Focus On The Fans
In our first-ever Instagram/website collaboration, we are presenting #MetFanFridays, where the focus is on our beloved audience members who keep the operatic art form alive with their patronage, enthusiasm, and generous support.
by Andy Ihnatko, Metropolitan Opera Fan
Met Opera fan Andy Ihnatko and soprano Diana Damrau, the opera singer who inspired his amazing journey through the world of opera. (Photo: Andy Ihnatko)
I wouldn't have discovered opera if it wasn't for YouTube. Diana Damrau's barn-burning second act aria as the Queen of the Night in the 2003 Royal Opera House production of "The Magic Flute" became one of YouTube's earliest viral videos. Everything about it was exciting and electric and downright athletic. My reaction was "All right, Ms. Damrau... you have my undivided attention. Do go on."
Friends ask me why I'm so into opera. The popular perception is still that it's inaccessible and rather dull. I can dismiss that misperception by asking them to name an aria. It's all over the place! They can always name one. And then I explain exactly what's going on in that scene, behind the pretty music, and bang, I've got 'em.
"Okay. The music that the Diva sings in 'The Fifth Element' is the mad scene from 'Lucia di Lammermoor'. Lucia -- who was already seeing ghosts before the opera even started -- has been betrayed and emotionally manipulated by the people she loves for two full acts. She finally snaps and murders her husband on their wedding bed. She rejoins the wedding reception with her dress drenched in blood and holding a dripping knife, while the horrified guests..."
Andy Ihnatko outside of the Met. (Photo: Andy Ihnatko)
As to why I love opera? No other form of music or storytelling can move me the way opera can. The music and the people who perform it have a special power to bridge emotional distances. The music? Gorgeous, sometimes heart-stoppingly so.
But the technical aspects of opera push my other buttons. I tell people that opera is like Formula 1 racing. An F1 car doesn't have power steering, anti-lock brakes, or even a natural inclination to stick to the road or move in a straight line. It was designed for the hands of the very best drivers. Anybody can push themselves to the very limits of their own driving ability. Only an elite few can push an F1 car to the car's limits.
In opera, the car is the music. A performer in opera who sings it cautiously isn't doing their job. The best always push their talents so that the audience can feel every emotion that this piece of music is capable of expressing.
Andy’s cherished Met Opera tickets. (Photo: Andy Ihnatko)
There have been hundreds of beautiful recordings of "O mio babbino caro" and "Nessun dorma." I'm grateful to any singer who ever created a beautiful performance. But only an opera singer, who has put in at least ten years of intensive study before they're even handed the keys, and who will spend the rest of their lives continuing to learn and explore a character and a piece of music, can whip those arias around the track the way their composers intended and the audience hopes. That's the difference between my thinking "Wow, that was really pretty, wasn't it?" and being almost too overcome by my emotions to react at all.
It's been a terrific adventure. And it's still aided and abetted by technology. YouTube noticed that I watch a lot of opera videos and suggested one of Joyce DiDonato's (incredible, inspirational) masterclasses. So I explored her many recordings on Spotify and became a huge fan. Joyce guided me into the world of baroque music and mezzos. I've seen two of her performances at the Met, and enjoyed her co-performers so much I was Googling their names during the intermissions. This led me to Stephanie Blythe, Kate Lyndsey and Alice Coote. Every performer I discover leads me to new composers, new kinds of music, and new people, like following hyperlinks on a webpage until I hear birds outside my window and realize that I've been up the whole night.
I proudly self-identify as "Opera Riff-Raff." It was a joke I made with my friends, when I bought my first ticket to the Met and wondered aloud if they'd even let me in without one of those collapsible top hats made famous by the Bugs Bunny cartoons. But of course, there's no riff-raff in opera. They check your ticket, but don't check for your credentials. I can't speak for what opera was like before I started infesting these joints ten years ago, but every time I take my seat, it's no different than when I cut school to see "The Return Of The Jedi" on its opening day in theaters. I'm going to see something fresh and unexpected, and I'm about to be deeply entertained by people who know how. I should switch my brain's receptors to their highest setting for Joy before the lights go down.
Andy in his happy place: a box at the Metropolitan Opera. (Photo: Andy Ihnatko)
Andy, forever the overachiever, also has a number of podcasts available. You can check out this one for weekly Apple news, and this one for weekly Google news. He even has a podcast through Boston Public Radio!