#this doesn't even get into cantonese opera! jeeze

[notbecauseofvictories]

hi i've always loved the idea of opera but i live in a country where there's no live performances so i want wondering how to get into it or where to start??

What a great question! Even the US—which boasts some amazing opera companies—opera is hard to get into unless you live near a major metropolitan area and have some serious cash to throw around on tickets. I myself would have never gotten into opera in the first place if it hadn’t been for my AP European History class showing The Magic Flute, which is an English translation of the Mozart classic from Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Fry. It’s actually a great introduction, if you can get your hands on it. (I always recommend Magic Flute as a gentle, silly, and very beautiful entry to opera—Mozart knew what he was doing.)

However, in my experience, opera is always on the prowl to find new fans, and is willing to try a lot of different ways of finding them. If you have a public library near you that stocks DVDs, it’s very likely they have some recorded opera performances—even if they’re 1960s productions of Cosi fan tutti and Aida.

If not, here are some great places to find opera recordings online.

YOUTUBE — You might have heard of it? Actually, youtube is a great resource to try out operas, without paying a [insert your local currency here]. You might miss out on subtitles in your language(s) but as Terry Pratchett once put it, opera lyrics (”Love! Love! I love you!” sung in Italian) aren’t much to write home about anyway. Things to try:

Personally, I love this recording of a 2008 La Bohème with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón—the production values! the cast!

This recording of Dido and Aeneas. A little older and lower-budget, but lovely to watch. Purcell is a great English composer, and his arias are a pleasure to listen to.

Unfortunately, more modern operas tend to be covered by copyright and so harder to find. However, here is a recording of The Passenger, an opera about the Holocaust feat. a 1960s libretto reworked in 2010 for its world debut. If you’re not particularly fond of chamber music and Romanticism, this is a good example of what Modern Opera sounds like.

MET OPERA ON DEMAND — If you’ve got a little bit of money to throw around ($15 USD a month) I’ve never found anything to rival the Met’s online database of performances, past and present. It’s basically Netflix for opera. If the Metropolitan Opera hasn’t performed it, it’s not for the novice opera fan anyway. Things to try:

Thaïs (hot priests and the sexually adventurous women who love them)

La Fille du Régiment with Javier Camarena and Pretty Yende (it’s SO GOOD I love a reimagined staging.)

War and Peace by Sergei Prokofiev (………….I had to include a Russian, and it was this or Eugene Onegin, and I prefer Prokofiev)

INTERNATIONALLY 

Unfortunately, my knowledge is very US-specific, but I am reliably informed that Arte, Culture Box, Staatsoper.tv, and Opera.Medici.tv are the places to go for streaming European operas. Definitely investigate those, and look for traditional standards of the opera world: your Puccinis and Mozarts and Verdis and Rossinis are a good place to start. Also, don’t put too much pressure onto one opera; I’ve definitely spent money on tickets I left he theater thinking were a waste of money. Unfortunately, like every genre, quality and personal appeal is variable.