Why don't I like opera?
Take Paul Potts, for example. I can see that he's really impressive, and it does affect me strongly. But at the same time something about it really rubs me the wrong way (beyond the danged audience not being quiet). I don't know why, I just flinch from it.
It feels similar to my reaction to some kinds of jazz music: the appreciation of the music is like a lizard-brain reaction: like the body reacts to it at cellular level, and I don't like that, it does not have my permission. I don't like to "give in".
7 comments:
"the appreciation of the music is like a lizard-brain reaction: like the body reacts to it at cellular level"
That's actually the kind of music I enjoy. I like stuff that hits you right in the gut and forces you to respond. Oddly though, I've never thought of those music genres in that way. I've always thought of opera and jazz as more brainy kind of music. Just difference in perspective I guess.
If you've only ever dealt with opera (grand opera, real stuff; not just a guy in a tux standing there singing ((well)) to you), you realize it's all about the "big impact." Opera was the major block-buster musical movie drama of its day. The guys can fill a huge house with their voices. Imagine sitting literally 200 rows back from some tenor who walks on stage, opens his mouth, and sings so loud it can almost hurt your ears. The power is there, you just haven't had a chance to experience it directly. They sound constipated if they're in a small room, guys with frogs in their throats. Not so in person.
Eolake, I suggest you try to time a trip to London to hit the "proms" and hear a really good baritone do "Rule Britannia" to a really roisterous crowd. Then get a decent cheap-seat at Covent and see an opera or operetta from the "Classical" period -- late 18th, early 19th Century. Blast of fresh air. Other genres have SO MUCH LESS power and oomph, so much less reaction at a cellular level. I like the cellular reaction. I'm just disappointed by the confined, careful, little-people-in-a-little-wood effect that most pop and rock has on me. Even Def Leppard gives me no more than a few eardrum aches, because it all sounds the same.
I like the "hit me" jazz, too. We call it "trad" (traditional) here in New Orleans. I don't like that erudite stuff that you have to think too much about. That is mostly, to me, an academic exercise; or just schlock.
I hear ya.
I have wondered the same thing, Big E. I don't like opera or jazz, and I wonder why. Opera is just not to my taste, which is weird because I don't mind the music sans singing. Jazz music on the other hand usually just seems like noise. I have heard play critically acclaimed jazz pianists but it looked and sounded like they were just randomly banging on the keys.
Very well put, Final Identity. And I second your suggestion to Eolake.
As an opera enthusiast, I have no qualms with people disliking the art form. In fact, as a libertarian I root for them in that they should not be made to pay for it through government subsidies as currently happens here in Europe. Instead we opera fans should foot the bill in full.
My beef is with people who have not once experienced opera but still think they are in a position to criticise the art form. In fact, many people think all singing using classical vocal technique is opera. Not even close.
Paul Butts is cool. The piece he sang, Nessun Dorma, is from Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot. But one guy with a tape recorder in a television studio is not opera. That's not the kind of "opera" the government subsidises.
Final Identity is a fucking moron, dumber even than that ass TTL.
Darn. How can one honestly put down a guy who talks about classic music knowingly? Only dilettantes would even attempt to. A true flamer has his professional ethics.
Next time, Final Identity, next time. You can't always sound classy and talk cultivated...
Be there, or be a square-dancer.
Post a Comment