Is Opera Still a Thing?

Well, yes, it is. One of the courses I'm taking this term is on opera. Why am I taking it? Partly because I love classical music, partly because it's valuable credits for my degree, and partly because opera has a lot to do with history. And today, we actually watched an opera as a class, over Zoom.

Now, I had been thinking we were going to watching Mozart's The Magic Flute, which I would very much like to watch with Tanner, my twelve-year-old. Magic, monsters, fantasy...it's right down both our alleys. Instead, though, we watched Verdi's La Traviata, which combines the child-friendly subjects of prostitution, betrayal, and tragic death by consumption (aka tuberculosis). Quite the shift in expectations there.

Watching a movie over Zoom isn't really something I would recommend, unless you've got fantastic wi-fi. Which, being on a farm on Prince Edward Island, I do not possess. It's decent wi-fi, certainly, but not that good. So, I got to watch the stop-motion version for parts of it, as a series of still images that were supposed to be moving. The sound was good for the most part, so I got most of the singing. I just couldn't get the subtitles to link up because the video was slow.

So, why am I talking about opera? Because it relates to writing, of course. Opera is a synthesis of different arts: writing (the libretto, or play), music, and visual arts. Opera isn't something you should just listen to. It needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. It doesn't matter how fantastic the music is; it's part of a story that is meant to be seen as well as heard. When the composer and writer put together the words and the music, they can't actually show you the story without the visual component. And it's that visual component that draws people into the world of the opera, a visual component that can change the entire meaning of the story if done right.

For example, the opera we saw, La Traviata, is based on a story written by Alexander Dumas (the same guy who wrote The Three Musketeers), which was based on his own life experiences. When it was first composed, Verdi had to change the setting of the play from the mid-19th century to the early 18th century so as to distance the social commentary in the novel, play and opera from what was actually going on at the time. But the version we saw is set in the 19th century, which gives it a different feel. The costumes are closer to what people wear today, as opposed to having wigs and such.

In writing, though, we don't have that visual component to work with. In fact, all we have are the words on the page, and the reader's imagination to fill in the rest. It's both a blessing and a curse, because today's reading audiences have been conditioned to see their stories, whether in movies, television shows, or video games. It's tougher to engage the mind when all you have is words.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, of course. And that's why I mentioned a few posts ago that the toughest part of writing for me is the descriptions. But those descriptions are what make it possible for the reader to visualize the story in more concrete terms. The more clear the description, the better the connection the reader can make with the story. Opera uses the music and the scenery as shortcuts. That's not a bad thing, of course; opera is still very popular today among a lot of people, and you can see most of the great operas on DVD or on YouTube if you want. It's not the same as a live performance, of course, which is something I would very much like to see at some point. Assuming we're ever allowed to live normal lives again.

I plan to use my course in opera to help me bridge that gap between where my descriptions are now and where I want them to be. Any genre will do, although I prefer the happier and more mythic stories to the tragic, 'socially-relevant' ones. But then, I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy.