On Opera

Most of us possess mental characterizations of the wife and her husband

attending an opera. He might be dressed in a tuxedo, and she is elegantly
decked out in a formal evening dress. If the husband has not already fallen
asleep, his face is contorted with misery for having accompanied her to the
opera house. She strives to have a vivacious countenance because she
wonders just who might be looking at her and her let down husband who
would rather be drinking beer with his friends at their local drinking hole.
When one or two of the most popular opera songs—perhaps known all over
the world—come to be sung, the wife will poke her elbow as hard as she
can into her husband’s being to make sure he does not miss this or that aria
that many think has been the only reason worthwhile for coming to the
spectacle in the first place.

There are other stereotypes. Yes, many opera singers, both men and women,
are stocky performers. This should not surprise us. I knew two disk jockeys
who were heavyweight and their corpulent beings helped give them a
mellow, soft sound to their voices that carried well beyond the studio from
which they had been broadcasting. Their sounds came from their entire
bodies, from their feet up. Their voices were not tinny because they did not
exclusively draw breath from their throats. Rotundity is an occupational
hazard if one wants to belt out operas in an opera house.

People attending operas are dwindling more and more throughout the
world, and producers are diligently scouring ways to halt the decline of
opera’s popularity. Traditional costuming has been replaced with modern
dress; digital scripts float past the audiences above the stage, both in the
original Italian and another in English; upon entering the opera house,
patrons might be handed translated, verbatim texts of what is sung during
the opera; and, other gimmicks are on sale to keep opera from falling
further and further into a black hole of forgetfulness. Another stigma
attached to opera is the fact that it has been traditionally entertainment for
the wealthy. Many opera houses, overburdened with expenses to keep the
shows on the road, are forced to sell entrance tickets that do not jive with
the pocketbooks of the ordinary opera devotees. Yet, opera has
conventionally been diversion for the affluent, and each year at the gala
openings of the Scala in Milan, Italy, the rich are pelted with tomatoes and
even red paint.

I attended two operas in Italy. The first was at the Verona arena where I saw
Aida presented in all its splendor and gaudy vestures (“Look” for the
Italians is primary—even when they overdo it). The event was ruined for my
date and I, because the people around us kept talking throughout the
performance so much, we left before the presentation had finished. And
because the event took place outdoors, microphones, scratchy and raspy
just did no justice to the opera singers and their musical accompaniments.

The second was an opera in Florence (Firenze), Italy. La Traviata had a

completely different effect on us. Here the opera was presented indoors,
and much to my surprise, I enjoyed it really more because I realized that
opera is, in its essence, a celebration of the human voice, and inside an
opera house, notwithstanding the cheap commercialism of the
presentations, I could finally rejoice at the beauty and timbres of the male
and female opera singers.

Opera is beyond saving—as much as Italians desperately hold onto their

money-making Past and will never let go of it and let it pass away in a
dignified manner.

Authored by Anthony St. John

Calenzano, Italy
11 July MMXXIII
anthony.st.john1944@gmail.com
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior