trying to get the nessun dorma

[burntcopper]

Can someone explain the appeal of opera to me? The only times I seem to like it are when it's out of context and put in as an effect in another piece of music, like another instrument (seems to work best on soundtracks or dance music, which is another genre where the words don't often matter, the effect does). I can appreciate it the sheer technical effort and sound you can get out of it, but do *not* get it as a storytelling device. I can't imagine sitting through a musical where I'm supposed to be following a story and being provided with a translation or subtitles. Subtitles in film are one thing, but constantly having to glance down at a program and not being able to get all the vocal tricks and wordplay (let alone the fact that when I've heard amazing opera singers sing in english, their diction is kinda crap, so you don't get all the words anyway) - just no. Seriously. Does it work like mime/dance with a very specific soundtrack? (except the actors have to be static or moving slowly to produce that vocal power - no high-kicking dance sequences whilst belting out the main number here)

Comments

[peterjevans.livejournal.com]

Opera has given us some undeniably lovely pieces of music. But - and this is purely my own personal take, not being nearly cultured or educated enough in the ways of opera to have an informed opinion - for me they work better as pieces, in isolation. Especially when the words are in a language I don’t speak, thereby becoming music themselves.

However, while I could no more sit through a whole opera than I could swallow my own hands, without the opera as a whole I doubt the pieces would have ever come to be. Perhaps you should look on operas like that: as dense, impenetrable jungles, from whose fertile ground treasures occasionally sprout.

But mostly they’re just noise and rain and things killing each other.