Last Saturday, best friend Marshall Anderson and I took in the most recent Metropolitan Opera simulcast (Rossin’s Le Comte Ory)  and in one of the intermissions, hostess Renee Fleming reminded the viewing audience that two of last year’s simulcast performances-  Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Turandot- could be purchased on DVD exclusively at Target stores and at Target dot com.  I’d already heard about this from Marshall, but in recent calls to both the Racine and Kenosha Target stores my inquiries were greeted with complete befuddlement – even when I was connected to someone in the specific department where CD’s and DVD’s are sold.  Not only did they know nothing about the DVD’s in question, I had the distinct impression that no one I talked to had the foggiest notion of what the Metropolitan Opera was – let alone Aida or Turandot.   (And mind you, I am a big fan of Target-  I’d go there a hundred times before I”d go to Wal Mart,  but that’s another story for another soap box.)    But when Marshall and I and Kathy ended up at Red Robin in Kenosha for supper,  we decided to swing down to the Kenosha Target store partly so I could look for the DVD’s on the off-chance that maybe they had been thrown up on a shelf someplace without anyone really knowing what they were.  That seemed possible because Marshall ended up finding the DVD’s at a Target store in Janesville which had shelved them in the rock CD section.  (In fact, Turandot was filed with the G’s-  close to Lady Gaga-  because the the title role was sung by soprano with the last name of Guleghina.)

Anyway, I walked into the Kenosha Target store- bigger and more beautiful than the one in Racine-  headed to the back where the CD’s and DVD’s are found-  and there they were, big as life. . . these two Met DVD’s,  shelved right in the midst of CD’s by Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson.  And I just had to take a picture of the sight,  because it so nicely encapsulates what it feels like to be an opera fan in this modern world.   And truth be told,  I sort of enjoy that part of it. . . passionately loving something that so much of the world either detests or to which is completely indifferent.  There is something sort of exciting about swimming upstream,  on one’s own. . .  and I think the typical diehard opera fan feels passionately about opera in part because we feel like it is our zeal, our passion, our devotion to the art form that keeps it alive.  .  .

Most of the time,  Carthage is a place where it does not feel strange to be an opera fan – or a fan of any kind of classical music.  In fact,  by the time you’ve spent some serious time in those classrooms and hallways in the music building, you could be forgiven for thinking that the earth is densely populated by young people who are utterly transfixed by the heartbreaking final measures of Verdi’s Otello or who might actually have some Wagner on their iPod.  But every so often, something comes to the Carthage campus that is a potent reminder of the wider world and its prevailing musical taste.   Tonight, for instance,  thousands of people are going to be descending on Carthage’s arena for a performance by a group called Thirty Seconds To Mars.  Until now I had never heard of them – for all I know they could be an accordian quartet – but it’s all that a lot of the students have been talking about.  Quite tellingly, I bumped into a former voice student, Jim Waack,  who now heads up his own security firm that was brought in for this event.  He told me that he was going to have just under 40 security personnel there, in and around the performance venue,  in large part because it’s not all that uncommon for things to get physically rough out in the audience during this band’s performances.    So as I played the Final Trio from Gounod’s Faust for my opera history class – or accompanied voice student Dan Ermel in songs by Schubert – at the back of my mind I kept trying to imagine what was going to be transpiring that night right across the parking lot, courtesy of the rock band that will be blowing the roof off the arena tonight.

But I also couldn’t stop thinking about how the wall-shaking, bone-rattling sound they will be producing is music . . .  as deserving of that distinction as the most sublime bel canto aria.   And how incredible and wonderful it is that music exists in such a dizzying array of styles and flavors – and how one particular bit of music might delight one person and repulse the next.   And for however good it is for us to occasionally step outside of our particular cozy zone of comfort,  it’s also nice when we can return to the safe and reassuring music that we most love.   So go ahead, Lady Gaga fans. . . but forgive me if I stick with Lady Opera and all that she has to offer to me and to opera fans everywhere.

pictured above:   The two Metropolitan Opera DVDs on sale at Target in Kenosha.