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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not 'get' Opera?

176 replies

ChaosTrulyReigns · 09/05/2011 22:56

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

Blush

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?

Confused

Is there a starter for numpties?

OP posts:
MrsChemist · 11/05/2011 10:39

I love opera. I saw my first opera when I was 18. It was Aida at the arena in Verona, and it was perfect and an experience I'llnever forget.

StickThemWithThePointyEnd · 11/05/2011 10:57

YANBU. Opera is a complex genre. Personally, I immensly enjoy a lot of them (Puccini's Suor Angelica, Mozart operas, Carmen, La Traviata and others) but can't get my head around others (Wagner springs to mind, or the modern ones).
I find that it helps when you know what the story is about, and what I like about it is that you can often really hear the story in the music, not just the words. Changes in key, overlapping themes, variations, subtle changes in texture..

sieglinde · 11/05/2011 11:59

Oh, let me try once more with Wagner! Why is it so many people's bete noire? Ivy, have you ever listened to anything but the Ring?

MercurySoccer · 11/05/2011 12:30

Agree, IvySedai. It's not "easy listening", it's like Shakespeare in that it can take some effort to get the best enjoyment from it :)

GrendelsMum · 11/05/2011 12:52

Someone asked me this the other day, and I said that I'm not sure I like 'opera', but that I really enjoy certain individual operas. In fact, I've really enjoyed most operas I've been to.

I found the first two or three operas I saw quite baffling and dull ('why are they singing all the time?' 'why can't they just get on and die, rather than singing about it?') but after that, I suddenly discovered I was enjoying them. But I think that most people don't go repeatedly to an art form they didn't enjoy the first time. (I went with friends who were very keen, and the tickets were cheap.)

Re Wagner, I was taken by some friends to see Parsifal at the Proms a few years back, not really expecting to enjoy it, and to my surprise, it was fab.

fedupandfifty · 11/05/2011 13:03

I've nev

sieglinde · 11/05/2011 13:09

Yes, GrendelsMum - love your name! - that's what most Wagner fans will say; you find his operas much better than you think you will. Parsifal btw is much the most difficult. It's just that he attracts a lot of prejudice.

fedupandfifty · 11/05/2011 13:11

OOps!! meant to say I've never liked watching opera, but always loved the music. Grew up with it as my father was a buff, but I think it's a mistake to not "get" it as it's just music like any other. There is a snob element to it, with many people either pretending to like it it and others sniffing at it because they think it's pretentious. It's just music! I like some of it, but not all./ I don't like Wagner, despite trying very hard, or Puccini, because I find it tuneless and screechy. Would recommend:

Any Rossini overture - Theiving magpie, William Tell etc
Gilbert and Sullivan - witty and in English, with catchy tunes.
Anything by Verdi.
Some Mozart - Magic Flute etc.

Enjoy!

Plan1967 · 11/05/2011 15:32

Sometimes Opera can be so eyebrow but I did not really appreciate it until I got older, when I was pregnant I used to listen with my little girl who is 7 now and its one of her ambitions to be an opera singer (its so nice to know what you want at such an age - it will probably change)

The Scottish Opera are doing some fantastic workshops for babies 6mths to 24mths which introduce babies to a world of sound and song. Its FREE tickets from Manchester Airport 0161 489 5877 for more info.

LuckyWeKeptTheCot · 11/05/2011 15:37

Brother in Law ADORES Wagner. It's a bit heavy for me.

sieglinde · 11/05/2011 15:47

Lucky, try Meistersinger. It's not heavy.

gkys · 11/05/2011 15:55

madame butterfly is good starter, tosca, carmen. are we talking going to watch or on cd? in which case catherine jenkins is sublime. i'm 32

LuckyWeKeptTheCot · 11/05/2011 15:56

Thanks! I will - always open to trying music.

BoffinMum · 11/05/2011 15:56

I happen to be a trained opera singer and sung professionally for a bit, and even I don't like all opera. I am particularly resistant to Wagner. I fell asleep during Rheingold once. On a free stalls ticket at Covent Garden. Blush In my defence, I was pg and very unlike my normal self, but still ... Blush Blush. XP had to wake me up as I was actually slumping across the seat at one point. BlushBlushBlush

BoffinMum · 11/05/2011 15:58

If in doubt start with Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. That's always great.

Strauss's Fledermaus with subtitles is a good second attempt.

I would then move onto the Magic Flute by Mozart.

Turn of the Screw by Britten is fantastic, really spooky, but IMO best on telly.

If you listen to the CDs first and read through some of the libretto you have an edge and it's more interesting.

BoffinMum · 11/05/2011 16:00

Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss is my all time fave, by the way. Listen to the trio at the end and THEN tell me you don't get opera! Wink

MirandaGoshawk · 11/05/2011 16:04

I've always found that opera connected with me in a way that other music couldn't, but have never fully explored it. I have a few of the popular tracks on ipod & love them. I do think it's something you come to appreciate as you get older. It requires more effort than a 3-minute pop song, but in small doses is calming & uplifting too, if that makes sense.

I went to see La Boheme & hated it, found it tedious & the story dull (but it was an outdoors performance & blowing a gale, so a bit of an endurance test). Also hired the DVD of Carmen from the library & found it soooooo loooooong with lots of dull bits. But the popular Carmen bits are my absolute favourites, along with the popular bits of Aida.

Perhaps one day I'll get into it properly - something for retirement Smile

Peetle · 11/05/2011 16:07

I like some of the arias in operas but my problem with opera is the sections between the arias where the dialogue is sung. It just seems preposterous and the characters could communicate much better just by talking.

Then again the only opera I've ever seen in the flesh is when the ENO played Glastonbury a few years ago. Same problem then though, the aria was great but then the "sung dialogue" just went on and on.

silkenladder · 11/05/2011 16:15

I love opera, but don't really like going to plays. I just don't like the unnatural way actors tend to speak and move on stage. Obviously opera singers are even worse at moving, but as the drama takes place in the music, what is happening on stage takes second place. Everyone's taste is different, it would seem, and some people will never develop a liking for opera

My first opera was Carmen at age 7. I also saw La Bohême, The Magic Flute and Madame Butterfly as a child and would recommend any of those for starters.

The first Wagner opera I saw was Tristan and Isolde. The music was lovely, but I couldn't follow the story, mostly because most of it had already happened before the first act Hmm. The Flying Dutchman converted me, though.

I'm 32 btw.

woollyideas · 11/05/2011 16:49

Maria Callas singing Lucia di Lamamoor got me hooked on opera. I was in Oxford Street HMV buying a Sex Pistols album when I went downstairs to the classical department - probably by mistake - and heard this:

Hooked ever since. I was about 18 at the time...

Please, OP, take a listen...

sieglinde · 11/05/2011 17:10

Peetle, you definitely want Wagner. There's no speech at all...

Boffin, agree about Rosenkavalier. I have to confess that Rheingold is NOT my favourite Wagner either; I will probably love it someday, but for now it's what must be endured to get to Walkure. I don't find it soporific, though; more repellant. And I say this even though I like modernism, including Macmillan and Judith Weir.

DilysPrice · 11/05/2011 17:20

It's bizarre that the Wagnerians are preaching his merits so much. I guess it's because we love the visceral feel of his operas in the flesh so intensely that we see that effect as a universal fact, not just something specific to us.

I love Wagner; enjoy Mozart, Sullivan, Glass and Adams; am indifferent to Verdi, Puccini and Handel and simply cannot be doing with Birtwhistle or Britten's writing for the voice. Yet no-one has ever tried to persuade me that I should give Birtwhistle another go, or that I just haven't listened to the right rendition of Madame Butterfly. Frankly even if I would enjoy Verdi more if I tried, I just CBA to put the effort in, there are other priorities in my life. So YANBU to find opera not your thing Chaos.

sayanything · 11/05/2011 17:41

Haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if it's been mentioned before, but Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs are a great introduction and absolutely gorgeous. As is Madame Butterfly.

sayanything · 11/05/2011 17:45

And yy to the trio in Rosenkavalier - music to swoon by. And what about the Flower Duet from Lakme, otherwise known as the tune from the BA ads?

nervatious · 11/05/2011 18:05

You HAVE to see it live to appreciate it. That's where you're going wrong maybe - even on film it's absolutely nothing like it is when you are there