As a music teacher, I constantly have to fight with students, teachers and parents over the basic question that sly-dog John of Hull presents. I've gotta tell the kids that all music has good parts and bad parts. It's not good or bad - it's a style issue. Most of us have styles that we strongly prefer or not prefer and it's nearly always because we're familiar with one or the other. The twangy sound of a dobro/pedal steel or country tenor "sanger" takes as much getting used to as the very trained (and sometimes undesirably wide) vibrato of a singer at the opera.

I was planning to become a music teacher for many years as a child and could not make myself open up to opera until one day "Amahl And The Night Visitors" by Gian Carlo Menotti (an American)came on TV. I stood up to turn it off (this was well before remotes were invented). 20 minutes later I realized I was still standing there, watching this opera. I figured it must be good or I wouldn't have just stood there. So I watched the whole thing and loved it.   And I still like the opera. It's a good story about a mischievous boy who has told one too many tales.... Lovely story, actually. I was kinda shocked that I actually liked an opera.

So, if you can't abide the sounds cuz you're not used to the style, find out the story first and then just go for the plot. The music will help tell the story if it's a good writer doing the music.

All that being said, some opera I still don't like. But a lot of it I do. However........ while I enjoy the theatrical experience of most any opera and the wonder arias that abound, I find it difficult to just pop an opera on the CD and listen to it. Opera is too theatrical to just listen to. It needs to be seen as well.

My 2 cents worth.