Take Your Seats: A User’s Guide to Opera
By Bex Troy"A CONSISTENT REFRAIN IN DEBATES around opera and accessibility (including last year's debate in the House of Lords) is that, 'if only the public would just go to the opera, they would realise what they are missing out on!'. What usually follows is a price comparison between the Royal Opera House's cheapest (standing, restricted view, sh*tty) seats and the most expensive football tickets going that season."
Behind this line of argument is an idea that the non-opera-going public are unenlightened or otherwise uninterested in 'good' music. It places the huge responsibility of widening access to opera at the feet of people who have been systemically excluded from opera and classical music. This approach to accessibility and opera is emblematic of the snobbery and elitism that bleeds into much of the broader classical music scene in Britain today.
The idea that the problem lies with the public is a lazy one. Consistently, where audiences have been offered opera, they have taken it up. As far back as the 1880s, the directors of The Old Vic found that its working class audience had an incredible appetite for opera, with operatic performances being the most popular item in their regular programming. Historian Andrea Geddes-Poole rightly points out that whilst this working-class interest in high art was surprising to the elite programmers, to the working poor themselves it was not.
Jumping forward a century, some of the most iconic moments in film have been propelled by opera - the Le Nozze di Figaro duet in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and the O Mio Bambino Caro aria in Mr Bean's Holiday (2007) obviously springing to mind.
This is because opera is fantastic and we know it. Going to the opera is a complete immersion into a world that uses striking sets, dramatic plotlines and incredible scores to get at your raw emotions. Living in London, going to the opera will take you inside beautiful buildings designed with sound in mind, and show you virtuosic practitioners doing what they do best - whether it's singing, conducting, or playing the timpani. Without ignoring the barriers to accessing opera, I would still say you deserve to give it a try at least once.
One of the co-morbidities of the elitism in opera today is a sense of mystery around what actually happens at a performance. Social media is littered with videos celebrating a recent fetish for 'quiet luxury' (or, in this case, deafeningly loud luxury) showcasing fantasies of ball-gowns and champagne. Videos with captions like 'How to accidentally enter High Society' and 'Other girls expecting to find their man at the club ...' use European opera houses as set dressing. This is coupled with opera's longstanding stereotype of performances being uncomfortably long, in a language you don't understand, and having inscrutable plots - it's easy to see why people feel that opera is not for them.
The larger systemic issues (including the gutting of public school music programming), I will leave for another day. In the meantime, I'm going to try and de-mystify what it is like to go to the opera for anyone who might not have been before:
How to get tickets: Good opera tickets in London are not necessarily expensive. If you are under 21, the English National Opera will literally give you them for free. Under 35s also receive huge discounts bringing some of the best seats for £20 each. The Royal Ballet and Opera has a Young RBO scheme where you can get tickets for £30 (although these are much harder to come by than ENO tickets!). Sign up to all of these schemes for free online.
What to see: Opera includes a huge variety of sounds and plots, and these are well represented in London. For a 'classic' opera experience go with something in Italian written in the 19th century (or there abouts). The ENO is staging a production of Così fan tutte in February and RBO has performances of La Traviata running from January until February. Both would be great choices.
What to wear: Whatever you like. I promise people will not be wearing ballgowns. If you want to fit in, wear something you might wear to a smart restaurant. The Royal Ballet and Opera only asks that you are ‘fully clothed’. I would also add, it's usually colder in the auditorium than you might think.
Watching the performance: Arrive about 15 minutes before the opera begins. I like to have drinks before (and during). All major opera houses in London have English translations of the lyrics projected above the stage called surtitles (even the operas performed in English) but also don't be afraid to let the music wash over you. There are also regular breaks - the longer the opera, the more breaks there are. La Traviata has two long intervals, so you are never sat still for longer than an hour. Sometimes you can get lucky and can bring wine into the London Coliseum - other times you are unlucky and have to pay £14 for a vodka tonic. The opera will push you out into the middle of Soho at about 11pm and, if you're anything like me and my friends, your next stop will be the club.
This is not to paint a picture of opera as an overwhelmingly accepting place - you will find people there who, without saying a word, will make it clear they feel that opera belongs to them and themselves alone. These are the same people that find any enthusiasm for music beneath them and give off the impression they have 'seen it all before. The problem for these people is that opera is anything but aloof. It is emotional, confrontational, and powerful. It also doesn't belong to a particular 'type' of person.
Armed with this information, you have everything you need to assert yourself in this space and are ready to enjoy something completely different.