I've always imagined myself a fairly cultured person. I don't sit around eating caviar with Dom Perignon for the mid-day violin concerto at the country club, but I can appreciate classical music, fine arts, and the like. I also like movies with explosions and hard rock, so I consider myself well-rounded.

On a recent trip to visit my parents in the hinterlands of western Pennsylvania, they invited me and my chick to an opera. "Well this will be chipper," I thought. I had never been to an opera, but I figured they would have to be kind of good if people were willing to cough up $80 a ticket. Since the tickets were provided for me, all I had to invest was two hours of my time. How could I possibly lose?

 Well, I did. 

As far as wastes of time go, this was almost as bad as sitting through "Showgirls" but without the nudity. I tried to like it. I really did. I just couldn't bring my self to enjoy what was an excruciating 2 hours that I'll never get back again.

We went to see "Electra" by Richard Strauss, so it was in German. The combination of my limited German and overhead transcription robbed me of any bliss that lingual ignorance might have brought. Instead, the entire opera in all of its horror came crashing into my fragile little mind. Worst of all, when it was finally over, the majority of the people in the theater gave a standing ovation! I felt very much like I missed out on some transcendent experience.

So why didn't I like it? Well, I'll tell you. 

Most obviously, I've discovered that song is not the best way to communicate. A sentence that took me two seconds to read on the transcription screen took a couple of minutes to get through in the hopelessly slow dialogue of the opera. I have to say it was just a little irritating to keep glancing up at the screen to see if they were saying something new.

The other thing I don't think I would have liked in any case was the story. I a nutshell, Electra's mom and boyfriend kill her dad, and then her brother comes back and kills them both. Greeks had a real thing for patricide. After reading Oedipus and Zeus's myths, it's not really that shocking anymore. I've been dreaming of killing my parents for years, so it's old news.

All in all, the story and the singing failed to invoke the slightest emotion in me, unless you consider extreme boredom an emotion. If it was in a play form, it may have been more interesting. As it was, it was pretty much impossible to get any sense of emotion form someone standing there bellowing some song I couldn't even understand. I'm glad I went, even so I could say that I did. 

Since I didn't like opera, I suppose there's no point to going to the ballet.