Here’s a good tip to begin with. If you have never been to
an opera performance before, don’t start with Wagner’s Ring Cycle! At a total
stage time of 15 hours, plus intermissions, that represents a major commitment
not only of your time but your concentration, not to mention the possession of
excellent bladder control. Wagner is not to everyone’s taste and, as Rossini
once famously remarked, he has some sublime moments but also some terrible
quarters of an hour.
Indeed, the best introduction to opera is probably not to
attend a performance at all but to listen to CDs or downloads of great
performances. Some of the most sublime music of all time comes from opera, such
as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco, the aria Nesun Dorma
from Puccini’s Turandot or the duet Au Fond du Temple Saint from Bizet’s The
Pearl Fishers. All of these are instantly recognisable and greatly loved.
However, attenders of opera performances are often
disappointed to discover that numbers such as these are only small sections of
considerably longer works that are much less tuneful or interesting. The Pearl
Fishers is a case in point; without that one duet the opera would rarely get
staged, as its plot is particularly feeble and the rest of the music of much
lower quality.
On the other hand, Bizet’s Carmen is full of musical life
and invention, as well as erotic intensity and violence. One’s attention is
unlikely to flag and, for the raw beginner, a ticket to Carmen would be well
worth the money. The opera has, indeed, much in common with the modern musical,
and the progression between Carmen and, say, Bernstein’s West Side Story is not
difficult to detect, although the latter had Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as
its inspiration.
Opera is a musical form with a very long history, and there
is a world of difference between the operas of Handel, Puccini and Benjamin
Britten, for example.
Early opera
Early operas were relatively short and consisted of a set of
arias (solos), duets and ensemble pieces strung together with passages of
“recitative”, by which is meant text sung in a speech rhythm with little
attempt at melody. These passages are only there to hold the plot together and
provide links between the more melodic elements, but they can be lengthy and,
for the beginner, are more likely to be endured than enjoyed. Recitative is
also a feature of operas of much later periods.
Most early operas made little attempt to convey dramatic
realism, with the performers being required to sing rather than act. The same
could also be said of many later operas! If you want to see great acting, the
theatre is often a more promising venue than the opera house.
That said, many great operas are also great dramas, and
audiences are often spellbound at performances of Tosca or Madame Butterfly,
where Puccini’s music has a dramatic intensity that demands a certain amount of
acting talent from the performers.
The language problem
One aspect of opera that can be off-putting for the beginner
is the fact that relatively few great operas were written in English. Italian
is the language of choice for opera libretti. This might have been expected
with those by Verdi, Donizetti and Puccini, but the operas of Handel and
Mozart, for example, were also written to be sung in Italian. If you do not
understand Italian (or German or French, etc) the great European operas might
be thought to be unintelligible, but this is not necessarily the case.
For one thing, the drama is often conveyed via actions as
well as words. This is a good reason for seeing an opera live as opposed to
hearing a recording, much as viewing a ballet makes more sense than listening
to it if one wants to know what is going on.
Another point to make is that operas can be regarded as
music first and drama second. In other words one goes to an opera for a musical
experience rather than to see a play. This is, however, a debatable point.
Many modern opera houses have got round the language problem
by displaying translated “surtitles” on a screen above the stage. This has been
a controversial move in some quarters, with many people regarding the
constantly moving words as an unwelcome distraction. Others regard this as
preferable to performing operas in English translation, as the translations do
not always match the music as perfectly as the original. It is also the case
that many opera singers are better at singing notes than words and it is often
difficult to make out what they are singing, whatever the language!
Strange plots
Another aspect of opera to bear in mind is that the plots
are sometimes strange in the extreme. Characters are able to fall into the most
remarkable predicaments for very peculiar reasons, and likewise escape from
them in ways that don’t seem to make a lot of sense. Audiences are required to
suspend their disbelief to very great measure, such as when a clearly very
healthy and well-built soprano is starving in a garret and dying of tuberculosis
in La Boheme, or the Rhine Maidens in Das Rheingold are able to sing when at
the bottom of the river!
What to see?
So, what would be a good introductory opera for a beginner
to see on stage? Several have already been mentioned, but a good tip might be
to go for something shorter rather than longer. The operas of Mozart are a good
bet, partly because the music is always a delight, and you can’t have too much
Mozart! A performance of The Marriage of Figaro, for example, is worth
considering, as is the charming and tuneful Cosi Fan Tutte.
These two operas fall into the category of “opera buffa” or
comic opera, as opposed to “opera seria”. The beginner might indeed prefer to
start with comedy, as the onstage antics, involving such things as characters
assuming disguises or seeking to perform practical jokes on each other, will
entertain even if the music does not.
The world of the comic opera can play to very different
rules from that of “grand opera”. For one thing, amateur opera companies are
far more likely to tackle the works of Gilbert and Sullivan or Offenbach than
they are Verdi or Wagner! Amateur performances have the huge advantage of
considerably cheaper ticket prices than those of the top professional
companies, whose productions can be prohibitively expensive for most people.
That said, a night at the opera at one of the world’s great
opera houses is certainly a night to remember. People make a real effort to
dress in their finery, possibly combining the event with dinner at a top
restaurant. Audience members can usually be assured of a brilliant evening’s
entertainment, especially if the company on stage includes some of the world’s
great operatic stars.
Whatever the choice, listening to opera, and seeing it on
stage, can be an extremely rewarding and memorable experience. A little
homework done in advance into the plot might be a good idea, though.
© John Welford
