The 60’s were a tumultuous decade and I was born at the very beginning. This made me too young to truly experience the Beatles, Rolling Stones or Motown but there was Looney Toons. Many a Saturday morning was spent on the couch, eating toast with raspberry jam, watching Fog Horn Leghorn, Tweety, Sylvester, Pepe LePew, Elmer Fud and of course, Bugs Bunny. It is no accident that the only “doll” I remember having as a kid was a talking Bugs Bunny stuffed animal. If you pulled the string, it would say, “What’s Up Doc?” and 10 other sayings that have faded from memory. There were the obligatory chase scenes of Tweety and Sylvester, the heartbreaking flirtations of FogHorn LegHorn, (did he ever get his chicken?) and What’s Opera Doc?! “Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit” sang Elmer Fudd while Bugs Bunny, cool as a cucumber, ate his carrot.
This was originally aired in 1957 and quite quickly became a classic. I didn’t know what opera was then but I loved the costumes, the booming music and the dramatic tension of two characters at different odds. Granted I didn’t have the words for all of this as a small child but its bigness touched a nerve. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd sang in English which is not the true language of Opera but it was a cartoon so they played to their audience.
My experience of live opera didn’t occur until my 20’s when I started working in Ann Arbor at the Cottage Inn and met my friend Theodora. I’m still not sure how we started our opera adventures but we would wear nice clothes, drive to Detroit to the Masonic Temple and later the Detroit Opera Theatre to sit in the darkness and hear the room fill with glorious music. Aida, Norma, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, so many more. It was thrilling and filled all the empty spaces inside of me with wonder at how a voice could do such gymnastics. I had the privilege to see Joan Sutherland in one of her last performances of Norma.
Then I discovered Jessye Norman. I felt like I had walked through an electric fence the first time I saw her at Hill Auditorium. A giant, literally at 6′ 1″ tall, yards and yards of gorgeous flowing fabric and regal as a Queen. A voice that literally lifted you into the air, sent you swirling around and somehow, set you back on the ground. I had never seen such confidence and command, she willed you to be in the moment and drink down the elixir of operatic high C notes. She had gone to school at UM so she was often doing concerts here and I made sure every time she was in Ann Arbor, I had a seat to witness her genius.
I haven’t seen a live opera in a few years. The expense of the tickets, the bother of driving to Detroit and figuring out who to go with has made it less likely that I am sitting in a darkened theatre waiting for the opening aria to begin. I’ll get there again and when I do, I’ll be sending a shout out to Bugs Bunny, my opera muse.
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