Yes, my dear colleague at work has been brought round to Haydn's string quartets, Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Medtner's piano music (almost), Bantock's orchestral works, Milstein's Tchaikovsky concerto .... but is steadfast in her opposition to opera. She just cannot suspend her sense of reality enough to enjoy what she sees as histrionic singing, unrealistic characters, unconvincing plots ... and the general human frailty exhibited by many of the roles that are present in many operas.

Eh well, her loss!

 

It's superhuman and takes superhuman people like us to appreciate it.

 

In my experience, it's generally that people find the style of singing off-putting. The generally slow pace compared to musical theater, plays, and films doesn't help, either.

 

Theatre music is like pop music.
Opera singing is totally strange sounding to the unfamiliar.

 

Clearly opera doesn't have enough 'jazz-hands' and singers staring wide-eyed at the audience as if to ram home their point. Perhaps your brother and others like to be spoon-fed in the way that many musicals do, and opera generally doesn't.

Okay, so I'm no fan of musicals (I find them as hard to sit through as some do opera), but some are more sophisticated than others, such as Sondheim's. So the question is whether just opera is off-putting, or more demanding works in general?

 

Clearly opera doesn't have enough 'jazz-hands' and singers staring wide-eyed at the audience as if to ram home their point.

I think that depends on the director.

Okay, so I'm no fan of musicals (I find them as hard to sit through as some do opera), but some are more sophisticated than others, such as Sondheim's. So the question is whether just opera is off-putting, or more demanding works in general?

I think the reason is that people think they sing strange.

 

Have two people screw on stage with elevator music playing in the background and in this day and age, you've got yourself a 'pop culture masterpiece!'. Here's my message to the masses: go **** yourselves. Let's hope the end comes sooner rather than later.

 

Folks, take it from a really old opera guy, selling opera to the uninitiated is like selling dope: you gotta give them a "taste". But the "taste" has to be mind blowing TO THE UNINITIATED! I use DVDs of the three Donizetti comedies, where the plots are obvious and fun, there is a lot of stage business and the music isn't too complex.

You may like Wagner (Blech!), Mozart (cerebral) or modern stuff (unintelligible musically), but these are not the kind of "taste" to hook'em.

"Average theatre goers" need to have a stimulus that is somewhat on a level of what they are used to hearing.

It's like ... pot before smack, right?

And, no, I neither sell nor use. Wine is my drug of choice: the dose is easy to monitor as one sips.

 

I've been trying for years to get my brother into opera, he's a die-hard fan of the musicals Les Miserables and the Phantom of the Opera; but no matter how much I try and sell it to him, he shows no interest in the likes of Wagner, Verdi, Mozart etc. The best I can do is introduce a few arias to him, and he enjoys some of them, but nothing seems to pique his curiosity.

I've tried with other musicals fans, but despite the fact that opera theoretically has everything they like, they just don't have any time for it either. Anyone else experienced this kind of total indifference? Any advice or thoughts on why this is the case?

It exasperates me a little because I have encountered the fan-bases of things like Les Mis, which are thriving and full of passionate young people; but talk to them about, say, Wagner and they are completely clueless and disinterested. I can't help but feel that they are so close to being onto something great, but are just missing out.

Not sung in their native tongue. I'd recommend that you invite then, with a bit of the proper dare thrown in, to go with you to a live performance, make sure the performance has super / sur-titles, and make it one of those two or three near sure-fire accessible pieces at that: Carmen, La Traviata, La Boheme being the highest three of a handful as near certs for an easy intro and in.

(I'm an 'unafraid' and fairly well-versed classical and opera / vocal music consumer, yet, you could not pay me to attend a Wagner opera, nor tempt me to sit down with you and listen through the entire thing via a recording, or even listen to and watch via a great DVD of a staged production.)

Try Zefferelli's filmed version of La Traviata, or Ingmar Bergman's filmed version of The Magic Flute, (both are sub-titled) perhaps as a gift, where your bro can check it out in the privacy of his own domain and in his own good time.

No matter how good the relationship, whether you are the older or the younger, that sib thingie -- with about nothing you can do about it -- is more than likely the biggest and most fundamental hurdle in this situation ;-)

 

Back in high school when I was a fan of musicals, I was put off from exploring opera by the fact that it was "classical" (I found so-called classical music intimidating then), by the style of singing, and by the fact that it was sung in foreign languages. I also believed that all opera staging was stilted or static. Looking back at those objections now, I find them pretty silly. I'm still a fan of musicals; I do think that the combination of dialogue, dancing, and singing in a musical can "do" certain things that opera can't do. But I also think that opera can reach certain emotional depths that musicals can't reach. I appreciate both genres.

 

The first time I attended the opera was for a performance of 'Norma'. If someone had sat me down to listen to a recording of it I'd have given it my full attention throughout, but I'm not sure it would have captured me the way it did on experiencing it live. It was performed in Italian (with subtitles projected above the stage - in Russian) but that didn't matter. From those first sung notes I was aware that something serious was goin' down... I was thrilled and moved.
So yes, another vote for 'attend a live performance' - there's a small chance that in its own way it could even be life-changing.

 

I had the advantage that my mother sang in the church (Lutheran) choir... lot's of Bach and Handel... and so I developed a grasp of and appreciation of classical vocals. I also had/have the sort of personality or curiosity that makes me open to exploring art forms that go beyond what is championed by the market and my peers. I first became quite interested in opera after watching Zeffirelli's La Traviata (I'm listening to the same right now... albeit with Sutherland and Bergonzi). I was given a free ticket through my college to Aida. By the end of the performance I was wholly changed and an opera fanatic from thereon. My best suggestion would be to take your brother to a live performance of something highly accessible like La Traviata, Carmen, The Magic Flute, La Boheme, etc...

 

I'm probably not much help. As a young man, I looked down on musicals as trivial, and felt the same about what little opera I had heard. Then I encountered Wagner, where drama seemed to be at the forefront. It made all the difference to me, but it sounds like your brother is starting from a very different place.

 

I came into opera because back when I was listening to mostly rock music, classical seemed rather boring, so I decided to try opera figuring that way I get the music, the acting, and the singing to prevent boredom. But I only attended operas, never purchased a copy for home listening. Now I very much enjoy opera on CD, but mostly only after becoming familiar with the libretto and watching it on DVD with English subtitles a couple times.

 

I like opera but I wouldn't want to be trapped for several hours with an opera I've never seen. It's too hard to focus on the music and read subtitles at the same time and yet it's harder to stay interested when I have no idea what is happening, and it usually takes several listens for me to figure out which parts of an opera I like anyway and I'd rather go through that familiarization process in the comfort of my home where I can stop to ****, skip a part that is boring me, or just do something else for awhile.

A musical with nice tunes, a plot that is easy to understand, and actors that I can, well, understand is just easier to digest on a first sitting.

 

Every person is different, and with a different background. For many people, Opera simply is not their cup of tea, and that's about it.

However, the case of serious fans of musicals (in theater and/or cinema) with a total indifference to Opera is more interesting, as many of the traits of their favorite genre are also present on an operatic stage.

The major difference is the "style of singing"?. Well, to be heard in the last rows of a theater when singing, you needed to sing the "traditional" way, in which the singer must project his voice, and that was the *only* way until the advent of the microphone, in the 1920s. (before that, all the musicals and the vaudeville artists needed to project their voices too, with a final result not so unlike that of opera. True, in opera the limits of the voice range were more thoroughly explored, and the singing was more 'florid', less conversational, in general. But the basic technique was the same). I think that for many people, this is not such a huge barrier. It just needs some exposure.

The "foreign language" thing?. Well, today, like it was the case with opera a few decades ago, many musicals are sung in translation. Les Misérables, for instance, is originally a French musical, written by a French composer, and with French lyrics. So, what people in New York or London are hearing, it's an adaptation to English. Like is normally the case in Berlin, Roma, Madrid,... to their respective languages. That means we need to come back to singing "Trovatore" in German?. Yes, there are a couple of theaters singing everything in German, or English. But I don't think this is the preferred choice, we just need to educate people to use surtitles, like we can do in the movies.

However, and for English audiences, we can try to use as a first exposure an opera like Doctor Atomic, that is sung with microphones, and in English. Maybe it could work.

The plot?. Well, I don't think the plot of many musicals is that 'realistic' either, right?. . In any case, as many lovers of the musicals, are also fans of movies, why don't try with a plot reminiscent of "Vertigo", like Die Tote Stadt?, that is written also in a musical style that for many in the audience will be familiar.

Ultimately, opera is perhaps the more stylized genre in Western art. And this is not appealing to everyone. We can't convert opera in a kind of 'show-for-all' thing. This won't happen. Opera should be accessible to all people interested (I think today already is, mostly), but it won't be, by its own nature, as popular and widespread as pop music, or even Broadway musicals.

 

Opera isnt for average people. Average intelligence perhaps, but you need to be open minded, be independent of will and have a good degree of emotional maturity. You have to give more to Opera in order to receive Im not going down the elite path here it isnt about class or education and I dont want anyone to read anything derogatory into my use of the word average, I'm Just saying that Opera isnt for everyone.

 

Definitely nothing to do with class or education. My Great Aunt and Great Uncle were opera fanatics; they both left school without any qualifications, they lived in a council house all their lives and were a cleaner and car mechanic respectively.

 

A good way is maybe to first listen to a Requiem. Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, Verdi. Then it's a lot easier to move on to opera. That was my personal journey.

 

Opera's tough for a lot of folks because for one, they see a 300 pound woman singing Gilda or Mimi and they just start laughing.
Yes, emotional maturity is a factor.

Another thing is getting used to a trained singing voice-not easy after all that pop music.

Also, operas tend to be long; not a viable thing for the 30 minute TV sit-com set.

And then of course, there's the language thing-even with supertitles-can be a turnoff.

Studying the libretto in advance is important. I don't think a lot of "civilians" would do that.

 

How many 300 pound Gildas or Mimis are there?
Some operas are long but most operas are circa 2 hours long that is as long as a film and some are only one hour or less.
I have read subtitles every day since I learned to read so I don´t see any problems with having to read supertitles.
I don´t think it is important to study the libretto in advance if you have the opportunity to understand what is happening either by text or you understand the language it is performed in. I think if you don´t know what will happen next makes the experience of seeing the opera better and more exciting.

 

Even if loving opera isn't a question of intelligence or class per se, I do think there is an important element of identification going on.

If one identifies oneself as someone who belongs to a certain group one will be more inclined to try, pretend to like, or actually like something members of that group tend to like. If you think you belong to the intelligentsia, and you think opera is for the intelligentsia, you'll give opera a go. Many simply think of opera as something for a different group of people than themselves.

 

Face it guys - people would rather listen to Britney Spears than Rene Fleming.

 

Why not both? I like a bit of pop every now and again. I also like opera. They are not mutually exclusive in my opinion.

 

Shame to admit as I do love operas but I never have been.

 

No shame in that, we enjoy as we can. :tiphat:

 

I'd guess people don't like opera because it's sung so grotesquely badly now, and anyone who says 'It's supposed to sound that way and you just aren't clever enough to get it' (or words to that effect) can't or won't see that the emperor has no clothes. I'd rather listen to Britney Spears than to the strangulated, wobbly, omnivowel infested caterwauling that assails my ears whenever I accidentally hear opera on Radio 3. I didn't listen to opera until I accidentally discovered a record by Caruso, and worked backwards in time from there. So perhaps a listener who finds the modern style of singing unnatural and disturbing might respond to older records, as I did. If, on the other hand, they complain that they can't listen to anything that crackles, they are clearly an incorrigible philistine and you should let them listen to Britney in peace!

 

whenever I accidentally hear opera on Radio 3.

so you're basing your opinion on all contemporary singing on a few snippets from Radio 3?

 

Interesting that people go on about opera and musicals and miss out operetta!. We're just back from a Gilbert and Sullivan festival in Harrogate. The festival is still going on but we can't afford the time. Anyway,the interesting thing is that there are amateur companies there doing G & S who also do Turandot and Albert Herring. The festival includes a performance of Tosca by Heritage Opera both at Fountains Abbey and in Harrogate. Thing is, quite a lot of the audience are in local G & S groups and know about singing. They pay attention to the libretti and could sing along to most of the shows. I wonder if you could say that about fans of musicals?

 

A few snippets is all I can bear!

 

The style of singing took me a while to get used too, I grant you. Now I find it both beautiful and impressive when done well. So maybe one could call it an acquired taste?