Originally when I heard we were going to the opera, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I knew the basic concept, but didn’t truly know what happened. When I got to the metropolitan opera it confirmed what I believed of the opera in general: it’s is geared towards the white, upper class.

Everyone around me was white, mostly older, and well dressed. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of diversity in the room. The cast, besides for the female lead and maybe a few others, are white. This isn’t something that I am strongly against, but just stood out when I began watching.

The showing itself wasn’t something I fell in love with. I’ve always enjoyed listening to orchestras to an extent and that didn’t change. The music was well done, but the opera itself wasn’t too enjoyable. The singing just isn’t something I enjoy. It’s not something I would listen to on my own so I lose interest. It also doesn’t help that the entire show is in Italian. Even if I could hear the pronunciations of their words, it’s in a different language so it doesn’t matter. I also didn’t love the dialogue of the opera itself. I feel as if it lacks the depth of average plays that we can compare it to. They’re mainly signing simply phrases making the story choppy.

The opera is something I can say I’ve been to and experienced, but it isn’t something I think I’d come back to. I’d much rather spend this amount of money going to a ballet or dance performance. Over the course of the semester through this class I’ve learned that I much rather prefer the dance festival we went to earlier in the year. I would also rather just go to a regular play. I do enjoy the general music aspects that plays lack, but this can be made up by dance. In my hometown, each summer there is a Pixar showing at the saratoga performing arts center. They show a Pixar movie while an orchestra plays the music onstage. Recently the Philadelphia orchestra came and played which I really enjoyed. It drew my interest from the movie itself but the live aspect of the orchestra was a great aspect that I loved. This type of art is something I would much rather watch over the opera, however, going to this shaped my taste of arts and showed me what I didn’t like.