On Falling in Love with Opera

It's funny how our tastes change as we get older.  What I detested when I was young has now become something of beauty for me.  Maybe it has to do with all the "background schema" I have now.  Maybe it is all those years of accumulated "wisdom' I have acquired.  Maybe it is all my life experiences combined with childhood dreams that have now taken flight.

I remember a conversation I had with a young adult writer at a Reading conference one year.  (I think it was Bruce Colville).  He talked about how he was just now reading some classics and really relating to them and enjoying them.  I think we were talking about Moby Dick.  He expressed the opinion that there are some work of literature that can really only be understood and appreciated as we get older because of our years of experience.  That maybe the 'classics " could only be appreciated and understood with the "older" brain.

I am beginning to think he's right.

I hated opera when I was in my teens and 20's.  It annoyed me to no end.  It grated on my nerves. (Kind of like what rap does to me today.  Smirk.)  Not that I had ever seen the opera live.  My experiences were related to clips played on TV and Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I did see an opera at Vassar Junction.  I was in my 20's.  I think it was the "Ballad of Baby Doe"(?),  an opera written in English set in Colorado.  I was still not too impressed with the genre.

Then came the desert years of my life where I did not see any theatre, much music, no opera, and very few films.  It was the baby years and me trying to fit into a married role with a man who did not care to see any of those types of art.  Consequently, the boys were dragged to a few orchestra concerts, no plays, and very few movie.

Tonight, at the age of 56 years old, I finally saw my first staged opera, and it was "Madame Butterfly" at the Craterian (the Ginger Rogers Theatre).  It was exquisite.  The costumes, the set, the LIVE orchestra, and the singing were amazing.  It helped that there were captions in English, but I think even with out the English I could have figured it out. 

I loved hearing the live orchestra, and the singing was soaring.  It did not grate on my nerves or set my teeth on edge. Instead, I was in awe of the notes hit, the crescendo of the voices, the nuances in the pianissimo of anguish sung by Butterfly.  Just as I railed at the typicalness of some men and the wussiness of men's actions in their inability to be honest to women about what they really feel.  It was the Ugly American.

I started crying way before Butterfly thrust the knife into her chest. I knew it was coming.  I was prepared for the tragedy but that was how moved I was by the singing and music of the opera.

There are some good things about growing old.  I count falling in love with opera as one of the benefits of growing old.  It was glorious! I can't wait to go to my next opera.  I'm not even going to look at any man if he won't take me to see the opera and appreciate it as much as I do now.  

No more deserts for me!