Thanks for the memories...

I have to say that our semester’s work, culminating in this week’s illuminating discussions, have made me reevaluate the way I view opera. Honestly, this class has made me realize that when it comes to this art form, I am more conservative than I like to think. I like things in moderation, and I tend to take the art form too seriously. (How ironic then, that the very opera I chose to study makes a point of making fun of the traditional opera audience for that very thing.)I aim to change that in the future.

Reflecting on this week, I started to think about opera’s function in our modern society and the brilliant ideas that circulated in class this week about the fact that the term "opera" implies grandeur and a license to be ridiculously over-the-top and dramatic. Take for example, soap opera. The title of the genre encompasses all things dramatic and the similarities (at least on the plot level) are endless. Love triangles? Check. Illegitimate children? Check. Murder? Betrayal? Passion? Check. Check. Check. I mean, seriously, the transition from soap opera to opera would be easy. Someone write one now! How interesting would it be if there was a soap opera that emphasized the “opera” part of the genre and had all of the characters burst out into song when things got highly emotional (which, let’s face it, is just about every scene)? What if it was a soap opera about life in an opera house? I would so watch that.

Another point that interested me this week was the fact that operatic excerpts used in film, more often than not, highlight some sort of mental imbalance in the character. Perhaps that is because of all of the wacky characters in opera – that we are supposed to see some type of sympathy between the characters in film and those in opera? Or perhaps that type of emotionality is simply associated with people who are not quite sane.

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This course has left me with so many questions. For example, I wonder how opera has devolved from the prime entertainment of its day into something that is so elitist and disassociated from society. Among other things, I also wonder if we will see this change in our lifetimes…


Well, it’s officially time to close this chapter of my love affair with American Opera.

So, for now, that’s all folks!