A Night at the Opera

“An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down.” —Maria Callas

Feb 22, 2025

Have you been to the opera? It’s quite a unique experience that combines the power of live performance with music, theatre, and storytelling in a way that few other art forms do. The human voice in its operatic form is an extraordinary instrument, especially when heard in an acoustically designed venue — the sheer power, richness, and emotional depth of these voices can be overwhelming. This live, naturally amplified sound, alongside a full orchestra, creates an immersive affair that recorded music is unable to match.

Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy (circa 2015)

For a given performance, who is the ultimate dramatist? Who creates the characters? In a stage play, the actors interpret the words written in a screenplay, while opera fuses music and theatre with elaborate staging, costumes, and lighting. The latter’s drama is heightened by music, as the composer has already interpreted1 the words by setting up the score in a certain way to accentuate the emotional highs and lows of the plot. Here, the composer is the dramatist. Even if we don’t understand the language (as many operas are sung in Italian, French, or German), the singers’ performances, combined with the orchestral arrangement, convey deep emotions and meaning.

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While in Milan during 2015, I booked a guided tour of Teatro alla Scala. Commonly referred to as La Scala, the theatre opened in 1778 and is one of the most prestigious and renowned opera houses in the world. Over the centuries, La Scala has witnessed the debut of some of the greatest composers, singers, and conductors in the world, particularly known for its association with composer Giuseppe Verdi, whose operas were performed there regularly. Many other legendary artists have performed on its stage, including Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Tebaldi, and Placido Domingo.

Tickets - Teatro alla Scala — Teatro alla Scala (source)

While I didn’t attend during that visit what would have been my first opera, I was fascinated with the unabashed grandeur and elegance of La Scala, imagining how any larger than life performance would fill every cavernous space of its U-shaped auditorium. It wasn’t until a year or so later when I sought the Reddit equivalent of Opera for Dummies — I cannot say enough how often I have referred back to this post from the Classical Resources subreddit. Concise and straightforward, this guide helped me decide which performance would pop my opera cherry.

My best friend Jess and I have an annual holiday tradition when come December, we embrace our inner tourist in New York City. Over the years, we’ve seen George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet; enjoyed cocktails at the Rainbow Room’s Bar SixtyFive; shared bubbly toasts and snacks at The Plaza’s Champagne Bar; and of course, taken selfies with the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center. In early January 2017, we decided to catch the Metropolitan Opera’s final 2016-17 season performance of The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We knew we’d be holding onto the last remnants of holiday cheer after New Year’s Day, so this opera would surely fit the bill.

The Metropolitan (“Met”) Opera’s Lobmeyr chandeliers by Hans Harald Rath

The first things one notices upon entering the Met Opera are the Lobmeyr (“Sputnik”) starburst chandeliers, a gift from the Republic of Austria to the United States shortly after World War II. This was a fun coincidence for us, given we were about to see an opera by Mozart, the renowned Austrian-born prodigy.

me and my best friend Jess at the Met for our very first opera (c. January 2017)

It came as no surprise that La Scala inspired the building design of the Met Opera — neoclassical architecture and a horseshoe-shaped auditorium, notwithstanding. Even the velour seats and curtains don that same signature red, a tradition dating back to the 18th century when Italian opera houses used them to create a great theatrical effect. In reality, we should thank the Purkinje effect, which is the tendency for the eye to become more sensitive to blue light and less sensitive to red light as it adapts to the dark. As a result, when the lights go down, these red seats and curtains fade into the background and allow the audience to focus on the performance.

*The Magic Flute* at the Met Opera (2016-17 season)

Akin to how Jess and I celebrate annually, The Magic Flute is a beloved New York holiday tradition in the form of an abridged, English-language production by Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor of The Lion King fame. As a sublime fairytale that moves freely between earthy comedy and noble mysticism, The Magic Flute was originally written for a theatre located just outside Vienna with the clear intention of appealing to audiences from all walks of life. The story is told in a singspiel (German for “song-play”) format characterized by separate musical numbers connected by dialogue and stage activity.

The pageantry captured by Taymor’s production at the Met is spellbinding, particularly with its enchanting puppets and colorful setting. As opposed to the heavier kind of puppetry that more resemble stuffed animals, many of the puppets feature light moving through fabric, almost like Japanese kites emulating the notion of air coming through the flute. The dancers spend much time practicing the operation of the puppets in the most elegant manner so as to not upstage the music as that is the primary focus of the opera.

We enjoyed The Magic Flute so much that a couple months later, we found ourselves at the Met again to catch La Traviata before the conclusion of the 2016-17 season. Composer Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is a tragic mediation on love, illness, and sacrifice. While it is a relatively short opera, the storytelling is still just as powerful as its lengthier counterparts. Sung in the original Italian, this particular production of La Traviata was by German director Willy Decker, who takes the 1853 opera set in “contemporary times” to an unspecified 21st-century setting. A striking contrast to the ornate production of The Magic Flute, Decker’s La Traviata is minimalist and concise in its premise, letting Verdi and operatic voices speak for themselves.

*La Traviata* at the Met Opera (2016-17 season)

Because my first opera was performed in English, I was unaware of the live text translations available at every production. It turned serendipitous because without the translation, I was fully immersed into the experience — its presentation, artistry, and musicality. I had no idea how moved I could be not only by the score and vocals but by music sung in language I don’t know nor speak. Truly transcendent.

me and my friend Ariana at the Met Opera for *Aida* (2016-17 season)

It wasn’t until I saw Aida with my friend Ariana that I discovered this sophomore mistake. Thanks to Met Titles, a custom-designed system for simultaneous translation created by the Met Opera, all performances are available in English, Spanish, and German (and in Italian for all Italian-language operas). Controlled by each viewer, the translations can be found on the seat backs through individual screens, each polarized to be not as easily visible from either side, minimizing intrusion to neighboring seats.

THE CONCEPT

In the way that wine moves our palates, opera works a comparable magic in its many compositions, both aurally and visually. As a novice to opera, I sought to use wine (a field with which I’ve become very familiar) to dissect and better understand this exquisite art form and its dramatic storytelling. Much like curated wine tastings, production directors interpret on stage their version of said operas. On a grander scale, opera houses are judicious in how they arrange and present a given “season” — that is, what should be highlighted or revisited (perennial favorites or forgotten librettos); what should be reconsidered (reimagined productions); and what should be introduced for the first time (completely new works).

closeup photo of printer paper with musical notes — Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

With this in mind, I contemplated quintessential composers of the genre and what may be conventionally known as their magnum opus, loosely earmarking wines I believe would align with their respective premises. I mentioned this idea to my dear friend MJ, soon learning she is a big-time opera aficionado. After sharing my initial “tasting sketch” with her, we met for coffee one afternoon to discuss it in greater detail. I cannot thank her enough for her wisdom and enthusiasm in orchestrating this with me. Together, we reworked the flow of the tasting by:

(formally) organizing the already organic progression of this tasting into the classic opera structure of three acts;
including four more wines to hit a sweet 16 (an indispensable number in music), especially with three additional Italian wines to pay homage to the genre’s unmistakable heritage;
considering specific songs and arias from the selected magnum opera for each pairing — how a wine might taste like a song and how a song might sound like a wine; and
opening up selections to new-to-me composers that are consummate to opera (e.g., Jacques Offenbach, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Camille Saint-Saëns, Léo Delibes)

These final pairings encourage more cohesive storytelling as well as more symbiotic energy between ear and palate. The number 16 really drove it home with these notable tie-ins:

16th notes (semiquavers) are fundamental rhythmic units often used for intricate & expressive passages in operatic/orchestral compositions;
composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart & Gioachino Rossini demonstrated their operatic talents at age 16;
Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, a monumental four-opera cycle, takes approximately 16 hours to perform in full;
Opera was born in the late 16th century with works like Jacopo Peri’s Dafne (1597) and Euridice (1600), marking the beginning of the genre

THE LIBRETTO NOTES

I now present to you a series of libretto notes, which detail this tasting’s wine selections, opera/song pairings, the rationale for each, and where you may have encountered this opera in pop culture.

🍇🍷 Libretti e Libagioni feat. A Night at the Opera 🎭🎼

~ Atto / Act I ~

No. 1: NV Champagne ‘Les Rocheforts’ Blanc de Blancs, dég 6/2023

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART ・ Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) ・ Italian, Classical

tl;dr2 Various nuptial problems are resolved when Count Almaviva’s wife dons her maid’s outfit; sequel to Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Pairing Logic: Figaro & Susanna’s wedding ⇆ celebratory toasts