Can a Taste for Opera Be Developed?

I love the Sydney Opera House,
Does that count?

Opera. Does anyone really like it or is it like eating tripe or brains? You are supposed to like it if you have more refined and adventurous tastes than average but in actuality its a tough slog for everyone.  Are people just forcing themselves to like it? Fake it till you make it?  I have heard it brings people to tears and transports them to a higher realm of being but I just don't get it. I mean no disrespect to the people that perform it, they spend a lifetime honing their skills, and full disclosure, I am pretty much tone deaf. I cannot sing on key at all, nor can I hum a melody to a song that anyone would recognize. How I ended up with two musically inclined children is all due to my husband's genes.

When I was twenty I had a boyfriend who had been raised in Europe on classical music and he loved it. He listened to it in the car and at home, watched classical concerts and opera on tv. He loved it like I loved the Eagles or Stevie Wonder so I was exposed to it all the time. My upbringing was filled with radio pop and the hard rock of my older brother's records but I was willing to try and appreciate classical music since my boyfriend seemed so taken with it but after a while the minute he left the apartment or the car, the radio station got changed.  I tried, I really did. I grew in knowledge to be able to tell the difference between the violin playing of Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin but I could not savour the experience like he did. When the relationship ended so did my exposure to classical music for the most part, other than the occasional bit I got through movies or being put on hold on the phone.  I tried again years later when my son got interested in classical music and was given an array of CD's for presents. I would slip some Mozart into rotation on my cd changer in the car and give it a go but invariably it ended up creeping me out or boring me so I gave up. Just being honest here.

A physiotherapist who treated me about ten years ago was always regaling me with his love for opera and I felt like an ignorant dummy for saying I wasn't interested in it without ever actually having been to an opera. So I made a decision that I was allowed to dislike something...like tripe, as long as I had tried it with an open mind.  I bought tickets to the Vancouver Opera performance of Carmen, something with recognizable music, not obscure and demanding, and went with the intention to have my mind blown and my tastes changed. This was the real thing, albeit not the Metropolitan Opera or anything of that calibre but it was live and these were professionals. The lights went down, the performance began and my eyes started ping ponging back and forth from the video translation rolling by far above the singers heads and the actual action on the stage.  It was amazing how hard it was to read and follow the story while trying to listen to the singing and appreciate it. Finally I just ignored the translation and let the action and music roll over me. Easier but like watching a foreign film without the subtitles, sometimes I could understand what was going on and other times there was a barrier that I couldn't climb over, nothing made sense. It was slow...and long.

The first time I tasted a sushi tuna roll I didn't like it but I grew to like it very much over time so I figured I had better give opera another chance. A good friend of mine offered to go with me as she had the same curiosity about it as I did so we bought tickets to The Marriage of Figaro.

The wonderful poster by
Edel Rodriguez of
The Marriage of Figaro

A little more lighthearted than Carmen.  Our big mistake was to indulge in a nice meal and a glass of wine before hand. Maybe two glasses of wine. The lights went down, the music commenced and within an hour our eyelids were drooping and our heads were nodding. Opera is long! Despite all the shenanigans on stage and the playfulness of the story we could not keep our eyes open. We stuck it through to the end and exited the theatre shamed by our infantile inability to appreciate "culture".

I have made peace with my lack of enthusiasm for classical music and opera. The door to the magical room where classical music feeds the soul is closed to me and that's okay, let others enjoy it.  The constant struggle the Vancouver Opera and the Vancouver Symphony have with keeping up ticket sales tells me I am not alone. Try to get an overpriced ticket to an Elton John or a Rolling Stones concert and you will see where my generation is spending their entertainment dollars. Opera has been crossed off my list. Now, does anyone know a place that serves good tripe?

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