I don't enjoy opera on television. :thumbsdn: Somehow doesn't work with the crummy little speakers and relatively small pic.
I like opera with a good recording, on a good stereo system. :thmbsp:
I LOVE opera, live! :thmbsp:
When I was very little, I discovered my parents' copy (multiple LPs in an album) of "Carmen", and loved the music. I was probably five or six when I could already sing almost all the arias, although purely (and crudely) phonetically (and of course, hardly operatically! LOL), without much of a clue as to what the words meant (it's in French!).
When we moved to Arizona, my parents were some kind of patrons or board members with the local opera, so once I got old enough to go, they took me along and I was "hooked".
There is such a difference between live opera and a recording played on a typical system, it isn't even funny. I think if I had never been exposed to LIVE opera, I wouldn't consider myself an opera fan, and wouldn't bother with it. Don't write off the genre if you haven't heard it done well, live!
As a teenager, while studying in Germany, I went to every opera performance I could get to, including when a few where an Autobahn trip to another city was involved. Opera is state-subsidized there, so many cities have opera houses, but some are better than others. I thought the performances in Kassel were particularly good.
It's not just the good stories and the pageantry; if it were, then a television performance would satisfy. I think the best thing about opera is the way the sheer power of a strong, well-trained operatic voice can fill a huge auditorium (without any amplifier assistance). It can --and often does-- send chills down my spine. I've heard many other forms of singing around the world, from middle eastern Ghazals to Chiu Chao Opera to Tuvan throat singing, but nothing comes even remotely close to live opera, sung correctly. I consider it the "ultimate" human voice, in a league of its own.
There are operas staged here in Hong Kong, but not so many and not usually quite as good as the ones in the big U.S. and European cities. I did hear Pavarotti when he performed here, some years back. Although his voice was just a bit past its peak, he still sounded pretty darn good!
I have a number of LPs, CDs and LDs of operas, and occasionally listen to them. Wish there were more, and better, live opera performances around here.
This saturday is time for Macbeth and two weeks later Swan Lake (with Metallica in between
