Two posts in one day?!?!? unheard of. Well, one was before midnite, the other after, so it doesn't count :-)

This is just the paper I was writing for my English prof...enjoy if you wish...

Opera- Lost in Translation?
Many believe opera to be either a guilty pleasure or a lost art. “I would not be caught dead listening to that!” is an exclamation I have heard time and time again over the years, even from fellow vocalists. The few friends I possess that do enjoy opera consider it “too ‘geeky’ to admit” that they listen to it. What would surprise parties from either side of the spectrum is that opera has infiltrated popular culture in a way popular music has yet to aspire to.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, opera has shown up in everything from cartoons and movies to television commercials for everyday items like toothpaste, laundry detergent and diapers. In fact, Aqua-fresh uses Ponchielli’s “La gioconda,” Cheer detergent features Rossini’s “Le nozze di Figaro,” and Pampers diapers toddle along to another Rossini piece; “La gazza ladra.” Avid movie-watchers have the unfortunate tendency to forget that a lot of their favorite films would be devoid of emotion were it not for the soundtracks; many of which contain operatic works. For example, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Castaway both feature Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” while Toy Story 2, Match Point, Armageddon and Twister all utilize Rossini’s “William Tell.” “The Lone Ranger's theme music is perhaps that most famous use of an opera. In fact, upon hearing Rossini's “William Tell” overture, most people think it originated as a TV theme song, rather than as a classical opera” (National Endowment for the Arts).
Opera is not contained to being merely background music, either. Many television shows used opera pieces as primary plot lines, including Frasier, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The West Wing, and Seinfeld. The Looney Tunes, The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Veggie Tales have all used operatic pieces as major plot lines as well. The writers of Sesame Street have even go so far as to base a character (Placido Flamingo--a pink bird) on an opera singer named Placido Domingo along with featuring many opera singers on the show as themselves, such as Luciano Pavarotti, a world-famous vocalist.
Italian is widely considered the language of opera, but in reality, opera comes in many languages, including German, Russian, English, Spanish, French, Hungarian and Polish. This has made it more accessible throughout the world to a variety of audiences.
Operatic works are not confined to ages past, either. Many movies and stage works in the modern era have had operas written specifically for them. John Williams, the composer of countless movie scores, has written operas primarily for use in various movies, including Star Wars and the Harry Potter movies. They’ve also been used as theme music for various video games; some have independent stories, some are based on movies, but many video game soundtracks have either been heavily influenced or directly taken from opera. Originally, this was because classical music was public property, so entertainment companies were spared the expense of hiring a composer or paying for the music copyrights.
Opera was first introduced to the world of entertainment at the end of the 16th century by Jacopo Peri’s opera Dafne, which was unfortunately lost. It spread throughout Europe during the 17th century, but by the 18th, Europe was dominated by Italian opera. It continued to evolve through the 19th and 20th centuries into a few chief formats: “reform” operas, opera seria (serious operas), comic operas (such as The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute), and the bel canto style (fast, high notes). These works of Italian composers are chiefly those that come to mind when most people think of opera. They have endured time and the development of different musical cultures throughout the world because of the universality of their themes and the way that music reaches the heart.
The best way of describing the emotion of opera that I have found is a quote from Red in The Shawshank Redemption: “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
Opera deals with universal themes like love, loss, courage, cowardice, tyranny and selflessness. Whether or not the listener can understand what is being sung, when a production is watched and not simply listened to, the actor-singers communicate the emotions through their actions and facial expressions. Often, as I have experienced as I studied and performed opera, the emotion that the vocalist infuses their singing with is enough to get the message across to the audience.
John Ruskin (publication unknown) said “Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart go together.” As evidenced by the power of “invasion” that has been opera’s influence on popular media, I would consider opera to be a fine art indeed, rather than a lost one.


Works Cited
"National Initiatives: Great American Voices Military Base Tour - Opera is All Around You!" National Endowment for the Arts. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 July 2009.
"Opera." Wikipedia. N.p., 08 July 2009. Web. 08 July 2009. .
The Shawshank Redemption. By Stephen King. Screenplay by Frank Darabont. Perf. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Castle Rock Entertainment, 1994. DVD.