JRR Tolkien went to parties dressed up as a polar bear.

Opera Viva!

 

 

Opera Viva!

I went to this event the other night and learned a few things.  The event was a concert of operatic proportions featuring performances by Minnesota Opera Resident Artists. Long story short, this event was a chance for library goers to understand and learn about Opera.  The introduction told by the director contained what opera entails, including the fact that opera, in its plainest sense, is a story told in music from either a book or a play.  Most operas include love scenes, a soprano is in love with a tenor or vice versa, often times the soprano dies in the end, or the tenor dies, or all the characters die.  Most operas are energetically filled with life and love.  

Minnesota opera has done many operas one such as Hansel and Gretel opera consists of a mezzo soprano, and the witch, also a mezzo soprano, because the opera singers need to be highly experienced, the singers are often put in childlike costumes in order to fulfill the goal of Hansel and Gretel as the characters are children in the fairytale as well.  

The audience was told they could ask the singers and opera coordinators open ended questions.  That being said, these were the questions 

What was your first opera experience? A keyboard player who is also an Italian conductor for the Minnesota opera told a touching story of how his early days of opera enjoyment came when he listened to an album of a four hour long opera as a child and was immediately amazed by it, and from then on would continue to try to translate long operas in languages like German and Russian, he said he took on the hard operas first. 

What is your favorite book?  One such tenor commented "History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson.  The audience was told they could ask the singers open ended questions that could apply to all the performers. 

How long does it take to prepare for an opera performance? approximately 3-9 including three weeks on stage getting into character and rehearsing followed by a transition to the actual theatre for stage effects and occasionally for bigger performances like Grapes of Wrath it may take an additional three weeks to rehearse.  

Overall the performance was incredible and free, an opportunity for the community to enjoy the opera in their own setting.