An idiot's Guide to Opera — Page 2

I'm not much of an expert on opera, but here's what I'll say from my narrow perspective- don't touch Wagner with a 40-foot pole. I would say don't ever bother with him, but that's unfair. Try him later; I wouldn't wanting you abandoning opera completely because of the guy.

Anyway, I got introduced to opera through Mozart, namely The Magic Flute, which I still love. And The Marriage of Figaro was the first live production I ever saw. The music is glorious and the storylines are really fun, and I'm pretty sure there's multiple movie versions of each. Have fun.

We saw it last month and it is beautiful--not perfect but beautiful. There are a lot of Lion King-like elements--which she used before Lion King in an earlier production of Magic Flute at the opera house in Florence.

The young singer who played Papageno was delightful--I don't know if he is singing it in April.

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I caught one of the posts that implied that it was unnecessary to know the what the words mean to enjoy the opera. This is utter nonsense. All the great opera composers (Verdi, Mozart, Puccini) drove their librettists crazy to make sure that they got the words and dramatic situations exactly right. If they were this concered about the words, dosn't that imply that the words are important to get a FULL understanding of the musical dramatic through-line of the individual peice. As for Wagner, he wanted his operas to be performed in the audience's vanacular, so the text could be understood.

Just my opinion, I may be wrong.

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