Opera for beginners

[cahn]

My family's reunion, in a couple of weeks, involves powerpoint presentations, because we are total dweebs that way. I figured my PPT this time would be on opera, because, well. (My other thought was making it on teaching Sunday School, and I'm still thinking about it, but I think I'd have more trouble making it work and might need more time than I actually have to think about it properly. Doing opera requires much less hard thinking and a lot more pretty pictures.)

Questions for you:
-If you are NOT an opera fan: what would you like to know about opera? What would make you more likely to watch it?

-If you are not an opera fan, would you be willing to watch and/or listen to a couple of clips and tell me which one was most effective at holding your attention?

-Opera fans: I think I could show maybe one or two clips. What would be thirty-second-to-one-minute clips that would (a) be intriguing to a non-opera audience and (b) that I would have access to? (I have a somewhat embarrassingly large library of DVDs after this last year.) And (c) have English subtitles, which unfortunately takes out a large swath of Youtube videos. I'm thinking of the Met's English Magic Flute (but what part? "Hm!Hm!Hm!Hm!" maybe? Or the part where Papageno plays the bells?) and maybe the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo where Posa takes the sword (probably the version with Hampson and Kaufmann, they're such hams). I also wonder about a bit of Restate with Keenlyside and Furlanetto, but I think the auto-da-fe is more immediately accessible. Also I wonder about Onegin. Or maybe the scene where Figaro's parentage becomes known? I also might look for "trailer" clips.

-Same question for audio -- I'll be using my Opera in English CDs. I'm thinking maybe the Catalog aria from Don Giovanni (though it may be too salacious -- there are kids!) or something from Marriage of Figaro -- but what? I'd like an ensemble bit if possible. Maybe the quartet from Onegin?

-I thought I'd have a couple of one-sentence/one-phrase synopses that might convince people to go see opera:
Eugene Onegin: The jerk who totally blew you off when you were a geeky kid regrets it all when you grow up to be beautiful and glamorous
La Boheme: Broke artist friends hanging out together have a lot of fun (but also sometimes tragedy) - see also Rent
La Traviata: Your parent really doesn't like you dating the wonderful person you fell in love with! (yes, yes, I know, seekingferret)
Marriage of Figaro: Men are dumb and the aristocracy is dumb; male aristocrats who don't want to keep it in their pants are a lot of fun to outwit
Don Giovanni: The pitfalls of attempting to seduce every woman who comes your way as a life strategy
Don Carlo(s): ???? I do not know how to summarize this in one sentence, or even two. Being a prince whose dad hates him and also married his fiance can be tough! (That's not bad, except what about Posa????)

I feel like those six are probably the best for beginners. (And Magic Flute, of course.) Any other crowd-pleasers I should put in? (I still haven't seen Aida -- saving it as a treat after finishing Nirvana in Fire!)

(Hmm, maybe instead of a longer audio clip I'll just have very short audio clips for each of those.)

Comments

[cahn]

*nods* I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think there are basically two issues.

1. There's all this... machinery, bodily speaking, involved in projecting the voice in the way opera requires. You have to breathe correctly in your diaphragm AND your chest AND have your larynx positioned correctly AND have your face muscles positioned correctly! Relative beginners (like me, back when I took operatic voice lessons) are way too worried about doing all those things to figure out emotive, heh. It's sort of funny, I went and watched a bunch of master classes by Thomas Hampson (one of the world's best operatic baritones) and he basically every single time was like "uh, yeah, you need to emote more."

2. The best opera singers put all kinds of lovely emotions into their voice AND they can act (this is a relatively new thing -- there were always opera singers who could act, but it's at a much higher premium these days since opera video became a Big Thing). And yet... even so... I think it can still be hard to listen to, relative to (for example) Broadway. Broadway singers are basically putting on a conversation with their voices -- that's not quite right either, but there's this convention where Broadway singers sound to me more like they're talking, and opera singers sound to me more like they're musicians -- e.g., when singing Verdi getting those long legato lines is way more important than emoting the content of the lines (although a good operatic singer will emote the content, the same way a good Broadway singer will do musical phrasing as well).

But, heh, I agree, I don't really have use for singers who can't act. Opera is also a story medium! (And a visual medium, for that matter.)

[melannen]

Yeah, I totally understand the justification! It's hard to belt *and* act at the same time! And certainly in all styles of music, belting was a lot more common before microphones were a thing.

And I suspect there have been plenty of opera singers who are fine actors (at least in the stage style) but the acting is all visual, so none of it comes through in an audio recording (or is hard to follow if you're reading subtitles.)

I think it's not just Broadway, either, though - a lot of pop music in the last, oh, seventy years uses emotion in the voices to make up for lack of musical talent in the voices (and auto-tune to cover the rest...) So hitting up against a lot of the "classical" choral styles, not just opera, that emphasize the sound more than the story in the singing can be tough for someone who's never encountered singing that's about sound first and foremost; it just stands out even more in opera because just enough story comes through that you can tell it's *not* supposed to be all about the sound!

I think it also doesn't help that I personally am very bad at getting the "emotional" quality of music, beyond stuff like tempo - I can play a song in a minor key and then major key and can't possibly tell you which one sounds sadder, for example, and there are classical instrumental sounds that are supposed to be throbbingly tragic and I think they sound warm and comfortable. IDK if it's a brain thing for me, or if it's at least partly training (I had a very idiosyncratic musical education.) So if you are depending on the melody to convey emotion, there's a class of listeners who will just miss that.

The reverse of that though is that if I do find classic/choral/operatic vocals where the emotional chords hit for me, I will love them and hug them forever. (My current most-played vocal classical tracks for the past several years are "Gesang der Junglinge" and this specific recording of Erbarme Dich with Eula Beal, although that might be as much about the sound quality of the recording. So, you know, there's range there, at least. :P)

Anyway, yeah: if you can put together a recs list of opera being sung in a way that is going to be less disconcerting to people who are used to the emotiveness of modern Broadway and pop, that might work on me! Although to be fair, that might also make it Not Opera. But the underlying music is often SO GOOD (I will sometimes listen to instrumental bits of operas and then have to switch when the singing starts) that I feel like it could be made to work in different singing styles even without completely changing the genre of the work, you would just have to ... decide to value emotiveness over long legato lines.

[cahn]

re: pop music: Oh, yes, sure! I just happen to be a lot more familiar with Broadway than with pop music in general :)

There's some stuff that's in the in-between opera-Broadway sort of space -- Porgy and Bess (which is usually staged in opera houses), Candide (which goes both ways), something like Maria Christine (usually considered a Broadway musical). And of course singers who go every which way, like Audra McDonald, and those who've crossed over, like Renee Fleming singing in Carousel.

For me the most useful thing was listening to opera sung in English! It's a lot easier to see how the emotiveness is working when one doesn't also have to contend with not understanding any of the lyrics, at least for me! Also I think it's easier for the singers -- again, the best-in-the-world singers know a lot of the languages as well, but less-than-world-class singers have an easier time emoting in their native language :) Anyway! This is inspiring me -- maybe after I give this presentation I'll upload the clip list :)