A couple of weeks ago, I offered to tutor a nine year old little girl in opera and then take her to an opera upon this closing of her study. I am very fond of this little girl as she is my neighbor and her mother is Italian and also a friend so it did seem the logical thing to volunteer to do.
Verdi would have been my first choice for her first opera, but since this is not on the seasonal calendar, I chose Puccini’s La Boheme. It is the second most performed opera in the world with very lovely music. Understatement!
The performance we will attend does not happen until late January so I have three and a half months to prepare her for this experience.
Since I have taught opera classes in the past, I know the drill very well. But this is the first time my student has been so young. So I need to back up a bit before I get into the real nitty-gritty.
I will start by talking about love and hate. This is the backbone for all opera librettos. There must be conflict and it has to be grand and dynamic. Yes, in opera, nothing is small… it’s always bigger than life but resembles our real lives. (Some might debate that and if you wish to speak out, feel free. I encourage your thoughts… always happy to discuss with you.)
So here we are. We start with love, which is to feel passion, devotion and tenderness. And then there’s the love affair, which is a romantic attachment or episode between two who love (thank you Webster).
Love wasn’t always some kinky thing between the sheets or more kissing than chapped lips can produce. It was just love filled with passion and feeling. But that love isn’t opera until that love is unsatisfied… left without fulfillment… And then add in jealousy which causes a lover to become uncontrollable. And that leads to hate and greed. These things are tantamount to opera.
So! This said, I’m thinking, to present this to someone who knows nothing about opera, I should start with the kind of love that person would understand. At the same time, she and I can question what an opera is and is not.
Here goes:
Let’s start with Cinderella, a girl whose life is great, then stinks… this would make a great role for a soprano! She has three terrible sisters… make them sopranos and mezzos. And then the step-mother who is so evil… definitely a mezzo-soprano… they are usually very bad women.
Prince Charming… a tenor of course… dresses to the nines and gets to ride a horse! Why not? The tenor is the hero…. sometimes a roaring idiot who shares with us his bad choices, but we sort of like him anyway. The ball room scene offers us a chorus but we need more than one chorus scene… so this is iffy to say the least.
However… Enter the fight scene for the glass slipper and we have conflict. But then… Comes happily ever after at the end. Uh-uh! No way. Can’t happen in opera. (Their lives have to just suck at the end! But the music is GREAT!) So we cannot make an opera out of Cinderella.
How about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Right from the beginning we know this won’t be any opera based on “opera rules of reality” since seven men are NOT going to share and be happy with one woman! Now she would probably dig it… and since that would make her the center of attention, that would also make her the lead soprano for an opera… this is sixes…. or is it sevens plus one?
We do have conflict because there is a wicked queen who turns into an old hag. I can see some real opera in this scene… Snow White takes the apple from the evil mezzo-soprano, then sings a tremendous cadenza and falls to the stage floor! (Sopranos are always leaping and dying and falling and dying or fainting to a sofa and then dying… but they always sing a cadenza first! A cadenza is all those notes that flow all over the place for no apparent reason other than to extend the death or fainting scene… which it does… and it’s always very beautiful!)
And enter Prince Charming… again… this guy really gets around. (I wonder if Cinderella knows that he is stepping out on her. Yes, I question everything!) Well the fight scene between the evil mezzo-soprano witch/queen and the prince would be Verdi heaven. Verdi has great fight scenes in his operas! But then we’re back to the happily every after thing! Dang! No opera. Too happy. No, can’t have that.
Moving on to Sleeping Beauty. Yes, we have conflict. Three good fairies and one very unhappy kicked-out-on-her-can fairy who will most surely be the evil mezzo-soprano. And the scene where she curses Sleeping Beauty? Lots of chorus opportunity there with everybody gathered together for the festivities. But then the sleeping… and nothing happening… this won’t work. Move on.
Ah! Price Charming! (This guy… wow… the dwarfs really should talk to him because they had one woman and the seven of them sharing the house with her and then she leaves with no less, Prince Charming and while the dwarfs again have nothing! Questioning everything!)
Okay he fights off a dragon… Could work as the bass baritone, but the costuming of a dragon would be a nightmare. So no. Still not good.
And then there’s the happily ever after thing again.
So toning it down some for Julia… but you can see where this tells us/her what opera is and is not. It is not a happy story with a happy ending. But it does have great music. It is not a simple plot. But it does have great music. The people in opera make a lot of mistakes in life. But they do it to great music in awesome costumes with great lighting and sets. Disney’s fairy tales are in English. Opera is in German or Latin or Italian or sometimes English. This,basically, is what it is and is not.
Opera is an opportunity to see other people screw up to great music and you don’t have to clean up the mess when it’s over. It’s like great love making… you relax and watch and wait and then it just unfolds into something very beautiful.
La Boheme… Julia and me, January 30th, dressed to the nines, in the most expensive seats in the hall, with my opera glasses. It should be great! And by the time we go? Julia will have been taught the history of opera she is seeing; we will have done a character analysis, we will know all of the arias and when they will be sung, and we will know exactly how and when to respond to show our appreciation to the symphony and the performers. Bravisimo!
May your evening have the beauty of Pucinni’s music with none of the conflict. God bless.
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple