I have reached that point...

I have reached the point of actually being so bored with opera that I can hardly stand going anymore.

Opera is absolutely beautiful, and when it's done well, there is nothing finer. The vocal quality of the well trained opera singer is a quality unmatched. It is absolutely astounding what notes they can hit, and what volume they can obtain while hitting them. Bring in the orchestra and the sound can be absolutely heavenly. Now throw in elaborately beautiful sets and ornate costumes, and you have a fine production. Opera is a high form of art that combines the visual with the vocal for a storytelling venue that was once considered profane, as it was strictly secular. It was meant as a complete art form. Instruments, vocals, sets, costuming, acting, and writing were all combined into one masterpiece.

Apparently it really caught on, which I think is great. I am, however, slightly cursed with the inability to like things based simply on one aspect. The perfect example would be La Boheme. This opera is ridiculously famous and beloved, and I hated it. The music was absolutely wonderful, but it wasn't enough to redeem the production. I literally sat there at the end thinking, "OH MY GOODNESS, DIE ALREADY!!! Seriously, please, just die! Stop singing! If you're not dead in the next thirty seconds, I'm just leaving." Thus, I leave many operas disappointed, disenchanted, and feeling the dichotomy of being more cultured every day for having seen them, but less cultured for having counted the seconds until they were over.

Some productions are simply amazing. My favorites have been Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Eugen Onegin. These had it all. Great costuming, wonderful sets, amazing performers, and a thick and rich plotline that wasn't so complex so as to make the audience feel it was trudging through beautiful mud.

I am not sure why I thought that opera might be any different than every other art form. Name any art form and I'll name something in it that I dislike and everyone else seems to love. Movies? I disliked the new Star Trek movie, Ever After, The Notebook, and oh so many others. Literature? I am not particularly fond of Harry Potter. Art? I hate Picasso.

Any artistic style is just that way. I think every person has a movie they dislike, or a picture or painting they think is awful despite whatever fame it has attained. Or, in my case, an artist or an entire artistic style. Despite the fact that these works might be contextually important, or perhaps even be milestones in their category, that does not make them inherently good or enjoyable. No matter where I travel, what I learn, and what new perspectives I gain, chances are that I will never like Picasso and I will still be bored by La Boheme.