Talking about sex and opera, I really can't get over the difference between
the kind of opera I am thinking about when I talk about likeing opera, and
the kind of opera I think about when I think about other people who are
opera fans.  (Does every opera-fan consider herself superior to all other
opera fans, or is it just me?)

Carmen, for instance, with all it's wonderful music, doesn't really have
much of a story line.  I mean, a teenager would be embarrassed (or would
claim to be embarrassed) to subscribe to such a plot (if subscribe is
the word I want here).  It's a story about the kind of people one loves
to hate: tempestutous, wilful, undisciplined, employees of the tobacco
industry.  How can we compare these dysfunctional idiots with the
wonderful, romantic, quaintly comic members of the medieval guild
of the Meistersingers of Nuremburg (for example)?

Arch, pondering the mystery of opera
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