Well, it’s still NaNoWriMo, which means that this post will be short and sweet (Oi! I heard you! Yeah, you in the back row. The one who said ‘Aw Yiss!’).
As a kind of prelude to this post, I’d like to say that I’ve always had a kind of love/hate relationship with Opera–and by that I mean sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it (after all, even an anthropomorphised institute can’t love someone).
Gilbert and Sullivan, I absolutely adore. Not just their sometimes cunning, sometimes laugh-out-loud humour, but their glorious, clever music. Stephen Sondheim, though not perhaps technically opera, I also love. And there are bits and pieces of the popular, well-known operas that I’ve heard and loved, though I’ve never actually seen or attended an opera; a real, overblown, gloriously loud opera.
I’m not so fond of the excessive amounts of vibrato that warble through real operas. I like a clear, clean soprano that has no need to disguise its shortcomings or ornament its beauty. Classic opera singers aren’t, therefore, among my favourite singers–which is also one of the reasons I’ve never sat down to a real opera. Another reason is that traditional operas seem to have an immense amount of maiming, slaughtering, incest, unfaithfulness and other unpleasantness. As Anna Russell says: “In an opera you can do anything you like, so long as you sing it!”
But now, love/hate relationship aside, I’m going to attend my first opera! Opera Australia are performing The Marriage of Figaro in Melbourne, where the Hubby and I are going for a long weekend as of tomorrow. I think the first thing that drew me in was the glorious costuming. I mean, look at ’em! They’re gorgeous! The crew that makes these makes them properly: no hidden zips and quick changes, and tries to buy only what would have been available at the time. This is the article I read about it–it’s fascinating! Apart from the costuming, I’ve heard a snippet or two of this opera on Classic FM and found it quite beautiful. The storyline, too, sounds absolutely hilarious!
So this is me! Going to my first opera! Tomorrow! I’ll have to find a suitably fantastic ensemble….
I’d love to hear how you found it!
It was lovely! I’m going to do a proper write-up on it for my monday blog next week 🙂