I’m 55 and I’ve never been to an opera. That puts me in the majority, then – not having been to an opera, I mean, rather than being 55. And not only have I never been to an opera, I don’t think I have ever listened to an opera or sat through a televised production.
And yet, I love music. I play the clarinet and saxophone, admittedly rather badly, my wife plays the piano and my younger son is a guitarist of some talent. I am a spawn of the 60’s (I saw the Beatles before they were anything to write home about – coo!) although my musical roots are traceable back to the eras of swing, the music hall and Victorian sentimentality, courtesy of my parents and grandparents.
“Most people think it’s a class thing, of course,” says Nicki, my piano-playing better half. “A simple, working class Lancashire lad like yourself will have been brought up to think that opera’s not for the working class, but I’m not sure that’s strictly true.”
“Hey, less of the ‘simple’,” was all I could think of as a witty rejoinder. But she’s probably right. Perhaps opera, rightly or wrongly, is perceived as a class thing? Perhaps my own prejudices have erected a barrier between me and a form of music I could enjoy.
But it isn’t as though I haven’t tried. Since the process of embourgeoisement overwhelmed me after academic success, I have filled my life with evidence of middle class taste, the better to impress the new found friends and left-behind relatives. My bookshelves groan under heavy literature, my walls exhibit tasteful prints, my conversation is littered with literary allusions and philosophical musings, my enormous CD collection features Albinoni through to Zappa, and by dint of simply growing older, I suspect, I have come to appreciate jazz in all its forms; but I still haven’t clasped opera to my bosom. Why is this? Is it that jazz, with its bohemian/black/beatnik/degenerate image appeals to a working class boy made good whereas opera appeals only to those who have been exposed to it from birth?
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So, I asked Adam, my musician son and product of a now middle class environment, what he thought of opera. “It’s pants,” he said.
So, I asked Nicki, ditto. “Grand opera is boring. It’s too stylised. I can’t get my head around all that tuneless rendering of the spoken word and maniacal laughter. It’s just inaccessible without great effort.”
Ah, ‘effort’ not ‘class’! Most western popular music is accessible with the minimum of effort – ‘ear candy’ I think they call that genre nowadays. But opera certainly isn’t ear candy. Sure, there are some good tunes, Nessun Dorma (popularised by its attachment to that exemplar of working class culture: football) and the like, and there are some well known opera singers: Pavarotti, Domingo and that other bloke who sings with them – you know, the little one who looks like that actor out of the Carry On films. I am in awe of the noise that comes out of their mouths. “How do they do that?” I ask, much like I would ask how a magician performs a rather clever trick.
I’ll be honest, I feel guilty about not liking opera. If it is a class thing, then my bourgeois credentials are lacking; my working class roots are showing. But if it’s simply a question of effort, well, this means I can do something to assuage my guilt. I will try harder. I’ll be back!
Charles Taylor
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