The Opera
Grand Opera is unquestionably the most stupendous experience available to the music-lover, just as it is the ultimate ambition of those upon whom has been bestowed vocal talent in high degree.
Splendor of music, magnificence of production, are not the only elements which enter into the making of Grand Opera. The glamour of living romance is woven into it as well. Petrograd, Paris, London—scarcely a great love affair nor a great state intrigue, but some of its scenes have been enacted in the corridors of some one of the world’s great Opera Houses. The passion and pain, the splendor and the treachery of passing generations in many lands form part of the unconscious atmosphere of Grand Opera.
Just as there are some concert pieces with which every concert-goer is assumed to be familiar, so there are certain operas which form a basis for discussion among well-informed music-lovers. These are: Faust, Il Trovatore, Aïda, Mme. Butterfly, La Bohême, Lucia, Rigoletto, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, La Tosca, Don Giovanni, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, Carmen.
There are many more which constitute part of the regular operatic repertoire, but to have a well-established viewpoint on these is to be capable of passing judgment on the rest. The Victrola, which permits one to repeat some aria, duo, trio, chorus or whatever it may be, at will, affords an infinitely better opportunity to develop a discriminating taste in such matters than can be had by systematic attendance at Grand Opera performances—which obviously is quite impossible for the majority of music-lovers.
McCORMACK
The keenest enjoyment of Grand Opera music, or for that matter, any other kind of music, comes to those who listen to it with some sort of definite conception as to what it is all about and the methods employed by the composer and the artists in telling the story.