A Little Opera Music

Or just me whinging about how MT isn’t as cool because they won’t cast me

Photo by Alessia Cocconi on Unsplash

I used to dread telling people I was into opera or actually sang it myself because inevitably they’d make a crazy warbling sound and ask “like that??” or ask me if I knew Phantom of the Opera.

I mean, I do know Phantom of the Opera, one of the first pieces I learned was “Think of Me,” which I was working on concurrently with Mozart’s “Alleluia” from his Exultate Jubilate. But despite the title and source material Phantom of the Opera is not an opera but a musical. And there is a pretty crucial technical distinction.

If you look closely at a staged musical and opera, you’ll inevitably and regularly notice a consistent difference between them. Opera singers aren’t miked.

The left picture is of an opera singer and was uncaptioned so I’m assuming it’s a Doctor Who opera involving cybermen and on the right we have a still from a musical theatre performance (Hayley Bray Photography Ltd).

This isn’t a hard and fast rule. If you’re singing in a stadium or outside you really need to be miked because no matter how powerful your lungs and diaphragm are you just can’t produce the volume to be heard in that sort of venue. But usually for opera there is no need for microphones.