The Fredösphere

This article about soprano Denyce Graves turned up.  This spring she will be in Detroit singing in the world premiere of Richard Danielpour's opera Margaret Garner.  (The libretto is by Toni Morrison.)  This is a must-be-there event for anyone in S.E. Michigan who wants to be considered a serious musician -- right?

Sigh.  I thought about going, but the idea of spending maybe 150 bucks for tickets, dinner and a sitter, plus 1.5+ hours of driving time, for an event that the wifeösphere might not enjoy at all, and I might not enjoy either, just didn't seem worth it.

My dirty little secret is that I have seen only a few operas in my life (less than ten) and I didn't enjoy many of them.  Some were student productions and the singers were technically overwhelmed, even though they were from Michigan and Indiana -- top music schools.  I saw one opera at the Met, but by my luck happened to be the Mozart singspiel Abduction from the Seraglio-- zzzzzzzzzz.  The most pleasurable experience occurred in Florence:  I was with a student group traveling through Italy, and we decided to get rush tickets for what ever happened to be playing, which turned out to be Porgy and Bess.

In retrospect, the only opera experience that really held my attention (and the wifeösphere's) beginning to end was a workshop performance of Act I of Bright Sheng's Madame Mao.  The singers were not uniformly good, and the accompaniment was piano alone, but the lead soprano was dynamite, we sat very, very close to the action, and it was sung in comprehensible English.  It worked for us as drama, and that is essential.

Are there any operas I do wish I could see?  Yes, it's a short and maybe slightly quirky list.  It contains only one of the Italian standards, and a little Wagner; otherwise, I want compelling stories sung in English.

Jackie O  Daugherty tops my list.  This would be fun for anyone, wouldn't it? La Boheme  I loved my old vinyl recording.  The music seems treacly now, but I would still enjoy it. Dido and Anaeus  It's more than 22.5 minutes but I think I could squeeze it into my attention span.
The Flying Dutchman  I'd see this one if the production were lavish.  I want to see ships at sail, driving rain, donner und bitzen:  the works!
Rheingold  Definitely, although I've grown increasingly disillusioned with The Ring's story. 
Peter Grimes  But if Peter Pears were to rise from the dead to sing the title role, count me out.  I just don't like his voice.
Nixon in China  I love the opening scene, with Air Force One, the soldier's chorus, and Nixon exulting, "It's prime time in the USA!  It's prime time in the USA!  It's yesterday night!  Yesterday night!"
Ron on the Rock  It's difficult to get tickets to see this one, since it doesn't exist yet.  I would like to make a contribution to the genre started by Jackie O and Nixon in China.  In this opera, an old, feeble Ronald Regan struggles to recall his life while a bumptious congressman arranges for Regan's likeness to be added to Mt. Rushmore.  Act I will end with Regan singing "tear down this wall" while his coat billows in the wind and he holds up a microphone stand in a pose straight out of The Ten Commandments. The final act will end when Nancy Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet high atop Regan's stone head and begin arguing.  They wrestle, Nancy falls, Gorbachev rescues her, they reconcile, and the wheelchair-bound Regan mutters some non sequitur that I haven't thought up yet but will shock everyone with its brilliantly ironic significance, and the curtain will fall to a tumultuous ovation.

I don't feel an urgent need to see any Verdi opera, not to mention Donizetti et al.  So shoot me.