to not 'get' Opera?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

I like all sorts of music, but I really can not learn to appreciate the genre that I perceive as caterwauling.

Is this a life skill to be able to appreciate all things cultural?

Or am I just too young, and it's something I'll learn to enjoy as I drift slowly to my twiglet years?

Is there a starter for numpties?

How can this not stir anyone??

YANBU, BTW. HTH

Ha Ha MardyBra - I wasn't really a lurker in the true sense; however I enjoyed the lurkers' thread - it had a surreptitious seediness which was great! I suppose you could say I was lurking under false pretences...

Semi-colons? My father was an English professor - I grew up in punctuation boot-camp! Thanks for your kind words, though.

my lovely monster - I fell immediately in love with Ruhe Sanft!! On getting Amadeus the LP on release of the film, had to stop at this rack and didn't get much past in for weeks!!

now happily on my i-pod as well

Hi FriedSpamButty Have sung the high songbird bits from Der Holle Rache on a good night out in London when I was about 20..not too bad either!...ah, memories!! Was amazing because I found that my new great mates also liked opera and we spent the whole night singing...............

I know it's a film soundtrack and not an actual opera. But I love .

Rohanda - it is gorgeous isn't it. I first came across it in English on a crusty old cassette tape of arias by the wonderful Joan Sutherland. It disintegrated, however I found it again on i-tunes, so all good. I'm sure there is loads of fabulous stuff out there I've not heard yet so keen to see the suggestions as they pop up!

at punctuation bootcamp. I now have a mental image of a group of commas being forced to do press-ups in the mud.

paisley - that was stirring wasn't it?! The music keeping the tension and the voice providing a hauntingness of his desire for her. Fab

PaisleyLeaf - it is beautiful! I remember seeing the start of that film- has reminded me I ought to look it up again. Thanks!

Ah mylovelymonster how I envy you. My voice was only good enough for regional theatre musicals lol. How I envy you though. But then again I will sing along regardless after half a bottle of red! I have a proper job these days so really don't care!

Hullo Talcy x

Alcohol does amazing things to the larynx and misplaced confidence.

My voice has only ever been good enough for tipsy public disorderly-ness , allbeit Mozart & not rude rugby songs.

Am keen to know what ChaosTrulyReigns makes of it all. Likely a bit overwhelmed by the racket angelic sounds.

How do, mylovelymonster

We're all up way after our bedtimes, aren't we? (titter)

Have you heard singing Der Holle Rache aria? Keep listening - it just gets better!

You shouldn't make me laugh so much before bedtime, I will have terrible wind Lovely to see you

Oooh! lovely to see you too - a fellow opera fan too!

I love that little parrot. Sadly, he has since shuffled off this mortal coil

Here's an example of Montserrat Caballe caterwauling the aria 'In quelle trine morbide' from Puccini's Manon Lescaut.

I've chosen it because this particular aria is a favourite of mine, and because of Freddie Mercury's collaboration with Montserrat. Opera was the rock music of its day and was never intended to be the precious preserve of the elite.

You might enjoy the 1984 film 'Amadeus' which purports to tell the story of Mozart's life. Tom Hulce is an amusing 'Wolfie', and the operatic sequences provide a gentle introduction to the art.

If you subsequently feel you could watch an opera in its entirety, try the film version of Bizet's Carmen starring Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes-Johnson which was, coincidentally, also made in 1984.

I thoroughly recommend this version because the stars are not overweight completely believeable, Placido is every inch the handsome officer and Julia is the most sensual and wanton Carmen ever. Settle down with chocs and tipple of your for a rare treat.

If you don't 'get' it - don't force it. It may or may not happen for you, but even the wildest sex&drugs& rock&roll/heavy metal chicks can find their emotions stirred by amazing voices.

And that's really what opera's about - the use of the voice as an instrument.

Madam Butterfly was shown on Sky Arts the other week - I recorded it and watched it more than once over and over and over again, sobbing into a tissue

I am 40 and have loved Opera ( more Opera 'Lite' possibly) since I was 17.

Madame

FWIW, I got into opera via much bigger and crazier stuff than has been suggested here. Mozart just sounded little and tinny to me, but I loved - and still do love - Tosca, and Wagner's Ring, and Strauss's Electra, and Carmen (which is also funny). The POINT of opera is in part SIZE, so going for cute chamber stuff might actually be a less than ideal way in.

However, very few people look good singing this kind of music - though I seriously fancy Jonas Kauffman, Cavaradossi at the ROH this summer for two performances, and current Siegmund at the Met - so I don't think Dvd is necessarily the way to go. The amphitheatre at the ROH has a wonderful rake and ideal acoustics, and it's fairly cheap compared with football and compared with ballet prices. Surtitles do help. Otherwise sit down with the libretto and a recording.

I went to my first opera aged 12 - La Traviata. I already enjoyed classical music, played an instrument in school, and sang in the choir, all of which helped. I "got it" immediately, and have been going ever since (am now 46). When DH and I got together, he had not been to the opera before so I took him to see La Traviata done by WNO. He "got it" too, and now we both enjoy going together. As I've got older, my tastes have changed and I am now really passionate about Wagner. When I had cancer, I made myself two promises - one was that I would do a whole Ring Cycle and the other was to go to Dollywood. The Ring Cycle was even better than I imagined and I've already booked for a 2012 performance of Tristan und Isolde.

There is a sublime moment when you sit in the theatre and the lights dim. There is a butterfly in the stomach, you feel tense and excited and anticipatory. The conductor emerges, raises his baton, and a deep hush descends while the excitement builds. Then with his baton coming down, the music starts, and all the hairs on my neck rise, I get goosebumps and a lump in my throat. There is truly nothing as magical and wonderful as a live performance with good singers. I particularly rate Bryn Terfel doing Wagner - his Wotan was superb. Seeing Parsifal for the first time was also a sublime experience.

So, before you write it off, do try a live performance - it's really wonderful.

Chaos

Some opera is awful - overblown, caterwauling as you say. I can't get Wagner at all.

But I implore you to try Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. For a start, the music is great - you could borrow/buy yourself a selection of the famous arias rather than the whole thing.

The other thing is that it is not "high" culture at all - it is a really funny farce/drama. You could borrow a DVD of it which has all the meanings in subtitles and I defy you not to enjoy it! I heartily recommend this production which I was luckily enough to see at the Royal Opera House in London. Its available on Love Film!

Also try the Puccini operas which again are beautiful music and great drama - Tosca is a good one to start with.

Don't forget if you listen to a whole opera that its the arias that are supposed to be really engaging - the recitatives in between are really just chat for telling the story and really are more suited to seeing it on the stage rather than listening on a CD.

I really hope you give it a go!

PS I second the recommendation for the DVD of Carmen - I watched it at about 13 and boy did Placido as Don Jose get my innocent youthful loins stirring! Gosh. In fact I think it was really the first awakening for me of what sexual desire might be all about!

Nostalgic ...