The Distinctive Baritone said: "Yeah, the audience for opera is getting smaller and smaller. I really like opera MUSIC but after having seen fifteen or so operas I can say that opera, for me at least, is usually not very compelling theatrically. It’s for classical music lovers, not theater people.
That said, the G&S shows are operettas - an opera/musical theatre hybrid, and therefore generally more accessible than opera to those who typically attend musical theater."
I have also seen and hated all but one of about 15 opera performances I have seen; yet, when there is an opera excerpt in a movie or when I hear a specific aria, I am often mesmerized. I have concluded that it is a reaction to a 'greatest hits' moment.
I once saw a performance of Madame Butterfly and was bored the entire time; I was in such a stupor that I didn't even enjoy her particularly famous aria, although I really do think it is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Opera just seems so stilted for me.
I feel the same way about operetta, however. In Penzance, I loved George Rose's Major General and enjoyed one or two other numbers; getting through the rest was a real slog, however.
The one opera performance I enjoyed overall was Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme; the second scene, which has two amazing pieces of music, was also so visually stunning that you couldn't help but be entertained. I still remember, however, that one of the four scenes was almost entirely recitative, and that i was just as bored as with every other opera performance that I attended. I would also point out that La Boheme is short.
