Surprised by "Trouble in Tahiti"

Before "West Side Story" Bernstein wrote an opera. For a long time I was turned off by the title of this opera and avoided seeing it. How could you have a good opera set in Tahiti? Well, that's the trouble with titles, if you're too clever with them you might entirely loose your audience. This, however, is apparently the only mistake Bernstein made with this opera.

This is an opera about suberbia and that 'things' and prosperity aren't going to solve the problems we face in our day to day relationships. It is a great piece with lots of fun music and several good arias for the soprano (and a good one for the baritone as well).

The production I saw was a fairly recent film piece done by Opus Arte in conjunction with a Welsh opera company. This movie is so fresh, produced and directed divinely. Look at a clippet to see what I mean:

Bravo! to the team that put this together.

The most excerpted aria from this show (which I had heard before, but didn't connect with the piece) is the soprano's "What a Movie!" (from which the opera gets its name). This is a really fun aria. There is however another great soprano aria that is far more serious; a one-sided conversation with her psychiatrist that is very poignant. The baritone's aria about being a "winner" is also worth taking a listen to.

This opera felt very 'real' to me, perhaps because it was all about *my* home growing up. I bet there are a lot of other people out there who would feel the same way. It wasn't really about despair, more about how often when you live with people for years and years it sometimes becomes a game of toleration and avoiding the real issues of your relationships.

Not quite new, 55 years old, but still fresh. Clocking in at just under 45 minutes, this chamber opera is well worth the time to see. Check it out.