KB said something that made me think:

if you are music person you will likely prefer opera

When I was 12 years old I listened to an LP of Madama Butterfly on earphones at the library. I absolutely fell in love with the music. Who cares what the words are.

Then Harvey Andrews mentioned the duet from Pearlfishers. Same experience for me. I heard it as a piano duo before I heard the singing of it. Simply sublime.

Micca mentioned Lucia diLammermoor. The wedding sextet from that one is one of my favorites. I don't want to know the words. But the emotion is so overwhelming it has deep meaning for me.

To me opera is sheer, intense emotion.

My two favorite quotes from James Michener:

I have never met a person
with a really first class mind who wasted
his or her time on opera.

[ Opera is ] a form of art which is inherrently
romantic, passionate, absurd and illogical.
...And yet much of the mindset that has enabled
me to enjoy a creative life was acquired through
my intensive study of opera.