Listening to opera...
Dec. 14th, 2009 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI have to be in the right mood to sustain listening to opera. In a way, it's a little like combat: long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of total concentration.
My late mother was a real opera hound, but not to the extent of Mr. and Mrs. Glaser, who lived a couple of doors down the block and who would take my best friend Leopold with them every weekend, it seemed, to some cultural event, including quite a number of operas.
My listening was limited to the records my parents owned, and like most people, I learned early that not all classical music was to my taste. My mother didn't mind my playing the records, and without any prodding from either her or my stepdad, I fell in love with pieces such as Tchaikovsky's Ouverture Solonelle (known to most of us as the "1812 Overture"), Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Kachaturian's Sabre Dance from Gayane.
Still, operas remained at the bottom of my list of favorites, mostly because they involve a bunch of people dying at the end. It was almost a rule, and it depressed me.
Then I ran across the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan and the operas of Mozart, and things changed.
But right now, I'm listening to that crazy Lucia.
What a trip.
Cheers...
My late mother was a real opera hound, but not to the extent of Mr. and Mrs. Glaser, who lived a couple of doors down the block and who would take my best friend Leopold with them every weekend, it seemed, to some cultural event, including quite a number of operas.
My listening was limited to the records my parents owned, and like most people, I learned early that not all classical music was to my taste. My mother didn't mind my playing the records, and without any prodding from either her or my stepdad, I fell in love with pieces such as Tchaikovsky's Ouverture Solonelle (known to most of us as the "1812 Overture"), Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Kachaturian's Sabre Dance from Gayane.
Still, operas remained at the bottom of my list of favorites, mostly because they involve a bunch of people dying at the end. It was almost a rule, and it depressed me.
Then I ran across the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan and the operas of Mozart, and things changed.
But right now, I'm listening to that crazy Lucia.
What a trip.
Cheers...
