Howard Goodall on Opera

As someone who is not very familiar with opera at all, it was very eye-opening to be exposed to some of the history of opera and what makes it so special. I would say the only real exposure I’ve had to opera was  Antonin Pavarotti’s performance of “Nessun Dorma”. My parents often played it for me when I was a kid and I always loved singing along. Learning about Claudio Monteverdi, the father of opera, was interesting because until watching Howard Goodall, I had no idea he existed. He was known for his very popular secular and sacred works that were very emotional in nature. Like a lot of art, hearing that opera is very much tied into social events and politics doesn’t surprise me. It was interesting to see a play like Le Mariage de Figaro grow to such popularity but get banned by several governments. It took people like Mozart to disguise certain political messages in order for them to actually be heard instead of banned by aristocrats and monarchs.