"In opera, there is always too much singing."

So people often ask me why I like opera - and I can never, ever answer them. I find it sort of like trying to answer someone who asks why you like chocolate, or sunny days, or reading books.

I was always brought up in a household that flowed with music. I'd wake up to the strains of Puccini's La Boheme one morning and fall asleep watching our much loved Les Miserables DVD (Marius is such a fox.) 

I liked singing too, but I was ridiculously, painfully, pitifully shy (yes yes, hard to believe now) and wouldn't really sing for anyone except my dog. Then I had this thing about being cool (especially in years six and seven, how awkward to look back on those years now) and when I said I sang quite high I was always quick to add scornfully - 'Not opera though! Opera's gay!'. However, when my little brudda started working with Opera Australia things changed hugely. 

The first opera I ever saw on stage was Wagner's Tannhäuser (heavy stuff hey?) and to be perfectly honest, although I was pretty captivated by the enormity of the whole thing (and the sexy dancing/acrobatics scene at the beginning ;), I found it slightly on the boring side... until Tannhäuser gives his gut-wrenching, despairing aria at the end. To use that time honoured cliche - I fell in love. 

I didn't really think about it that much though until the next summer, when my brother was involved with another one. Bizet's Carmen. It was a sunny summers day at the Opera House with buttery heat leaking through the windows and that scent of culture and prestige that drifts out of the House and along the Quay was present when I really changed my tune. (Please note the pun.) 

A riveting tale of love, lust and murder in the burning heat of a Spanish summer, set to a lush score and boasting the talents of Australia's own Rosario La Spina was the perfect continuation to my operatic education. It was soon after this that I started having singing lessons and I've never looked back. (Please forgive the many cliches in this post, my brain is addled tonight.) 

I've seen lots more operas since that fateful summer, at venues as different as the Opera House to the grimy (but incredibly memorable) Cleveland Street Theatre in Surry Hills. And every one of them have given me cause to strengthen my resolve to eventually sing on those stages myself. 

So the answer really is, I honestly don't know why I love opera - but thank God that I do. 

"I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts. "