An Opera Fan is Born

Hooked. L'Elisir d'Amore. I should have known it would be this easy. Pretty girls batting their eyelashes, acting perfectly coy, singing like angels. It's that good old fashioned girliness that meant the eventual end of arranged marriages in the West. Or perhaps cynically, women created by men, a distillation of all that's sweet, appealing, and redemptive. And honestly, who cares if opera has anything to do with reality? I am now quite convinced that I understand what the compliment "enchanting" means. Under normal circumstances, it is virtually impossible to be "enchanted" by anyone. There are too many words, too many opportunities to disappoint, to many disappointments, too many pores. But Jenny tonight, was absolutely enchanting. She was Adina, a coquette turned inamorata. Beautiful, doll-like, with a voice that seemed to literally melt your heart. Absolutely the stuff of fancy.

Not alone. My two weeks of opera camp included other crushes. And some very charming attempts to cross generational gaps. A beautiful (actually "hot" is the better word) high school student, gushing summer camp enthusiastic cuteness, asked me for my email address. She was getting everyone's email address to send updates to, or have new penpals, or whatever one did with the fruits of camp networking as a teenager. In what I'm sure was a very confusing gesture, I laughed.....and gave her my card.

What was truly wonderful about opera camp was this: that the characters singing opera were as ridiculously unique, large, and dramatic as their characters. The tenors were a serious and solemn bunch, deep feeling, small, dark. The basses louder, laughing more, in charge. The sopranos, flirty, feminine, sensual. If opera didn't exist for these people, they'd have to invent it.

Today's rule: watch an opera written by a woman.