Op Culture that shaped my brain: PART 1

These are the pieces of Op Culture that have helped to shape my weird opera brain

ROCKWELL BLAKE - TERRA AMICA (ZELMIRA)

ROCKWELL BLAKE singing insane virtuousic Rossini—Terra Amica from Zelmira! So many high notes. The ornament-off between Rockwell and the clarinetist. The insane chorus standing behind Rockwell. WEIRD OLD AMAZING SLEEPY ROGER NORRINGTON!

When I was first getting into opera, there was a now defunct forum website called granditenori. The site was a glorious trove of information and functioned like a subreddit for the most tenor obsessed nuts on the internet. Reading that forum effectively downloaded pages upon pages of middle-aged opera-obsessed opinions into my brain within in the first year of liking opera.

Many of my most impactful initial encounters with pieces of Op Culture came directly from those forums. This one in particular blew my mind and made me believe that opera singing was a sport on par with anything you could find on ESPN. Like, the piece is the most difficult aria of all time and Rockwell Blake ornaments it so insanely that it TRIPLES the challenges at every turn. And he looks like he’s having a fun time of it.

The video speaks for itself. It is opera at its strange best. Formal pageantry, large awkward chorus, extraordinary vocalism, obscure obsessions. It has all the glamour of a communist state funeral and yet, this low quality video, put up on youtube by WHO EVEN KNOWS??, did more to inspire my love for singing than any single piece of rhetoric or company marketing gimmick.