As an experiment I am going for a week without any internet access. This mean that Now Appearing will not have any new posts for a little while. Please be patient - normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea  and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas  - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star ,  where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods.   In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is:   Mediocre music  Melodramatic plots  Amateurishly hammy acting  A forced and unpleasant singing style  Ridiculously over-supported by public funds   I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
Ooh. How will you bear it? :-) Have a great time!
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