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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > March > 29
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Opera 101
Opera director, frequent intermission guest panelist of the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts and author of the popular book “Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera,” Fred Plotkin comes to Austin Tuesday to talk about Austin Lyric Opera’s upcoming production of “Dialogues of the Carmelites” — an opera he believes “is arguably the operatic masterpiece of the 20th century.”
But before he gets into specifics, we asked Plotkin for a brief version of his “Opera 101” — five simple rules for any novice opera fan to use:
“Rule 1: Turn off your analytical faculties.
“Don’t analyze. Our training in life makes us think we’re supposed to understand everything, analyze every experience. But I’m a big believer in mystery — that we can experience something, enjoy something without putting a specific definition to it. And that’s part of the excitement.”
Rule 2: Suspend your belief in reality.
“Set aside your conventional ideas of narrative. Opera is theater, it’s not a class in school. And if we treat it like a class and expect it to give us all the answers in neat orderly way, we miss out.”
Rule 3: Listen, don’t just hear
“Use different faculties to listen, not just hear. Use your ears. When we go to an opera, all the sounds are messages.”
Rule 4: A little advanced preparation goes a long way.
“Read the story in advance, you can find all kinds information online. And if you a chance, borrow a recording or listen to the music online if you can. That way you’ll have a sense of the sound world you’re about to enter.”
Rule: 5 Give in to the opera once your there.
“Read the only the synopsis of the first act. Then just listen. Remember, the main narrative to an opera is the music. The second narrative is the theatricality. You’re in a world where the landscape and the story are music.”
“And Then There Were Nuns: Revolution and Religion in Poulenc’s ‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’,” a lecture by Fred Plotkin
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Ducloux Hall, Austin Lyric Opera, 901 Barton Springs Road
Tickets: Free
Information: 472-5927, www.austinlyricopera.org.
Photo courtesy Fred Plotkin.
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