So. I went to the opera last night. First time ever. and... I liked it.
Quite surprising actually, as I am very much a statistics/logical kinda guy and do not seem to appreciate the fine arts as much as others. But this opera was hilarious (meant to be). It was based on shakespeares much ado about nothing, which I have never read but might someday now.

Anyone else ever been to the opera? any thoughts/opinions on it?

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My parents are very old fashioned germans, so naturally i grew up with mozart, haydn, tchaikovsky, et al, and the opera of course. I've been to perhaps 15 different operas, mostly german and italian ones, and a couple i've seen twice. Turandot i've seen 3 times live, twice with full show, and a few times on TV after that.

I have mixed feelings about the opera, but i've recently come to appreciate the classics done right a little more, mostly because it's getting harder to get that kind of show these days as it is quite expensive to put up and not enough people to see it. Nowadays you get mostly that new wave, cheap and minimalist concerts with just singers in t-shirts on a stage with a band and no show, which is kinda crappy because honestly most opera music isn't THAT great IMO.

Glad you liked it Jmac.

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Yeah, considering I have a degree in voice performance (basically, anyway)...I have only seen very few operas in full (have seen few productions of opera scenes though, and have been in a couple).

But I am quite disillusioned by the opera world...it is all so superficial, in my opinion. The last one I saw was Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio" and the production was traditional staging and costume, but they had any dialogue spoken in English, and it was all changed in order to be "hip" or whatever...making references to Facebook and YouTube and the like. I guess it was meant to be funny for people who wouldn't necessarily be interested in opera (though I highly doubt there were any of those people in the audience) but it just pissed me off because I didn't know what the actual story should have been, with all of the words turned around. Even the German, while they were singing, seemed like it was changed, judging by the subtitles above. Anyway, I was pretty unimpressed.

There's this big push in opera to make it sexy and scandalous and relevant. I am just very embittered by the whole system, from what I've learned from the people around me at music school. It's still entertaining and all of that, but yeah.

I do really enjoy the minimalist productions, but they've got to be done with post-1900 operas. Otherwise it just seems inaccurate and out of place :\ But those are the ones that are very elaborate productions, despite the minimalism... something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpKLt...ature=youtu.be

Brilliant production of this opera (this video just has excerpts from it).

But that's more my style anyway haha xD

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I'm lucky enough to live in New York where the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera are just a train ride away for me. I was actually one of the leaders of the Opera club in my high school, and we regularly went a few times a year with a large discount from the school.

It's such a beautiful art, and like Casta, I've seen some poor, odd, and more modern versions done at some local productions that were disheartening, but the met has never ceased to amaze me, and has a huge turnout.

It's unfortunate how expensive these tickets can get, but if you're in the area you should consider going to one, its really an experience that can't be replicated.

I've seen mostly classic Italian and German ones as well, but they always offer a nice mix of newer ones too.

It would truly be a shame to see this art form die, but the interest is still there, as my club in school had quite a few members. Glad you liked it Jmac, it's especially nice when you can discuss it afterward with friends.

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