Thursday, May 15, 2008

I Know What Boys Like

From an MSN article entitled "5 Dates No Guy Wants to Go On," one of those profound ruminations you see when you log out of hotmail, it would seem that Peter Gelb has not yet convinced the masses that Opera Is Fun:

Opera
If given the choice of how to spend a Friday or Saturday night, what guy wouldn’t vote for putting on some uncomfortable formal clothing after spending a couple of hundred dollars for tickets, then another hefty chunk for parking, all to hear overly-costumed and overly-made-up folks belting out tunes that don’t have a beat and don’t rhyme, in a language only U.N. translators can understand? Exactly. And yet we still get the evil look from girlfriends when we try to stay awake during Madame Butterfly by playing a video game on our cell phones.

If we must do something cultural and uplifting, at least make it ballet, where the women are in shape, wearing form-revealing clothing and moving their bodies in ways that cause us to imagine them with us in a variety of other non-dance situations. It ain’t Dancing With the Stars, but it sure beats counting down the seconds ’til it’s over when the fat lady sings.


Well, so, I guess that answers...some question I didn't really have.

11 comments:

La Cowntessa said...

I can appreciate that not every art form is for everyone. I, personally, could care less about ballet.

But that was a pretty irritating way for them to say, "Guys: they have no attention span."

Maury D'annato said...

AnonSopran: my favorite part is the assertion that Italian is only understood by U.N. translators. It's true, very few have ever mastered this treacherous, unknowable tongue.

ava said...

article should be renamed:
5 Guys No Girl Wants to Date

certainly not THIS girl...

The Opera Tattler said...

Goodness, I had no idea I was U.N. translator. I wonder if I can put it on my résumé, or at least meet Ban Ki-Moon.

Ernani Involami said...

If he wants rhyme, he should go to Lohengrin:
Einsam in trüben Tagen
hab ich zu Gott gefleht,
des Herzens tiefstes Klagen
ergoss ich im Gebet.
Now THAT'S catchy!

La Cowntessa said...

"treacherous, unknowable tongue" -- wouldn't that be English as sung by Pavs?*


* I love teh Pavs very dearly as an artist, but I live in deathly fear of my Italian sounding like his English.

Anonymous said...

I was pleased to read that there seems to be a last safe haven from the mating rituals of the straights.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you've picked up on that language thing. There are hissy fits being thrown all over the internets one, but no one else seems to have questioned that aspect

El Doctorcito said...

I am with Opera Tattler on putting UN Translator on my resume. Saturday night I heard Larry Brownlee say/sing "Non temo il tuo furor" to Kwiecien and actually understood what he said in that zany archaic irrelevant almost-dead Italianish language thing.

Will said...

You know, I am so damned sick of seeing opera take pot shots for being elitist because of the cost of the tickets. Anyone price rock concert tickets lately? Or how about that great, egalitarian sport of basketball where the equivalent of a MET front orchestra ticket for a Nicks home game costs $1500?

These people need to grow up, get in touch with their inner adult, and get their facts straight. Or gay. I've got my facts gay and they're really good facts.

Judy C. Adanna said...

It's irritating to hear anyone disparage anything when he/she plainly knows nothing more than stereotypes. Where are you more likely to see near or full-frontal male/female nudity? Not the ballet, Captain Caveman.

These days, the hetero man should be more concerned about the baritone onstage being way hotter than he.