On Opera and High Culture

Is opera the pinnacle of high culture, or a boring anachronism?

One of us has enjoyed some excellent recent operas at Covent Garden, the other’s exposure to the artform was a single regrettable unstaged Wagner playthrough at the Albert Hall. Both of us have had a couple of drinks.

The problem is that opera is not really an English artform - the Royal Opera House was better known for pantomime until surprisingly recently, and pantomime is an English artform, and it’s fun, and it taps into a deep lake of tradition, and you can bring in popcorn and it’s participatory. Opera is a stuffy German and Italian tradition, and English opera lovers tend to act in a very German or Italian way, like shouting bravo after a well-sung aria, and that’s pretty embarrassing.

It’s also a relic of a time before electronics. If you want a  ...