I used to dread Saturday afternoons as a kid for the simple reason that from around noon until four pm my mom would listen to Live From The Met: Saturday Afternoon At The Opera brought to you by Texaco of America. Technically speaking of course it wasn't really live as the broadcast had been recorded some time in advance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
Long before Saturday Night Live was on the air the words "Live from New York City" had implications in my household that had nothing to do with comedy. With my parents plunked in front of the stereo for four hours, options for entertainment were limited in these pre cable and home computer only one television in the house world of the late 1960s early 1970s.
Even retreating to my bedroom with a book wasn't any guarantee of sanctuary as voices in opera have a remarkable ability to carry great distances no matter what volume they are played at. It was while attempting to use the "You're always telling me to turn my music down argument" in a desperate bid for relief that I had my first run in with the hypocrisy of music snobbery.
"What you listen to isn't music – this is. Now hush, I'm listening" There's not much of an argument you can muster against reasoning like that, without digging a hole that could see television privileges suspended for an indefinite period. So my only recourse was to suffer through those interminable Saturday afternoons, with only the awareness that winter at least meant there would be a hockey game to look forward to as compensation
Of course no matter how much I tried to avoid it the inevitable happened and I began to learn about Opera. At first it was a matter of name recognition; Verdi, Mozart, Bizzet, Rossini, and Wagner I learnt were the evil geniuses responsible for things like Don Giovanni(Mozart), Carmen(Bizzet), The Barber of Seville(Rossini), Kill The Wabbit(Wagner), and Aida by Giuseppe Verdi.
Now even as a kid there were some of the orchestral bits that even I could see the attraction in. The "Triumphal March" in Aida was probably the first bit of orchestral music I learned to recognize outside of Wagner's contributions to Bugs Bunny. Not only did it seem to show up on a regular basis on Saturday afternoons but, horrors of horrors, my parents owned a copy of it, and could be counted on inflicting a full playing of the damned thing at least once a year.
Article comments
1 - Bliffle
When young I thought opera ludicrous. Why would people do all those crazy things for love? But then...
2 - Eileen Pfaff
I am glad you came to appreciate opera. What makes you think that the broadcasts were not in fact live? They were and still are. In fact, one came to a dead stop and was cancelled quite a few years ago when a man jumped from a balcony to his death during an intermission. That's one of the things that makes the broadcasts so exciting, they are happening as you hear them.
3 - Richard Marcus
The annoucement made at the beginning of a broadcast saying that the concert had originally taken place at some other date was usually the give away. No I know that they were mostly live, but some of them wern't as not even the Met will be running a different Opera every Saturday for 52 weeks of the year.
Richard