Opera Traditions That Enrage Me 

there's like 1500 seats at my local opera theatre if everyone was talking and going in and out i wouldn't be able to hear anything

#1 language: in 1966, Boris Godowsky was a guest at Brevard Music Camp. He was asked about our singing operas there in English. His response: Just as there are master librettists and composers, there are master translators. Just as there are bad librettists and composers, there are bad translators. When a master translator transcribes the Italian, German, or other language into another, both music and spoken language are given equal consideration, and there can be as much art in a good translation as there can be in the music.

#2 setting: After you mentioned that you might as well change the music if you're going to change the setting, you mentioned Romeo and Juliet. There's the perfect example of why you're right that you need to change one if you change the other: West Side Story! It wasn't enough to just change the setting; Bernstein was savvy enough to also change the music, and did so wonderfully.

Thank you Cait, I really enjoyed this. There were several really laugh out loud moments - you illustrated the absurdity of these conventions really well! I was particularly struck by your explanation of how, in many operatic cases, nobody in the room would understand the sung language - native speaker or not. As an amateur but non-operatic singer I am used to the idea that one of my goals is to actually make the words understandable. Sure, the vowels may be replaced or otherwise distorted to enhance the singing quality, but within the context of the consonants or the phrase the language is still understandable. I had not thought about how the meaning of the words in opera is typically ignored.

I'll really like a setting of Hansel and Grethell with Dinosaurs in space. Thanks for the idea.

One of my least favorite things about modern day opera, a new thing that has happened on the internet is people complaining about singers singing in the wrong fach. For example, they’ll complain about some baritone being tenors and use weak arguments for why they think so. A famous example is Leo Nucci. In fact, some of these people even called Bryn Terfel a tenor, in which I don’t understand why.They’ll also argue with each other about the definitions and vocal characteristics of some fachs.

OMG the comment about french pronunciation. I'm a percussionist, and while I lived in Long Beach studying my master's I got free tickets for the LA Opera doing Carmen. They opted for the version with dialogue and all of the cast was either spanish or italian singers. Naturally when I came back my private teacher was asking me what i thought of the percussion playing (did you like the tambourine sound? what about the triangle excerpt?) All I could think to say was "I don't care about that, they butchered French dialogue and they are a professional company, that's what I was listening to!" My teacher was surprised that I wasn't zero-ing in on my instrument. I think that also speaks highly of the American conservatoire tradition of teaching students to only evaluate the merits of an orchestral concert by the performances of their specific instrument rather than as a whole picture.

Did you know that tradition no. 1 is at most only 60 years old? Yes, even in the 50s it was normal to sung the operas in translation. You can listen to recordings of Maria Callas singing Wagner in Italian, or of German post-war singers singing Russian and Czech operas in German. I can't say with certainty because I haven't done thorough research, but I'd say this was actually the real tradition also before that time. For example if I recall correctly, Wagner translated Tanhäuser for the failed Paris premiere. Berlioz arranged Weber operas in French to bring to France a composer he admired. Verdi had versions of the same opera sung in French in France, and in Italian in Italy. You can argue that there are at least some composers where the original language is inseparable from the music (for example Wagner, where the music changes and reacts almost to every word), in many more operas it is not. But generally speaking I think unless you already know or learned the original language, it's acceptable and even preferable to translate the opera. You are supposed to dedicate your attention to the singers and the staging, not to a screen with subtitles. The "tradition" in this case is an elitist obstacle between the work and a would-be opera lover.

I just saw my first opera 2 days ago and I came across this. This is my totally newbie take. Tradition #1 - I'm ok with the opera being in the original languages. I imagine it's probably better to keep it in the original language. As I learned something about opera I said, "So opera is like Japanese anime." I watch anime in Japanese with subtitles and I have been doing this for a while now. The major difference is that us anime fans can just choose to watch it with or without subtitles. The fact that so many do watch anime in Japanese is a demonstration that the experience of watching it in Japanese is worth it for many. We don't have such proof of that with opera. I am totally on board with having local and original works in opera. The major difference is that in opera the music is supposed to fit well with the lyrics and that would be compromised. But if it can be done, I'm open to it. Tradition #2 - So Regietheater isn't only a thing in opera. I saw a Shakespeare play set in the 20s. Now this is another area where the traditional works really well. It might help to change it, but it's not obvious. It seems there are more ways to screw it up than to make it better from where I'm sitting. I'm open to someone changing the setting. I saw Otello in LA and it was set in the original location, there was no monkey business there. But if I watch another one and someone changes things, I'll judge at that time whether or not it was a good fit. Part of going into the theater is to place yourself in the original setting because you want to get caught up in the original story. I think this reminds me of a lot of the complaints around gender/race swapping with famous characters in movies. Most of it is done as a desire to be current, but they don't have much current, original and good content. So instead, they just shove something in there and people notice and complain. I think it would be best if we just had more operas written in modern settings than trying to adapt the old ones. Tradition #3 - I think it's fine and a good thing that they are churches. The problem is that opera has nothing else but their churches. It's completely understandable that opera is going to be a bit prissy about what you can do in there, especially when they spent a ton of money building some elaborate cathedral to the art form. For instance the LA Phil has its own cathedral - the Walt Disney Concert Hall. They spent a ton of money pouring into the architecture and acoustics so that that thing would be a precise humming machine. I think it's not reasonable after spending all of this money so that you could hear all of the instruments being played with no amplification, they would allow people to talk during the performance. Now yes that is a more stuffy atmosphere, but it's the kind of one that people are happy with dressing up in suits. I think people like the venue to be that way. The LA Phil also has the Hollywood Bowl. The LA Phil does summer nights out there and I have been to a couple. That is where it's less formal and has more of the environment you are asking about. We clap between movements, you can bring food & drink with you to your seat and sip while watching, people aren't as serious about getting so nicely dressed. A nice shirt with some jeans will do, you don't have to go all out. Personally, I buy a burrito from a corner store and bring my own wine & cup when I go. I would love it if the LA Opera would also have performances there so that I can watch a performance in a similar environment. I think the opera should have a less fancy setting that they can just allow people to enjoy the performance without all of the pomp and circumstance. They need some rock concert type settings where normal people can just go and have a good time. Tradition #4 - They might be overly anal about the drinking thing. I'm not going to defend everything they do. But at the end of the day, they are just being prissy because of the whole cathedral point. Tradition #5 - I wouldn't want a crappy minimalist set either. Once again, I'm open to experimentation so you have to let people screw it up. But yes, they should state what kind of direction they are going in, traditional or something else.

I completely agree with everything you’re saying!

I enjoy the quiet of classical performance because, in some other arts, people have forgotten how to behave. People text and make phone calls during movies. They talk through concerts. Parents let kids run around and yell in museums. If opera is too strict about noise, it is a justified equal and opposite reaction.

#5 up-sets: There's also the other extreme, creating a set that attempts to compensate for a bad production or directing. For example, just one word: "Cats!"

I totally agree with your points - except for the first one. I love the languages. In fact, I find it difficult to sit through an opera in English. It feels artificial, stilted, phony. No, I'm not a polyglot; in fact, I barely remember my high school and college German but the words in Italian or French or German or Russian or whatever are part of the instrumentation. They flow through the music in ways English simply cannot. Give me the languages; but also give me the wine and maybe a little charcuterie board to take into the theater.

Totally unapologetic about the false advertising thing. Totally agree! It is such a shame that a theatre showing an opera doesn't optimise the use of the fly tower. It's all about not employing a set designer. Plus the chorus sizes have diminished. All about money, what can we get away with not.

#3 audience participation: In the 1989 Michael Keaton movie "The Dream Team," one of the music-loving inmates happened upon a concert of Beethoven's 9th during the 2nd movement, the 3/4 tympani solo movement. The inmate was so inspired that he got up and started dancing, at first to the consternation of the audience, but it quickly caught on and many audience members joined in the dance! We see similar happenings today during many flash mob events in various public places. Audiences would actually like to interact if given the chance, or more properly, given the social "OK." But cellphones ringing--well, that's another story, as that's not really audience participation as such.

On the second and fourth ones ABSOLUTELY AGREE i attended the academy for costume making of La Scala theatre one of the most important opera theaters in the world and I have seen some vile shit, they set Macbeth in a freaking OFFICE. I was mad

As Mark Twain said, "It has some wonderful moments and some awful quarter hours"

Excellent presentation!

Wait. I get the no food and no drinks stance. I see what places look like, littered with peoples random garbage, paper bags, coke cans, water bottles and chips bags. Eventually even cigarettes and alcohol residue on the floor.

You had me at rAhGAhDaHh.

Well, for the first point you made, thats why opera had survived in the modern world as broadway musicals.

There's something essential that's lost in translation. I also listen to opera 99% for the music & singing and couldn't care less for the words.

I can get on board, as an opera lover, with almost everything you say - with the possible exception of the language. There was a time when I'd head for English National Opera (because they sing in English) but then I found I couldn't entirely understand that either! So I reverted to the RoH and read the sodding libretto (and the plot -if there is one!) before going. Similarly I love Scandinavian crime noir - in Finnish, Swedish etc and certainly not dubbed into English. Meaning does not have to be communicated just by understanding the language - non-verbal communication and timbre (and so on) of voice is as important - so good acting is critical for opera singers - IMHO. However I wanted to advance a possible reason for audience silence - which, as a social scientist, interests me. Try this for size... the 19th Century witnessed the huge growth of the middle class - they gained power and wealth - yet were not 'respectable' - they were 'in trade' (as Jane Austen put it) - so they tried, they really did, to become respectable by copying what they thought were aristocratic traits, customs, behaviours and of course taste. If you'd like an example of this just study (briefly) the history of the lawn - from the vast lawns of the aristocracy trimmed by an army of peasants with no more than garden shears to the petrol driven lawn mower of the late Victorian middle classes. Or... the church... in the 18th and early 19th centuries English church Sunday services were full - everybody came to the centre of the social circle, gossiped, exchanged gifts, brought hens or pigs for sale - a rural church service in the early 19th C resembled more of a livestock market than an act of worship. But slowly the middle-class came to impose their standards on church services - and those services quietened down with poultry now longer welcome... try taking a couple of ducks to Holy Communion today and get an observer to study people's reactions... :-) I could go on but it's just too boring.... ;-)

My impression is that lower singers are vastly more intelligible than higher singers. This may be partially the styles of writing - baritones (especially in German music) tend to get very conversational music, whereas sopranos gets sustained notes. Although I do not speak Czech, Janacek is undoubtedly the most intelligible composer out there, especially in “From the House of the Dead” - I do not remember a *single* example of melisma in it. One note, one syllable, and often with the cadences of conversation.

Its funny how growls in metal can be more easily understood than opera singing

YES

I totally agree with you that these opera traditions need to stop in order for opera to be more enjoyable for people (and also more accessible to them). But, it seems to me that the people in charge of the opera houses don’t want that. How can we persuade them that we should find new ways of fixing these traditions, such as the suggestions you recommended?

#2 I love your opinions! All valid . I love being taken back into time and history. As to the audience participation...it distracts the performers. I don't want someone to talk during your beautiful high C.

#1. The singers hired by most major opera companies are from all over the world and they perform all over the world. It's a lot easier to get all of them to sing an Italian opera in Italian than it is to have them learn a half-dozen different translations so that they can sing the English version in New York and the French version next week in Paris. Pavarotti, for instance, rarely sang a staged opera in any language other than Italian. He never would have performed in the US if he had been forced to sing in English. I'd much prefer to hear the world's best singers sing in the original language than to settle for a second-rate English-speaking cast singing translations. And by the way, I've seen plenty of English-language operas where they still project the English super-titles, so whatever advantage there might be to singing in the vernacular is vastly overrated. #2. It's not just opera, it's all forms of theater. A good production is going to be good regardless of the setting. Frankly, I'd love to see Hansel & Gretel with dinosaurs. At least it would distract me from Humperdinck's music. #3. Sounds like you need to plan on going to the bathroom before the performance and during intermissions. Seriously, if you want to make noise and move around during the performance, you can stay home and do that. #4. I'm not spending $100 or more to sit next to someone having a picnic while I try to enjoy a live performance in a theater. If you want to eat and drink, that's what your dining room is for. #5. You complain about anachronistic productions of La Traviata and then show photos of it being performed in 19th-century costumes. You do realize that Traviata is actually set in the 18th century, don't you?

Nice.

100% agree particularly about languages. When I last saw Barber of Seville the audience laughed when they first READ "but if they touch me, I'll be a viper" before Rosina actually SANG the line "ma se mi toccano, saro una vipera" so it's like they're responding to what they are READING instead of the comedic strength of the singer to actually infuse that line with expression, thereby completely missing the point of opera. It's so frustrating. This does not happen in musicals. Also re the setting changes - even at the times of the operas many of the settings were already considered period, like the Tudor Queens for instance. People will always love period tv shows, so why set Traviata which is supposed to be around 1700 in France in a minimalist modern setting... smh

What if there is so much noise that you can’t hear the music?

i don't mind opera being preformed in the original language-- it feels like subtitled anime, and i really like having subtitles for everything that goes on onstage regardless of language because i have #adhd-- but i entirely agree about the DICTION. if someone in the audience speaks the language....ideally theyd be able to Get It ETA: on point 2: i feel like settings are very often ignored in theater-type arts-- see any shakespeare, and like...jesus christ superstar changes settings like underwear? changing the setting of like. nixon in china is weird, but plenty of setting changes (most, even!) work pretty well and are fun! idk, im also a romeo+juliet liker. on point 5: the weird sets are also for me, i think. i think they're fun! i saw a production of sondheim's company set in an 80's airport but the set itself was like. Incredibly modern-sparse and i had a great time. i like weird art! i don't think opera has to un-weird to be more palatable-- i like the opera Because its weird! the posters and playbills are in the style of the setting 9.5/10 times anyways, methinks. anyways, those are my opinions, but i'm glad theres room for everybody's opinions, yours and mine! you deserve space for what you like, too, and the video was still very fun to watch :)

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Hey, I have a little comment on the 1st tradition. I'm trying to become an opera singer, it's a big dream for me. I practise a lot on pronunciation. I mean, for pop music, I also look up the lyrics on Genius, because I can understand those lyrics just as good as lyrics from opera. I, personally, think that that's a problem for a lot of Americans. A lot of Americans are used to everything being in English, and the rest of the world isn't.

I agree on the stage settings. An opera should be held in the same places, take on the same theme, like the story it is based on. I disagree on the language thing. Language and musical composition go hand in hand. Listening to Roger Cicero. German jazz singer. Now try most of his pieces sung in English, except the pieces he took from "The Great American Song Book" (which is all out in English). Doesn't work. Same for opera singing. The music had been composed with these specific vocal styles in mind. You can not sing a vital sounding Italian operette in English or French without losing the connection. You can not sing Mozart's Requiem in Spanish or Russian. I agree on the idea that as a live audience we should be able to react as such, giving live responses, booing if they fudge it and applaud and cheer when the performance is brilliant.

#4 sticky food: If you've ever walked to your seat in a movie theatre, you've experienced the consequence of the successful sales of overpriced popcorn, candy and soda, the mainstays of theatre income. If you dare wear flipflops to a movie theatre, beware! Some of the congealed floor sugar just might grab your shoes and free a foot from its incarceration. While your foot might be briefly thankful, the thanks would be but for an instant, as you now have to struggle with lifting up the liberated foot from the floor without removing the newly attached epidermis from it. I have seen opera theatres that were designed like dinner theatres; drinks and food are more than welcome there. As to galas etc., it's quite simple: money speaks there, even more than does the cost of opera tickets.

Well actually pretty much up to about the middle of the 20th century or thereabouts, opera was performed typically in the language of the country. Perhaps it was about less high speed travel.. most artists performed in their own countries. But i actually prefer to hear an opera in its original language. Of course i do know a few languages to various degrees.

It's sad to me that not one voice teacher could explain formants to you and why vowel modification is literally a requirement for higher singing. Now if you were taught "regardah" below G5 then that's a whole other problem. You made so many good points in this video. I think opera forgot it's a form of theatre. An art that very much relies on audience engagement, even if it is purely a shared atmosphere. But yes, it's storytelling and I'm not sure that always stays the focus. Also, am new to your content and I am really enjoying it!

I’m absolutely with you concerning point 1, 2 and 5. But with point 3, I am somewhat in the middle. When professional photographers make photos with sound during a performance, it makes me furious, because the clicking sound is too direct and high, occurs permanently and destroys silent passages and pauses. But what you describe, that it is not even ‘allowed’ to clap between movements or after a beautiful sung aria or leave silently to go on the toilet - that affrays my non-musician friends. In my conservatory of music, I regularly attend bachelor or master graduation concerts. The difference between the pianists’ (instrumentalists’) and the classical singers’ communities is huge. This month, a pianist and friend of mine has had her bachelor recital in our lecture hall at 10 in the morning. No one clapped after the pieces and at the end, no one cheered or whistled out of joy. The professors even debated openly about whether the pianist had to sight-read a piece of music after she had finished. I’ve felt like in the wrong movie. The week before in the singers’ recitals, one clapped after the pieces and laughed at funny moments and cheered at the end.

1 Language : cultivate yourself to learn more languages that’s it... okay seriously I don’t speak russian but I can read a translation without trouble. 2,3,4... Everything else I haven’t ever experienced, maybe that’s just the us

Fantastic analysis! I find it hard to believe that anyone actually likes any of these traditions. Would it be too controversial to add to the list: most of the singers singing with a ridiculously low larynx and ridiculously wide vibrato (although I guess this is already somewhat connected with your tradition #1 about understandability of the vowel sounds)?

Not clapping: thank Mendelsshon, shubert, and shumann for it... oh and mahler, who even specified in his score that there should be no applause between movements

10:04 I respectfully half agree. It's just like a movie. You don't talk during a movie, do you? With all due respect, making lots of noise while someone is performing in most cases is rude. The only exception is rock concerts and many pop concerts or rap concerts than it's appropriate. But opera is like a movie. I mean I don't mind people making slight noise, but opera is not a concert. Cheering loudly is for the intersessions in my opinion. But what I do agree with is that some people go too far when it comes to this rule. If you get banned just for accidentally making a slight noise than that's ridiculous. It's nonsense. And having a few quiet conversations with your friends is fine as well.

Totally agree about the setting changes!! The stupidest thing! And the real kicker is that it makes opera not more relevant but less relevant. Why do they not do this in movies. If they're portraying a plot in Medieval England then there will meticulous care taken to present in the movie the world of Medieval England. One should assume that opera audiences also go to see an opera in part in order to be transported to the context for which it was written, the style , the mannerisms, the whole atmosphere. If you change that, you've just thrown out EVERYTHING that makes the show. Then may as well forget about staging at all and just perform operas only in concert form ONLY for the music, otherwise what's the point?? You've chucked the whole visual component anyway. Most reggie opera productions are disgusting flops in terms of the visuals, which are extremely boring, having been stripped of all their historical context that makes them interesting in the first place.

I'm not going to lie, Hansel and Gretel in space would be hilarious. They just need to advertise that that's what they're doing.

But people do clap and cheer, after a special aria or something

Un bel di vedremo is six vowels, not five.

13:37-13:55 ♥️😄👍

Great informative piece. Sound is a but rubbish though - getting a fair level ambient room noise.

Wil je echt dat de Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam Lohengrin uitvoert in het Nederlands? OMG. En Jewgeni Onegin ook in het Nederlands? Peter Grimes in het Nederlands? En het leidt niet tot kwaliteitsverlies? Veel opera liefhebbers bereiden zich voor. Door middel van luisteren naar CD's, inleidingen meemaken. En de Matthaeus Passie in het Nederlands. Misschien zijn er ook mensen die vreemde talen leren. Heb jij toch ook gedaan?

I've seen opera productions that are just generic post-modernist nothing! Put everyone in black leather, have no sets or furniture on stage and illuminate the stage with one harsh bright white light. Now that could be a production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, Don Giovanni by Mozart, Fidelio, Traviata, Wozzeck or Akhnaten! All it says to me is - we did it on the cheap. I come from the world of Renaissance and Baroque music. The operas of the early to late Baroque have often come do down to us with the set and costume designs. Consider Fux's Costanza e Fortezza, Cesti's Il Pomo d'oro and Rameau's Les Indes Galantes. Baroque operatic sets and costumes are.... well, very Baroque - and ornate, which is in keeping with the music and the vocal lines. So why do we see so much Euro-Trash in performances of this music? Authentic sets and costumes can work very well - look at the blu-ray of William Christie's Les Arts Florrisants recording of Lully's Atys and the DVD of Cadmus et Hermione on the Alpha Label.

Why would you want to make noise when you're listening to a great performance of a great opera? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of spending all that money to hear the best of the best?

I don't enjoy performance when people are distracting around me. If i paid money to see a live performance, then i should be able to hear the performance, not the people in the audience whom i didn't pay to hear. So although we should always be tolerant of some level of caughing, sneezing, etc., but someone singing along with the famous tenor i paid money to hear???? Uh... NO. That's simply not fair. Then what's the point of a live performance if it's nothing but an annoyance. This is just respect for other people's experiencing of the performance

I'm with you Cait La Boheme is set in paris 1830 not 1960 or Rigoleeto 15th centry not 1960 or traviata 19what ever as far as language goes it sounds beautiful german italian french I don't get itread Shakespear decifer that language and it is suppose to be english even the bible is in james the king of england 4 b.c . ok i'm getting crazy here 16th centry excuse my spelling but I can't understand rock music either and they make a lot of noise and it is not even musical thanks love

Sounds like you just need to compose your own operas?

Well, I am happy that in Soviet Union they didn't care about this language tradition, so there are a lot of records of translated operas, which I can listen without subtitles)))

I am a huge fan of opera and you speak about all the right topics why this art ist dying, but. Most of the things you talk about are not "traditions" these are all recent developements in opera. I live in germany and 50 years ago almost all opera was performed here in german. Same with regietheater most of this started in the 70s or 80s and is belivied to be the thing that will rescue opera in the futere, by demented academics. Opera used to be much more casuel, more like cinema, you could just rock up the same day and watch a beatyfull show and have a great time whitout any preperation. There was loud cheering during the singing and people would talk a lot more. But the singing itself also changed a lot from more open and individuel voices, where you only needed 2 notes and you could recognize a singer, to where nowadays almost everyone depresses their chin and sounds and looks the same. PS: classical singing in english sounds horrible :) bye bye

While I agree that there is too much emphasis on silent reverence, there are few things more fucking irritating than going to the recital of a young lady who invited all her sorority/dorm room buddies, who cheer her on with "woo hoo" like she just got up on stage to dance with her hot fiancé after downing 15 jello shots.

I just don’t really like the way the English language is sung tbh

I see minimalist sets and modern dress on OperaVision all the time and yes, it turns me off. It's supposed to be theater, not just people singing on stage. I think one you missed is taking operas that were never meant to be serious way too seriously. For example if you ignore the performances and just look at the plot, "The Barber of Seville" is funny, bawdy, and irreverent, but the way it's often performed you'd think they're singing hymns on stage. It was originally meant to be entertainment for the masses, and if a bit of slapstick is too low brow for you then perhaps you need to do a different opera. PS. I think I have to disagree with you about singing in the original language. Reading sub/surtitles isn't that much of a strain, and there's something to be said for keeping the original sound of the lyrics. I don't listen to Bossa Nova in any language but Portuguese, so why would I listen to "Die Zauberflöte" in any language but German. Changing languages is like changing an instrument; the melody may be the same but the sound is different. Speaking of Bossa Nova, I just watched a live performance of "Mas Que Nada" on RU-vid where the singer's kid comes up on stage and starts dancing along. Can you imagine something like that happening in opera? People's heads would explode. Another thing I might add to the list is that the style of singing in opera is so different than any other style of singing. If you train to be an opera singer, you can sing opera but nothing else. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone should hear the "Flower Duet" from Lakmé, in it's entirety and not just in some ad, at least once before they die. But there is a lot of music out there that's not opera and a singer should be able to cross over between genres if pressed, even if it means their opera singing becomes less "operatic". Can an opera singer do a passable rendition of "Barracuda" by Heart, or "Herzen haben keine Fenster", or indeed "Mas Que Nada"? And by a passable rendition I mean one that isn't going to provoke more laughter than admiration. I watched the videos on "Fächer", so I realize that you need to make allowances for range and other factors, but I said "passable" not "perfect". RU-vid is a great place to find crossovers, the theme from Star Wars played by a Bluegrass bass, Metallica covered on cellos, but opera singers singing anything but opera, not so much.

I love classic music, but opera are killing my ears.

The language argument is, to me at least, fallacious; I can understand singing in English any more than in any other language. I fully agree with you on the subject of directorial mutilation. But this is not a tradition - it's a relatively power grab by directors, About talking or making other noise, I totally disagree with you. Same wih food and drink; same rules apply in drama theater. Your point 5 is essentially subsumed by no. 1. As far as talk, food, and drink, all those things are disturbing to people who, like me, try to concentrate on the music, and alcoholic drinks often lead to unruly behavuir.

Couldn't disagree with you more on the first argument. Opera is not popular music, never will be, and shouldn't be. It's an art form. It takes a certain kind of person to study it, appreciate it, be moved by it. Just like Shakespeare. Who the hell wants to hear Die Zauberflöte, or arias like the Largo al Factotum, in English? You're right about no. 2. About no. 3, not so much. First of all, most of the people who enjoy opera can't afford to go to a live performance. Those who can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a single ticket (and on suitable clothing) expect, and deserve, a perfect listening and viewing environment. And contrary to your argument, people who spend that kind of money aren't there necessarily to have fun and party. They are paying for a sublime experience. Regarding no. 4, you kind of have a point, but do you really want to be drinking during the performance if you're not allowed to go pee? Anyway, thanks for your videos. I enjoy them.

I am one hundred percent with you on points no.2 and no.5 100%. I am an opera lover but I am tired of seeing this crap. An Art Deco Rigoletto or Mozart in a swamp. Or frat boys in Wagner. Carmen in a used car lot. Minimal set and costume design. Yawn. Bland. As for point 1, I want to hear Italian, German, French and Russian and sure, it's not perfect. Point 3, I say stay in your living room to listen to an opera. I don't want to go to the movie theatre and seeing teens pull out their iphones. And I am not paying to hear someone's opinion or commentary during a performance. Point 4, eat/drink before or after.

I am with you on #2 and # 5 I write operas and I want them set where I want them set. These lazy minimalist productions with "updated settings" are killing opera. It used to not be a tradition but now it's done so frequently that it IS a tradition. On the issue of language for me it depends upon the composer. Wagner for example is driven by the sounds of each word that it really loses something if translated. Magic Flute however works really well in English. The Italian stuff is usually simple enough in terms of lines that it doesn't take a lot to translate it. When I produced operas in Pasadena I would do the Mozarts with recitatives in English but arias, duets, etc in Italian. It was a good compromise and our Mozart productions were on the wole the most successful of our shows. As to the "silence" bit Wagner is to blame. Audiences were like rock crowds before he asked for silence. Regarding food and drink. I know for a fact that Italian opera houses used to allow it. I think your point is well taken.