TWENTY-FIVE REASONS WHY YOU “SHOULD, TOO!” GO TO THE OPERA

(OK folks. As I promised you. I wish I wrote this one but I added a few items)

1. It’s the only place you can watch dying people sing. And they usually take a long time to die so you get to hear some beautiful music before they croak.
2. It’s the only place you can watch singing people make love.
3. It’s the only place you can watch people making love and not get in trouble for watching.
4. It’s the only place you can watch other people watching people sing, make love, and die -- without their minding that you’re watching them watch.
5. You can wear fancy clothes if you like and people think it’s O.K.
6. You can even wear jeans and a sweatshirt if you like, and people will think you’re eccentric, or maybe even intelligent.
7. If you like lavish scenery, it’s at the opera.
8. If you like big, fluffy costumes with lots of jewelry, they’re there.
9. If the sound of a symphony orchestra playing the world’s best-loved tunes thrills you, you can hear it at the opera.
10. If you like exciting singing -- high sopranos, deep basses, big choruses -- there’ll be some of that, too.
11. Opera has the longest history of any of the performing musical arts and...
12. ... it’s not any more difficult to understand than, say, West Side Story or Les Miz or Miss Saigon.
13. The story line of Miss Saigon is taken from an opera plot, anyway. Guess which one?
14. Every great community supports its arts organizations -- a drama company, a symphony orchestra, a theater company, an art museum, and an opera company -- and you should be a part of this support group, too.

15. If you’re afraid you won’t understand what’s going on, most companies nowadays run a simultaneous translation on a screen right above the stage. They call these translations “supertitles,” because you can read them by a very slight nod of the head upwards, not just because they’re great little titles. It's like watching a foreign or silent film so don't let a little reading scare you.
16. No commercial breaks but needed intermissions; how many depends on the length.
17. It’s more cultural than boxing, and the outcome is more certain than a hockey game ...
18. ... and fewer people wear face guards.
19. Every great composer has written at least one opera, and you owe it to the geniuses of the past to acknowledge this fact at least once.
20. Some operas have a lot of dancing.
21. Some even have acrobats.
22. One even has live horses on the stage.
23. In the early days of opera, singers acting like gods and goddesses came down from the heavens in little flying machines. Sometimes an opera character disappears though a trap door in the floor of the stage. And all the time, they keep on singing...
24. ... which provides excellent material for you if you’re dummy in a bridge hand.
25. Opera can lift the soul out of the day-to-day grind of life and, with the combined wonders of orchestral music, great drama, stage spectacle, vocal singing, and imaginative lighting, it’s one of the greatest 5-for-1 combinations invented in the last four hundred years. And you get the most for your money.

Now open your mind, ears, & eyes, and treat yourself to a new experience. If you can't attend an opera, rent some DVDs.  There are many great performances immortalized on video. For starters, watch the movie version of The Who's Tommy. It is a real opera.