To not enjoy opera?

[Star555]

I love classical music but simply cannot stand operas in their entirety. Some songs are certainly magnificent vocal tours de force (like the Queen of the Night song in The Magic Flute, and the Flower Duet in Lakme). But for the most part operas are just hours of unnaturally high-pitched, incomprehensible singing (often people singing over each other and creating quite a cacophony, hard to understand the words no matter what language they're in, and having to look at surtitles is distracting) that isn't pleasing to the ear, barring one or two memorable songs per opera.

I say this as someone with years of classical music training and as a lover of symphony orchestra concerts, choral and solo singing, dramatic theatre and musical theatre. I will gladly sit through entire symphonies or Shakespeare plays or ballet performances or musicals. But entire operas I find intolerable!

Personally my DH and I love Puccini's operas, but other composers not so much. We have both been known to shed a tear when Madama Butterfly sings to her son at the end, before ending her life. Such wonderful music.
And we have a copy of La Boheme directed by Baz Luhrmann at the Sydney Opera house which is superb. Chiefly because the main characters are the 'right' age, instead of ageing tenors or sopranos looking too old to be believable.

Surely it's a genre of music/culture like any other. It is also ok to say that it has dated and may not be to everyone's taste. For example, a lot of the current repertoire is fairly romantic (largely because that is what the audiences expect) - personally I don't like romantic comedies of any genre so why would I enjoy it in operatic form.

I still go quite regularly and really respect an opera as a performance - it's an amazing feat of putting so many different skills into one. It is astonishing. However, 3 hours of crappy romantic storylines with predictable twists, turns and ends and fairly soppy romantic music - nope, not for me. But I absolutely love Wagner - despite all the political ramifications. There arent enough contemporary operas being written/staged - largely because audiences expect the usual repertoire. Perhaps the problem is not even with the genre but with the type of operas that will get bums on seats.

My DH is an opera nut I have sat in £250 + seat and watched occasionally enjoyed frequently endured and often fallen asleep listening to some of worlds leading opera singers in some pretty famous places Milan, Rome, Paris, The Opera House, Glyndebourne etc. Now to stop him wasting money on me I have a short list of about 6 operas that are acceptable to me all the rest at best I’m indifferent at worst I loathe and refuse to go too. Although I have to say if I never went again I would be happy, apart from Glyndbourne if they are performing one of the six acceptable operas on my list I just love to go there is just something really really special about it.
IN my now very extensive experience those who love opera just do not understand those of us who don’t and vice versa.

YANBU. I can handle early opera, but that's it. I hate not being able to tell which note they're meant to be singing.

I should add that I do generally prefer early music because I like the purity of the sound. I find a lot of romantic music, especially, and later, quite overwhelming because there are too many parts being sung or played by too many loud voices or instruments. I've sung in numerous Mahler symphonies and in other operas and song cycles and whatever, but I will never enjoy them as much as I enjoy a bit of Palestrina!

I did enjoy Mozart's comic operas like Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan Tutte more than Wagner, Verdi etc. But I think that was because the comedic plots made me laugh, not because I enjoyed all of the singing itself for its own sake.

I have watched both live (local) and recorded (Royal Opera House, Met Opera) productions. I am often blown away by the superb set and costume design, but then again, I can get that from theatre as well. I occasionally listen to selective audio recordings of my favourite opera songs like the Flower Duet, Nessun Dorma, etc. But I would never torture myself by listening to an entire opera audio-only of my own volition! (I did have to do it for a university class once ... I focused on analysing the text of the libretto rather than the music and still got excellent marks for it!)

It’s interesting some people don’t like the sopranos, I have sat through some pretty grim opera in my time yes Richard Strauss I’m looking at you in particular and you Wozek. But I think if you’ve got very good seats and world renowned singers you can’t help but be impressed by the actual tone and sound of the voices, and the scenery costumes etc they are also usually pretty fantastic. It’s not that which I dislike it’s something else that I just can’t explain.

YANBU- it makes me cringe. They are all so over-dramatic and then burst into song

Should just add that I also loath musicals probably even more than opera.
I love Gilbert and Sullivan just because they make me smile they are such fun and most other forms of classical music from early music through to Mozart Beethoven Chopin and Mahler. My mother was an opera nut as well so it’s not lack of exposure.

Agree 100% Can't stand it, it's noise to me. I love all sorts of classical music, ancient music, Gregorian chants etc. but opera is and assault on my senses. But everyone's different for some opera is a delicious experience of drama, expression and sound. I like a different sound.

Just to add to my rant that to me opera is just a noisy racket. The theatrics of it are entirely laughable.

In fact, my bff's parents once invited me along to see the Barbier of Seville when we were both around 12 or 13 IIRC. In this performance one of the characters was wearing a massively long knitted scarf that he was dragging around on the stage and my bff and I just could not help but giggle hysterically. We' tried to do it quietly of course, it was hilarious.

I love opera. I do feel that writing off the entire genre is a bit daft though, if you compare (for example) Purcell, Mozart, Rossini, Britten and Berg's operas, they are so different that it may be worth further exploration.

Having said that, I really don't particularly enjoy lieder as an art form...

SisterMichael Any Only Connect music question has to be answered with "It's not Puccini" or if the team says Puccini we say "It's never Puccini"

@takingmytimeonmyride

I've on,y been to the opera once. I fell asleep. That tells me all I need to know. At least I got free tickets so I didn't spend money on a nap.

I'd spend money on a good nap. Where I was guaranteed no interruption and a gentle wake up.

@MelissaVonStressel

"Well what’s the point of it!? It does two things badly. If I want a story I go to see a play; if I want to hear music I go to a concert. I have no use for is a ridiculous story sung at me by actors who can’t act, in a language I don’t speak for four and a half hours."

Not a sohdheim fan then?

I'm with you. I also love classical music and can't stand opera. Someone once called opera the 18th century equivalent of bad television. I thought that quite apt.

@newnortherner111

I don't enjoy it, so I don't go. Leaves a space for someone who does. I recognise there is great skill, practice and time required to be a good opera singer, hence my comments that it is not to my taste.

As opposed to talentless karaoke artists such as Little Mix or One Direction.

Unfair. Those singers have vocal talent. It's just different

For me it depends on the production, whether it can hold my interest for the duration. It also helps if my favourite baritone is part of it.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable.

I rarely listen to entire operas on recordings, but do have a lot of collections of fantastic arias from different operas, sung by my favourite people.

I can’t bear modern musicals - anything 1980+

I walked out of very good tickets at The National for a Sondheim piece, at the interval, once. Couldn’t bear it.

Yabvvvvvvvvu!

Only joking. You can like and dislike whatever you want.

Actually I too hated opera until I was turned by a fabulous live performance of eugene onegin. Maybe lockdown is not the time to discover it. It’s not the same on YouTube.

I just don't like the Opera style of singing. It's way too heavy and usually too slow. I'm not a huge fan of musical theatre, either.

I think it's like any music - you like what you know - most modern radio 1 stuff sounds like either one long rap song or droll musings (ezra type) to me.
But I don't know the songs. Or make any effort to know them.
Sometimes if you know the story behind the opera song it is more involving, can be moving.

I walked out of very good tickets at The National for a Sondheim piece, at the interval, once. Couldn’t bear it.

Oh God! Sondheim.

Does anyone actually genuinely like anything he did after A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, or do people just tell each other they do because his lyrics are "so clever"?

YANBU not to like opera in the same way some people don't like jazz, or hiphop, or country. It's a musical style which isn;t to everyone's taste, and that's fine.

Sondheim: Can't stand his "more recent" stuff either. But then Wagner and Britten bore the arse off me too (at least with those two, you'd have lost any feeling in it long before the end).