I have two major passions that I've developed over my adult life, and those two passions are hockey and opera.
The fascination with hockey was actually something that had lain dormant from my early childhood, as my father would occasionally take me to see the CHL's Oilers play in the mid-seventies when we lived in Tulsa. He was a sportscaster for various radio stations while I was growing up, so attending a sporting event with my father usually meant I was going along to listen to him work. Through my childhood and into my teen years I was taken along to baseball, football, boxing, wrestling, rodeo, tractor pulls, horse races… but there was always a mic in front of him, and his focus was on reporting. This was not the case with hockey; to the best of my knowledge, the only hockey game my father ever called was for an audition tape. Going to a hockey game [or indoor soccer match, another sport he never called on the radio] meant that it was his night off, so to speak – he could enjoy the activity from a spectator's point of view, and actually interact with me for longer than the commercial break. It was quality father-son time, something I still remember fondly.
My father didn't know at the time that exposing me to such a fast, graceful and violent exhibition as ice hockey would someday become a near-obsession for me – for him, I believe it was merely something to do to pass the time between when football ended and baseball began. It's likely that, from an analytical perspective, my interest in hockey is a repudiation of my father's interests… but when it comes down to it, I just like the speed, skill and toughness that it takes to play the game, and truly appreciate that there are no timeouts solely for the sake of replacing the players on the playing surface, which is one of the keys to what makes virtually all other team sports unwatchable.
When I moved to Kansas City in my twenties, it reignited my interest in hockey, and I went through all of the highs and lows that being a fan of the IHL's Blades could give. Around that same time, Martin Brodeur was called up to the NHL, and my appreciation for his skills and the team's history with Kansas City made me a fan of the New Jersey Devils.
Around that same time, I started attending more and more performing arts productions, largely as a result of having a friend who worked at the UMKC ticket office. On occasion, he would provide me with 'comp' tickets when I could not afford to attend a performance. This wonderful gift was used as often as I could get it. After all, I was working retail and barely making a buck or so above minimum wage, but still had the desire to find beauty and meaning in my life, and the performing arts can do just that.
Once my friend graduated from UMKC (and was no longer working at the ticket office), I had to figure out the best way to continue enjoying the performing arts on my meager budget. My interest in opera actually sprang from a shrewd financial decision: come to find out, an opera production combines all of the classical arts to create a performance – in effect, going to the opera is like fitting three or four performances into one show. Extremely pleased with my money-saving discovery, opera became my primary point of interest for the classical performing arts. I would attend concerts, plays and the occasional dance recital, but for me these events were like hockey is to my father: something to do until the thing I enjoy comes back.
While there is a kernel of appreciation passed along to me for hockey, there is absolutely no familial foundation for my interest in opera. Most members of my family are actually surprised [perhaps confused] when I begin talking about it. I've lived my life apart from a large contingent of my family since graduating college, which plays a huge part of why they're sometimes not aware of my interests or point of view. In their mind, I'm suddenly into opera; what they don't appreciate is that my interest in opera stretches back twenty years, and the reason they aren't aware of it is that (until now, living in Houston) there hasn't been much need to discuss it. The operas I saw during my time in Kansas City were good, but they weren't doing anything to expand the state of the art.
Additionally, not very many people in my family or circle of friends have attended an opera themselves, and they generally envision stuffy elites politely clapping while some weirdo sings "Figaro! Figaro! FigaroFigaroFigaroFIG-A-RO!" until some fat lady with a Viking helmet sings to let you know it's over. I do my best to convince my friends and family that opera's really not like that [after all, those things don't even occur in the same opera!], but how can you fight the degrading effects of popular culture? DAMN YOU, YOGI BERRA AND BUGS BUNNY!!
My father came to visit me in Houston a few weeks ago. During his visit, we went to some events that I thought he and I could enjoy together, most notably trip to Galveston, a Sugar Land Skeeters baseball game [sadly, no Roger Clemens appearances] and a night of auto racing at the Houston Motorsports Park [the Palace of Power!].There was one event on my calendar I had RSVP'd for months before that I wasn't sure he'd be interested in or willing to attend, which was "Inspiring Performance: The Campaign for Houston Grand Opera" Houston Grand Opera's kickoff event for their massive fundraising campaign. The promise of a champagne reception beforehand apparently was the hook, and I was pleasantly surprised when he said he was willing to go.
Sadly, by the time we arrived there was no more champagne available, as they had run out of glasses. We actually saw some people drinking champagne out of water glasses, so I knew there wouldn't be any way to convince them to give us any if the catering staff was reduced to that. I was worried that the inability to score free champagne would turn my father off to the rest of the evening's activities, and he wouldn't want to stay. Luckily, this was not a deal-breaker for him, so into the Brown Theatre we went.
I am pretty sure my father's previous impressions of opera were changed by the end of the evening. While we did not get to experience an all-encompassing operatic performance, the numbers performed between the speeches and the short films [see below] kept him enthralled, and more importantly, awake! After a rousing "Anvil Chorus" from Verdi's Il Trovatore by the HGO Orchestra and Chorus, a playful "Je Cherche un Millionaire" by opera legend Frederica von Stade, and an electrifying "Martern aller Arten" from Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio by Albina Shagimuratova, I think he was impressed by the skill, the grace and the beauty of what are some of the best musicians and performers working the stage today, mere feet away from where we were sitting. [We scored front-row seats, so I'm sure for him his first exposure to opera performers felt the same as the first time I had seats on the glass at a hockey game.] By the time Albina, Frederica and the HGO Orchestra performed "Barcarolle" from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman, I could tell that his estimation of opera had grown, if only a little bit. It was a lot like our roles had reversed from when I was a child being taken to those hockey games by him – real son-father time, something that I hope he will remember fondly.
As we were leaving, he was asking me all sorts of questions about HGO and opera in general, and he even asked if there were any operas performed that were local to him. I don't know if he would actually attend a full-scale opera in the future, but one evening experiencing a taste of how much beauty, joy and meaning a night at the opera can bring to your life is a pretty good start.
