Why do people do this?? (VENT)

[Sneezyone]

14 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

The only thing I've found more valuable about original formats than modern interpretations is the therapeutic value of telling a person's current story from enough of a distance away. Of course most people aren't using literature to help resolve trauma. (Maybe they should be, but that's another story.)

Otherwise I don't disagree with you. Classics are just hand-me-downs. We can embroider them however we fancy and it's fun to see how people can upcycle them.

I do think there is a perception that classics are unrelatable by people who haven't tried them. I remember a conversation with a past boardie about how stupidly posh opera was and how it's just not for people like her. She imagined if she took her kids to the opera, all the rich people would be rude and look down their noses at her like she was some exhibit from 'Pretty Woman.' I am a person just as lacking in wealth, and could tell her that opera is for whoever buys a ticket and shows up to sit in it, that no one has ever been rude to me or my child, and that if anyone spoke to her at all, it would almost certainly be some variant on how lovely it was that she brought her children and what a good choice of show she'd made, and indulgent smiles when the kids fell asleep half way through. My first opera was an Italian opera set in the Australian outback with corrugated iron sheep for props. Corrugated iron isn't posh! The Australian outback sure isn't posh! I'm still tickled about that even though the story was pretty stupid. Not the stupidest I've seen but opera seems to like what I think are stupid stories. *shrug*
I don't know if she ever went to the opera after all or if she liked it if she did. I don't mind if she prefers football. I just think it is a sadness when people assume they are excluded from a place where art and talent are on show when they really aren't. I guess we need some movies or tv shows about people who wear jeans who love going to the opera so people know that they could if they wanted to. 👎 to the class divide.

I don’t disagree about the theater experience. My family stands out like a sore thumb and I don’t give a damn but I can also tell you that nothing about classical opera resonates with me, its chords or rhythms, language or production style. Discounting the lack of universality in productions is a problem. No, everyone won’t learn to like it, nor will it resonate broadly. Adaptations are the lifeblood of the theater and only the most ‘advanced’ for lack of a better word need to read Pygmalion to understand My Fair Lady or Pretty Woman, all of which are plenty old.

Edited March 25 by Sneezyone

[aggie96]

Not sure if this dovetails into this direction of the thread...

Just last night, my DD was watching Pretty Woman (because it's one of my favorites and came out 34 years ago this week. She was amused that Princess Diaries had many of the same people, lines, etc. (her gen movie). I pointed out that she could take that story back to a classic lit book she read a couple of years ago in a Literature class. Of course it was Pygmalion, and we had a 15 minute conversation about the common themes, etc. ending with how it could apply to women in today world/politics etc. Nothing high-brow. Just trying to plug in some more modern relevance to the "great conversation".

A few weeks ago, I strongly encouraged/mildly forced her to watch Oppenheimer with DH and me. 🙂  She ended up really enjoying the movie, and it made that moment in history really come alive for her (studying WWII now in US History). So when she had to pick a topic for the Physic's term paper, she chose nuclear fission.

Now, she focused on a tiny blip in history and will have at best a fuzzy understanding of fission because the subject matter is complex, and she really could not care less about it. BUT these are examples of how we try hard to weave together humanities and science and bring it to something relatable/understandable/relevant. 

This doesn't happen everyday, but I try to find the little ways to connect it all. This is most definitely why I believe that both humanities and math/science are needed by everyone. Opera vs bluegrass vs club music...I say buy the ticket and GO! You never know where connections will be made. But you can't make those connections unless you stock your brain. 🙂

[Dmmetler]

Opera depends a lot, to me, on how it's staged. I love the music, but some of the productions I've seen just seem determined to seem exclusive. For example, yes, Mozart is very bawdy, but some productions play it so straight that you'd never know it. I'm definitely in favor of translations to the vernacular, too. 

 

One of my favorite performances was a staging by the Va Opera of "A Little Night Music", in translation, with a framing device of a young child, dragged to the opera, who falls asleep and sees their interpretation of what is being described in his mind. So, Papageno the bird catcher looks a lot like Steve Irwin. The Queen of the night....well, obvious at some point the kid has heard the term "ladies of the night", Etc. It was funny, light, and exactly as silly and irreverent as the original called for--but it's rare for it to be done that way.

 

I've seen the same thing with Shakespeare. It can be played super formally....or it can be played much less so, particularly the comics, but even the tragedies. And the latter is far more likely to be relatable. 

[SKL]

There are few art forms I don't enjoy.  It did take some time for me to expand my horizons as a young adult.  Living on a campus with great arts resources surrounding me (having moved from a rural village) was helpful.  There was a very nice art museum with free admission, a world-class orchestra, and more within a short walk of my dorm.  I remember being blown away by the complexity and intelligence of the first real concert I attended.  I learned 4 instruments as a child, but I had never understood the power they could have in a well-managed collaboration.

I enjoy classic literature.  My mom had a pretty good collection, and I remember finding a nook and reading these from around age 8.  We also did a fair amount of American and English literature in grades 8-12.  In college, I took "Great Books" and "Political Thought" courses, which introduced me to additional works that I may or may not have eventually read on my own.  The only one I hated was The Satyricon ... which I hope my kids never have to read for a grade.

I always wanted to be able to read the "great books" in their original languages, as far as possible.  I have read a number of original versions in Spanish, French, and German (as well as English), and I've studied various other languages with the hope of being able to read more - especially the Holy books.  It's not highbrow or lowbrow, just interesting.

I'm a slow reader, and becoming a single mom put an end to many of my reading pursuits, though I hope not permanently.

One of my kids is also a slow reader, but she really enjoys literature, so I tried to do as much as practical using audiobooks.  I love how it opens the door to discuss so many universal life issues.  Besides being relatable personally, reading classics that others also read can hopefully facilitate connections with people we have little else in common with.

I adore live theater, especially when music and dance are involved.  This love started in high school, as we had some good community theater companies in our rural county, and all of my younger siblings participated.  (I was way too shy for the stage.)  I dragged my kids to theater stuff from the age of 2, and put them in theater camps from primary school age.  One of them likes it, the other not so much, but they've been exposed.  😛  They have a best friend who aspires to be on Broadway, and we try to go to all of his productions.  Also, my kids' university is literally next door to the second largest theater district in the US.  I just hope they aren't too spoiled to realize what a great resource that is.

So ... I have no beef with arts, languages, classics.  They have been a big part of my life since long before college.  When I was a teen, I loved both creating and consuming music, poetry, prose, and visual arts.  I was a dreamer.  But I'm not sorry that nobody encouraged me to try to make a living out of any or all of that.  😛  I did think that becoming a teacher would be a practical way to use my artistic side, but it didn't work out that way, and that's OK.

My sibs also didn't pursue arts/humanities degrees, but they didn't abandon their artistic side either.  Oldest doesn't play in a band any more, but he still DJs and tunes pianos for friends/family, and spends much free time playing piano.  Next oldest is amazing on classical / folk guitar.  Two younger siblings continued with community theater into adulthood, one of them sings beautifully, the other entertains friends with both singing and piano.  Those of us with kids are passing these things down as best we can.  Our kids play multiple instruments, take art electives, and participate in productions.

I don't share the worry that our society has given up on the arts.  I don't see it happening in my  lifetime or my kids'.

[maize]

Most of my experience of opera is from Vienna, where my siblings and I would take public transit downtown and wait in line for the super cheap standing room tickets, with which you were entitled to a place to stand in the standing room section. 

Yes the Vienna opera houses are posh historical buildings, but there's nothing posh about standing through an entire opera in a crowded space with a bunch of young people. Not understing the language, whichever language it was, was...normal life for me. I have a vague memory of there being a screen with English subtitles at least some of the time.  I did get seated tickets at least once to see The Magic Flute at the Volksoper where my friend's dad played the role of Tamino for many years.

Other opera experiences were on summer evenings with an opera film projected onto the side of the Rathaus and people sitting on blankets on the lawn; movies in the park Viennese style. 

A brief search shows that there are other European opera houses with standing room tickets available; my impression is that in Vienna at least this tradition goes back a long time, and certainly in that city there is not an attitude that opera is exclusively for the elite. Whether something feels accessible or not depends an awful lot on whether and how we have been exposed to it.

I'm not one to listen to opera music at home (I listen to very little music actually, though I enjoy singing and playing instruments) but I will happily attend an opera production if it is affordable!