| Hearing the opera for the first time can be a | | | | the transformation of sound into spectacle. |
| jarring experience for many. It's definitely an | | | | Themes tend to cluster around courtship, |
| acquired taste, however, more and more people | | | | seduction, betrayal, love and death, with a whole |
| are beginning to appreciate it. What is an opera? | | | | spectrum of obsessive pathology; jealousy, |
| It's a musical theater or sung drama, with an | | | | hatred, and insanity. Opera has been described as |
| orchestral accompaniment. It is done in five acts | | | | the primal scream - of pain, ecstasy, triumph, love |
| usually preceded by an overture. Just think of | | | | and despair. |
| opera as a sort of musical Halloween, a carnival of | | | | The opera has a vocabulary all of its own. Here |
| emotions. The common basis of all opera is the | | | | are just a few to get you familiarized with its |
| intense human emotion expressed in music, and | | | | concepts. |