The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical Music: NPR gives all “Operaholics” a place to confess and can teach you “How to Talk Like an Opera Geek.”

By Jacob Stockinger

Yesterday, I posted Zachary Woolfe’s extraordinary report in The New York Times on watching and listening to the Metropolitan Opera’s “LIVE in HD” broadcasts all around the country. (Below is Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde in this season’s production of Wagner ‘Die Walkure.”)

But maybe you want to sound more like what NPR called an “Operaholic” as in their series “Confessions of an Operaholic”?

http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=129909277

Then you should check out NPR’s terrific blog “Deceptive Cadence” with the ever-growing category “How to Talk Like an Opera Geek.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/147191491/talk-like-an-opera-geek

You can find out all sorts of things, from how to talk about postwar operas in Europe to how to discuss classic operas in the repertoire.

Take a look and listen, and see what you think.

Then tell us –- and NPR.