I have just got back from seeing this live in the cinema. It was an assault on the senses. The lead singers were stunning, as was the chorus. The orchestra was wonderful & the sets were clever, but not intrusive. The costumes were beautiful & appropriate to the story. The wonderful music and the quality of the singing & acting transports you so that you become really involved in the tragedy which unfolds. It really is a classy production.
Opera has the power to transcend the hum drum & make you suspend disbelief. Some of the arias & duets are sublime. The chorus in Macbeth is probably the best I have ever heard. I can be moved to tears or laughter by the beauty of the music or the acting. The skill involved in memorising the music, & the libretto, often sung in an unfamiliar language, not to mention the acting, seems an impossible range of skills to me. Being able to see this in the local cinema has made opera accessible to most people, in a way that it isn't in the great opera houses of the world.
At the other end of the spectrum we have the modern soap opera, which supposedly reflects life in our society today. This is usually taped for distribution & so has none of the spontenaity or unpredictability of live theatre. Arguably it also doesn't require the same amount of skill due to multiple takes if something goes wrong. There is a need to suspend disbelief because of some of the plot lines, bodies strewn everywhere, disfunctional families - poor or wealthy, the dead coming to life, for example. It's probably quite cheap to produce whereas opera is very expensive.
I'm not precious. I watch Holby City & even used to watch Neighbours while cooking the supper. You do get hooked into the plots & the characters. That's the problem it seems to me. You get sucked in & then don't want to miss an episode. So you end up wasting a lot of time on something transient & inconsequential, which doesn't inform, transport you, challenge you or even represent great art in any form.
As my dad used to say - "It passes the time". But is that enough?
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