When I heard that we were going to be going to an opera for this class I immediately pictured a large person standing still on a stage with the spotlight on them singing. I thought it would basically be exactly like this Tom and Jerry episode I had seen ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD9sFPvyw3I&feature=related )…. but it wasn’t. There was so much more to it than just a single person standing there singing ridiculous notes that I would never be able to sing.
As the opera was about to begin all I could think about was how ridiculously tired I was from not getting enough sleep before and having an 8 o’clock class that morning. When the music first started playing and the opera began i wasn’t sure what to expect and I thought that just maybe if it was dark enough in the theater I could get away with closing my eyes just for a little and take a quick nap. However as tired as I was I just couldn’t do this. There was just so much going on at once that all my attention was focused on the stage. From the costumes to the scenery to the music, I was truly mesmerized. What I thought was going to be extremely boring was actually full of excitement and energy.
There were so many things that I enjoyed about this opera. The scenery I felt was so exciting and there was always something for me to have my eyes on. This was especially seen with the scene where they were at Olympia’s house and there was a sun with an eye on it just going back and forth in the air, and a dragon staircase that was constantly twirling during the entire scene. I’m still not entirely sure what the purpose of these things were, but they did a great job of catching my attention! My favorite part of the opera however had to have been the music. The beautiful thing about music is that it’s a universal language. Even though most of the members of the audience that night were probably not fluent in French, just from listening to the passion within the music you could somewhat figure out what exactly was going on. The music definitely wasn’t what i was expecting. I thought it was going to be unappealing to our generation. However a lot of the music was actually really fun and exciting and I found myself later on singing certain parts, for example “Frick Frack”. This exciting energy made everything so much more appealing.
When I told all of my friends that I saw an opera for one of my classes they all said “I’m so sorry, how bad was it”. They were all really surprised when i told them that it actually was really good and heck, I loved it! They all thought how could you possibly love opera? When i tried explaining to them how mesmerizing the experience was they kind of understood, but still weren’t convinced that it could have been that amazing. I guess it’s just one of those things that you have to experience to fully know.
So does the Opera appeal to people of our age? I would most definitely say it does! I never in a million years thought that I would ever sit through an opera, let alone actually enjoy it, but it happened! This opera did a great job of appealing to the youth through all the energy that was filling the audience that night. I have a feeling that if my friends that thought I was from a different planet for actually loving an opera were in that audience that night then they too would have the same reaction. I can definitely see myself going to an opera again in the near future and definitely dragging along some of my friends as well. Hopefully they’ll end up feeling the same way I felt.
