Conversation about Opera

When I asked my mother what opera meant to her, she responded: “Frances.” By that she meant that her perception of opera had been shaped largely by her mother, Frances, who was an avid fan of opera. My mother recounted her experiences listening to operas on Saturdays, broadcast from the Met, on a staticky radio channel. I wonder how only hearing and not seeing the shows affected my mother’s interpretation of what she was experiencing and how she felt about it. While my grandmother’s taste for classical music did not solely consist of opera, both my parents told me about how on multiple occasions the four of us had gone to operettas. I recalled not the operettas themselves but playing in the fountain outside the building. I think it’s interesting how both of my parents’ and my understandings of opera have been shaped by my grandmother’s passion for it but how there are great differences in what we remember specifically of her passion.