I'm so glad to see this discussion in Mudcat, that I'll forget for a moment some unfortunate circumstances in my life. To be very brief, I had been singing Argentine folk for years until one day I sit down to listen carefully to a full opera. I was so impressed that I promised to myself to keep my mouth shut for the rest of my life. Twenty years later I timidly started to sing with a local choir, (religious, pop and folk arranged for SATB - soprano-alto-tenor-bass), studied vocal technique for 6 years, climbed up four choral groups, and landed in the Colón Theatre, our main Opera House, singing with the greatest, anonymously among 15 other tenors, but participating in the most emotionally overwhelming experiences of my life.

And you know what ? After that, I can sing those folk songs much better, and I could turn my dream into reality, to sing old blues and gospel, and Old Man River, and Sometimes I Feel.., and My Old Kentucky Home, and those marvelous songs that Paul Robeson gave to us from his educated, operatic wonderful voice.

To finish up: to anyone willing to live the experience of the opera, don't listen to a cone of paper activated by electricity. Listen to the human voice in its utmost quality: in an opera house, live, free, wild, naturally vibrated, naturally joined to woods and cords and metals. Of course there will be operas inspired by love to music, and others by love to money and celebrity, this has been always the same issue, but you'll easily find those musical masterworks.

(and listen to Alice! :) and to what she says)

Un abrazo,
Andrés (Escamillo, le toreró de Granada, in Bizet's Carmen)