GranolaBox

I went to the Opera once. I don’t even remember what it was. It was shortly after I’d seen the Who in the fifth row and so I couldn’t hear too well, even though I was in the fifth row at the opera. Even though it was sung in English (a real no no as I later came to find out) I had no idea what they were saying. Besides… I was a committed deadhead and revolutionary.

It was my well-intentioned mother-in-law’s attempt to expose us to culture. I agreed mostly because she also took us out to dinner beforehand. I was bored silly, and probably even fell asleep a couple times.

Prior to this, my only exposure to opera was the one shared by millions of kids throughout the United States. Please excuse the pointless piece at the end of video.

I largely resisted opera virus for the next 20 or so years, although I was exposed to it a couple times without knowing it. I was infected, but the virus stayed dormant for many years. As a way to soften me to the idea, the Queen of my Universe explained that my second-favorite Broadway play was based on Madame Butterfly by Puccini.

It seems these dudes that wrote the operas wrote some pretty enduring stories.. so good in fact that Broadway producers used them to base a couple of their plays around. I saw Miss Saigon a couple times on Broadway and loved it. Normally I shunned Broadway fluff, but this had substance… this was how we fucked up Vietnam. Social relevance… I’m down.

And then, my favoritest movie, as it happens, is based on Verdi’s La Traviata.

Herein lies the genius and guile of the Queen of my Universe. Having played the Moulin Rouge card, she knew I was interested. We started by ummmmm renting Puccini’s La Boheme… because that’s the scene Nicholas Cage falls in love with Cher in in Moonstruck, or vice versa. It’s also the basis of this fairly popular play.

It was pretty good… the subtitles were there so I could understand it, and the leads, Teresa Stratas and Jose Carreras had some amazing pipes. Check it out… go ahead… it won’t hurt you.

At this point, I was going along simply to humor the Queen of my Universe. Then we watched the version movie of Madame Butterfly, and I was hooked. It was even better than Miss Saigon! The ugly American dickhead lead was even better! This is the scene where she realizes that the douchenozzle who knocked her up is probably not coming back.

Thus, confident that I could sit through an entire opera, I moved on to the next step.. but that’s another story.

Filed under: General Observations, Music on February 18th, 2010