I regard myself as reasonably cultured. I read quality newspapers, I like literature, and when on holiday I sometimes go for a wander around art galleries.The one aspect of culture that leaves me cold is opera and opera lovers. I don't believe that there is such a thing as 'opera lovers'. They are just pretend culture vultures who wear their supposed love of opera as a spurious badge of artistic appreciation.
Take the Sydney Opera House for example. EVERYONE knows that Australians love beer, surfing and Aussie Rules Football; not listening to plump Shielas warbling in Italian. The Aussie government only built the opera house because....., well because that's what governments do. "It'll look grite on the postcards ocker. All we need to do is let the opera crew in a coupla times a year. The rest of the year we can use it for AC/DC concerts and Star Trek conventions. Just think of the tourists the beaut'll bring in".
Those fat three tenors really get on my tits. So does Kiri de fuckin' Kanewa. Why can't they just sing properly; like that nice Ronan Keating, or Barry Manilow? Something with a proper tune that you can sing along to.
Now that's what I call music.
7 comments:
Every year around Christmas myself and Mrs Triffid go get us some culture in the form of opera or a classical condert. Every year, two hours into the first act I get an unquenchable thirst, we both do, and then have to sit through the following three hours until the intermission. These fucking things go on forever. This year it's going to be: Van Damme - The Musical!
Thanks for the link, by the way!
Classical music I can live with. I've even sat through a string quartet.
The thought of five hours of opera fills me with horror. Wagner's Ring Cycle. No ta.
I'm not a big fan of the Wagnerian Operas, although I am a Wagnerian Soprano (big voice!)
I do like some opera and can appreciate the rest. For me it depends on the singers. If they have no control and have only vabrato (where the sound is not flowing in a straight line, but bouncing so much that it sounds like they are hitting every note but the one written. Can we say Kathleen Battle? Ugh. she's horrible...)then that drives me to either leave, block it out, or turn the channel.
Same thing with choirs that sing Handel's Messiah too slow (Mormon Tabbernacle Choir- or as I like to call them, the Moron Tappin' Apple Choir) :-)
So, you like Barry Mannilow? Cool. Dave & I have 3 of his greatest hits cds. That's how we by cds, if we like an artist that has been around a while, we'll buy the greatest hits and have all the songs we like. Although, sometimes you do miss out on hidden gems.
Or Daniel O'Donnell?
I don't really get opera either; some arias are lovely and very moving, but to claim to like it would be wrong.
I think you're right in that (some)people don't enjoy opera or classical music, they endure it and grow accustomed to it so as they can live up to something, or fit in somewhere.
To me (and to most) a Herbert von Karajan/ Deutsche Gramafon recording of any opera would sound exactly the same as the shit you get free in the Sunday Express.
I'm just a bit cloth eared where classical music is concerned. Perhaps if someone took me along to an opera and talked me through it afterwards I might get the point.
When BBC2 devote an entire evening to opera I imagine they must have total audience of two.
Now musicals I don't mind. Saw 'Guys and Dolls' once. That was ace.
As Seinfeld says - if you've got something to say - say it - don't sing it - especially not in German!
Seinfeld - pithy and perceptive as always.
Just imagine Daniel dressed up as a viking in Der Valkyrie. That would really get the blue rinse brigade palpitating.
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