How To Get Hooked On Opera

What to do

How to access opera

Today there are numerous resources available to anyone who wants to get to know opera. Operas can be accessed in four ways: recordings, videos (many available online), broadcastings, or live in the theatre. Opera recordings come in two forms: complete recordings and highlights. Try to get hold of a recording that comes with a dual-language libretto, so you can read a translation as you listen.

Individual singers also often release arias (songs) from different operas. These can be a good way of sampling which composers and works are to your taste. You’ll probably be surprised at how much of the music you already recognise from films, cartoons and advertising. The tone of singers’ voices varies immensely, so it’s worth using YouTube to identify singers you particularly enjoy listening to.

It’s also possible to catch opera performances on radio or television, though less often than in the past. Check out stations like BBC Radio 3 (available online outside the UK) or your regional public-broadcasting station. A relatively recent innovation is the screening of operas in cinemas. This brings world-class opera from theatres like the Royal Opera House in London or the Metropolitan Opera (‘the Met’) in New York nearer to home, complete with close-ups you wouldn’t get from seats in the gallery.

But the best way to truly appreciate opera is in the theatre. Nothing compares with walking into an auditorium, hearing the orchestra tuning up and anticipating the rise of the curtain as the lights go down. So check out where your nearest opera company performs and see what they have to offer. Some companies have a fixed base in a major city; others tour.

Find the opera for you

Some people are omnivorous opera fans. Others have a preference for a particular type. It may be that you find certain types of opera unappealing, but that’s not to say that you couldn’t enjoy others. So a first step to becoming an opera enthusiast is to find your operatic ‘niche’.

Operas are incredibly varied. Some people love the passionate, romantic operas of a composer like Puccini or are ardent fans of Wagner (epic works based on Nordic mythology, with sumptuous orchestration). Others find this sort of repertoire over-the-top and prefer the refined elegance of Mozart, or harmonically adventurous modern opera. If you find the idea of operatic tragedies where at least one character dies off-putting, comic opera may be the thing for you.

Think about the subject matter that appeals to you too. Perhaps you want to immerse yourself in the escapism of classical legend? If so, you could start with Offenbach’s light opera Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) or Purcell’s short opera Dido and Aeneas. Or maybe you like your opera realistic, with characters who behave like we do today, in which case Puccini’s La bohème is a great starting point. Though there are operas whose storylines seem remote from our times, there are plenty whose themes are timeless. These operas work just as well when updated to our own time, as this example from Bizet’s Carmen shows:

Navigating opera’s building blocks

Different countries have developed different operatic traditions and conventions. Operas are extraordinarily diverse in style, which makes it difficult to generalise about how they function. Nevertheless, there are some basic building blocks that are common to many operas.

An opera is often prefaced by an overture, which is a section of orchestral music heard before the curtain rises. It may use themes that appear later in the opera, capture something of the opera’s general mood, or be a completely unrelated orchestral piece. Some overtures have enjoyed a life of their own as concert works. Rossini’s are full of sparkling, toe-tapping tunes, such as the overture from La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) – you should be able to hear the music moving through a number of distinct sections:

Some operas work rather like musicals, interspersing musical numbers with spoken dialogue. Mozart’s The Magic Flute is a good example, as is Bizet’s Carmen, at least in its original, most frequently performed version. But most operas have continuous music from beginning to end. Often, there will be clear song-like sections known as arias, and between the arias is something called recitative, a sort of cross between singing and speaking.

Arias and recitative have different dramatic functions. An aria allows a character to reflect on their situation. Duets, trios, quartets and choruses act similarly, but allow characters to have conversations. Recitative is more ‘active’: because it is like speech, a lot of information can be conveyed and the action can be moved along swiftly.

Later composers tended to blur the boundaries between arias and recitative. The German composer Richard Wagner reformed opera in the mid-19th century, creating works where the music flowed continuously without clear breaks, and others began to follow his lead. We call this type of opera through-composed.

Different types of arias were preferred in different historical periods. In the Baroque era, composers like Handel wrote three-part (or ‘da capo’) arias that can be represented in the form ABA. Once the singers have finished sections A and B (often in contrasting moods), they go back and repeat section A, adding embellishment to create extra interest.

Dramatically, this was a rather limiting form: the character returns to the first dramatic idea and the action gets ‘stuck’. Later composers wrote two-part arias, which were better for portraying a shift in a character’s mood. These sometimes formed the basis for an extended section of a scene. Try listening to an aria and working out where the music moves into a new section – does it correspond with a new idea in the text?

By the turn of the 20th century, arias had become much freer, as composers prioritised making the music serve the needs of the drama. In this example from Puccini’s La bohème, the music flows flexibly, following the character’s thoughts. The heroine Mimì is dying, and her music is slow, hesitant, fragile – then rising and swelling in intensity as she tells her lover Rodolfo, from whom she has been separated, how much she loves him:

There are also ensembles of many types in opera and often characters sing together and express opposing viewpoints simultaneously. Here is a clever example from Puccini’s Tosca, where the malevolent chief of police Scarpia sings of wanting to seduce the heroine. Can you label which portions of music are non-diegetic and which diegetic?

At the beginning of the extract, Scarpia gives instructions to an accomplice and voices his thoughts to himself. In operatic terms, this is speech. In the background, we hear the strains of an organ and a choir singing in a church service (music audible to everyone on stage). Eventually, the two merge, as Puccini brings together the diegetic and the non-diegetic, the sacred and the profane, to great effect.

Understanding voices

Over the centuries, certain voice types came to be associated with particular types of operatic role. Young lovers are usually sung by high voices – a soprano as heroine and a tenor as hero. Many operas feature father figures or love rivals who typically prevent the lovers from being together; these are commonly sung by baritones, with deeper voices. Mezzo-sopranos, whose range is somewhat lower than the soprano, usually play down-to-earth female characters. Altos and basses are often elderly or supernatural characters.

There is one other voice type to be aware of. In early opera, such as those written in the 18th century by Handel, an artificial voice type was used: the castrato, created by castrating a boy in childhood to preserve his prepubertal voice into adulthood. Now that castrati no longer exist, their roles are played either by countertenors (men singing falsetto) or by women dressed as men. Here, for example, the mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly sings Julius Caesar:

There are also lots of ‘trouser roles’ in opera, written for a woman impersonating a male role – often, a young boy, such as the role of Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. This might seem a bit strange at first but it is just another of opera’s quirks.

Preparing to see a live opera

It’s possible to go and see an opera without any advance preparation, as audiences would have done when operas were first performed. We don’t usually read ‘spoilers’ before watching a film, so there’s a case for just watching an opera unfold in front of you. This can work particularly well with the visceral Italian verismo (realist) operas of the late 19th century, such as Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) by Mascagni or Pagliacci (Clowns) by Leoncavallo, which are reasonably short and have straightforward, accessible plots about love triangles and revenge. The characters in these operas tend to wear their heart on their sleeve, as in this example from Pagliacci:

On the other hand, some opera plots can be complicated, with large casts of characters. In these cases, it is definitely worth reading the plot in advance to work out who is related to whom, and what the back story is that means a particular character has a grudge against another. Wikipedia is a useful resource for plot summaries, and you will find one in the programme available to buy at the theatre.

Like plays, operas are typically organised into acts – up to as many as four or five – though some short operas are in just one. Acts may, in turn, be divided into scenes. These structural breaks allow the composer and librettist to leap forward in the action, whether by hours or years. You will want to go to a performance knowing in advance how many acts it has and how many intervals there are going to be: don’t make the mistake I did at my first opera of thinking the second interval was the end!

With opera, you are not going simply for the storyline, and knowing the ending won’t detract from your enjoyment of the performance. You might even want to listen in advance of going to see an opera, so that some of the music is familiar. People often go to the same opera many times to see different productions and listen to different casts.

Some people worry about whether everything will seem ‘grand’ when they go to the theatre to see an opera. Here it is impossible to generalise, since it depends where you are. Some major cities have what can properly be called ‘opera houses’ – the Met in New York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Royal Opera House in London, Paris Opéra, and so on. These are large, historic and often lavish theatres predominantly devoted to the performance of opera, and sometimes people like to dress up to for a special occasion. Likewise, there are opera festivals, such as the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in the UK, that have historically been black-tie events, though following a set dress code is rarely compulsory nowadays.

This model of opera-going is, however, comparatively rare. More typically, operas are performed in regular theatres that also stage plays, musicals and comedies. In this context, people tend to be far more casually dressed. Many opera companies, even at grander venues, are extremely keen nowadays to encourage audience members to attend dressed however they feel most comfortable.

You might even have an opportunity to watch an opera being performed in a more informal venue that isn’t a conventional theatre. There have recently been operas performed in pubs, and ‘flashmob’ performances in railway stations and shopping malls. As part of their outreach programmes, opera companies are increasingly taking opera to new and unexpected places – going out to find new audiences in the hope that these audiences will ultimately pay them a return visit.

Listening to an opera in the company of hundreds or thousands of other people, as the singers bear their souls, is a truly magical experience. Ultimately going to the opera isn’t about the other people in the audience or what they are wearing – it’s about what’s going on, on stage.