in much the same way modern audiences expect to be entertained when they go to the movies. Strange plots are a particularly great asset in an opera, as they allow the composer to showcase a wide range of emotions, and thereby infuse the work with drama.

This emotion and this drama are the very traits that ensure opera’s enduring popularity as an art form. In opera, it is the music itself that tells the story. The music allows the story to convey a meaning greater than that which can be conveyed in words alone. Glorious music can emphasize a heroic act, beautiful music can add dignity to suffering, and sinister music can make an act all the more evil. When the singers are silent, the music can nevertheless deliver a powerful psychological portrait. And when six people each share their feelings at any given moment, rather than hearing people trying to talk over one another in confusion, we hear six separate ideas harmoniously interwoven.

Opera is well worth getting to know. The one remaining difficulty is knowing where to begin. One of the best ways to begin an introduction to opera is with a highlights CD. Once you’ve gotten to know the CD, choose your favorite track and buy a full length recording of that opera. It’s likely you’ll love the opera so much, you’ll wonder how they could choose just one aria as a highlight.
Another excellent way to get to know opera is by watching a DVD of a performance. Seeing a performance can be very useful to understanding the action. One of my favorite operas, Lucia di Lammermoor, has just been released on DVD with Anna Netrebko in the title role. This opera was broadcast live from the Met last year, and features a wonderful cast singing beautiful music. Based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, the action takes place in Scotland. Lucia and Edgardo fall in love. Unfortunately, they are from feuding families. What’s more, Lucia’s brother, Enrico, has arranged for Lucia to marry a man capable of restoring Enrico to political favor at court. Predictably, the opera, ends in tragedy when Lucia goes insane, kills her husband on their wedding night, and then dies herself. Her beloved Edgardo, hearing of her death, promptly kills himself, but not before singing of how the two will be reunited in heaven. This is one opera where I honestly love every moment of the music.

Finally, for the excitement of a live performance, I would recommend the Met’s HD broadcasts. For several years, the Met has been broadcasting live performances into movie theaters around the country. In addition to seeing an opera for about the cost of a standing room ticket at the Met, you can have a close up view of all the action, and watch interviews with the stars during intermission. It’s an excellent way to get to know opera.

Though getting to know the operatic repertory may seem like a daunting task, it’s nothing but a complete joy once you begin. While settings and plots may seem remote and alien, the emotion contained in the music will be all too familiar. The music helps to convey meaning that cannot be fully communicated in words. Simply put, opera allows us to express that which is beyond description.