Opera

When I studied Drama at uni, my very first lecture described Opera as the highest of all performance art forms: a sumptious, overwhelming brew of spectacle, dance and music- or so I was told.

To this day, my knowledge of Opera consists precisely of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTBml4oOZ8
Nessun Dorma- Pavarotti

I love it ( who wouldn't?) but if the Football World Cup hadn't been played in Italy in 1990, and if the BBC TV coverage of the tournament hadn't used this as its theme tune, my knowledge of Opera would be precisely Zero.

So...please explain...what am I missing?

Thanks for the responses, Pinz.

Obviously, I need to do a lot more research.

Tom loves opera and listens every night to something I've downloaded onto our iPod . We have a device that gives the iPod speakers.

For me, there's nothing finer than Puccini's Madame Butterfly.



This will melt your heart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uut6X4E-Kgk

This is a good site for Brecht-Weill's The Threepenny Opera, the only opera- apart from The Who's Tommy- I know pretty well:

http://threepennyopera.org/

Pre-dating Tommy, here's The Who's mini-opera (operetta? ) A Quick One...from The Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus, 1968:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTUG49Uj-s0&feature=related