A Night at the Opera (Seriously!)

Opera. Why’s it such a blind spot for most of us? GOG headed out to see whether there’s anything a newcomer can enjoy from the seemingly most elite of art-forms.

It’s a rare treat when life seems to move in a linear fashion. When the fates conspire to - just every now and again - make one thing seem to join onto the end of another, almost giving the impression of a grand design. One of these spiritual moments happened during GOG’s adventure to see Michael Neto. Before the show we got chatting to a man in the very lovely (but very expensive) Sloane’s. Turned out this was Jeff Gwaltney, Californian tenor in town to perform in Scottish Opera’s production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. Jeff proved his loveliness by buying the two members of GOG in attendance a most delicious whisky. Feeling it would be churlish not to reciprocate, GOG decided to splash out on a couple of cheap seats at the Theatre Royal exactly seven days later.

Now, everyone at GOG is an opera ingenue. All of our experience of this - the highest rung of the performing arts ladder - comes from Frasier Crane but, frankly, we find it difficult to separate his patter on wine from his patter on the opera. So we donned or finest clobber, our only expectations - great as they may be - shrouded in a haar of uncertainty, and wandered to the theatre.

The first tip that this wasnae a night out at the dancing was the attire of the patrons outside the theatre. The male half of the GOG delegation thought that he had done well by fishing out the one tie that he uses at work when important people show up. Seems that full suits - jackets and all - are the name of the game. Which, frankly, is quite a disconnect from the actual content of the opera. The story wouldn’t be out of place in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. The Flying Dutchman concerns a ghostly sailor, condemned to roam the seas (because he said a curse word, naturally) for eternity. That is, except for once every seven years, when he can come ashore to find a woman who will be faithful to him until death. This ‘until death’ chat is something, in the business, we call foreshadowing, kids. Keep up. Anyway, ghostly sailor finds a woman who loves him, woman kills herself and ghostly sailor gets killed by woman’s vengeful ex-lover (who is also a priest).

It’s safe to say that you don’t go to the opera for the nuanced, progressive plot. What you do go for is the tunes. And the staging. And the general experience of everyone up there singing and having a genuinely great time. And that’s infectious. It doesn’t matter that the story’s nonsense; it doesn’t matter that the people are far too well dressed and that the whisky’s £5 a dram. This is emotive stuff. These are rousing songs played with conviction and sung with passion. There’s an LCD screen above the stage which translates the lyrics; the setting is changed to North-East Scotland (even part of the opera is changed to reference Scottish hospitality; the stage impressively decked out for the first act like a small dock). Basically, Scottish Opera is doing everything they can to make Opera accessible, open and relevant.

This being our first Opera, it wouldn’t be fair to comment on the performance of the singers and members of the orchestra, even our new BFF, Jeff. But to our untrained ears, the passion of the performers shone through. It is endlessly amazing to consider that these people are filling a massive hall with their unamplified voice alone.

Our night at the opera provided us with three hours of solid tunes, impressive performances and an unpretentious story. Our tickets cost a tenner, the same price you’d pay to see Channing Tatum look bored fighting faceless baddies in the new GI Joe film.

Opera’s doing everything it can to get us out of our comfort zones with rewarding entertainment. So why aren’t we all getting out there?

Scottish Opera is back in Glasgow from the 15th to the 18th of May performing Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. GOG strongly recommends that you grab yourself a wee ticket as soon as possible!

Adam (the writer of this article)’s Dad just finished a near-marathon walk around Cumbrae (twice! Only listening to Elton John!) for Motor Neurone Disease. He’d be super-happy if you could donate a few pennies.