I never thought I would say this, but I enjoyed watching an opera the other day. Before, I appreciated the beautiful sounds and hyperbolic emotions on display, but I never understood opera and instead embraced the lazy stereotype that it was merely boring plays for boring people.
Last week however, I was taken to watch a livestream of the Royal Opera House’s performance of La Forza del Destinoat the Everyman cinema in Esher with my family. This luxuriously relaxed manner to watch the opera completely shifted my opinion of the genre. Lying back on a reclining sofa, with waiters providing food and drinks while listening to the unwavering power of Giuseppe Verdi’s epic tale of forbidden love was thoroughly enjoyable. As the story went from act to act, so too did my meal, moving from the smooth introduction of garlic bread to the hotter flavour of a cheeseburger and finally transforming into the dramatic finale of a piping hot brownie for dessert.
This production of La Forza starring Anna Netrebkoand Jonas Kaufmannwas part of the Royal Opera House’s range of performances each season which are livestreamed to local cinemas and theatres in order to both increase their revenue from the production and to make opera more accessible to fans not able to travel to opera houses in cities such as London’s. Although not aiming to, it has also steadily increased the audience of opera to those who had previously been left uneducated by its ways, such as myself.
In summary, despite the naïve stereotype surrounding opera with the image of rich couples in bowties taking their chauffeurs into London for the night, Opera is an important pillar for the arts movement which is taking important steps towards making its beauty accessible to all. The idea that these songs, written hundreds of years ago, are still sang with fervent beauty, generations later, shows the never-ending appreciation that should be heaped upon the writers of such eloquent tales.
