Why do I love opera?
My main reason has surprisingly little to do with the music itself.
Imagine living in 1791 and seeing Mozart’s The Magic Flute performed in front of you.
Mozart is there.
The orchestra is there.
The singers are there.
Diana Damrau as Queen of the Night — technical precision, theatrical rage, and operatic mastery compressed into one role.
And at that time, opera singers were among the biggest stars in the artistic world.
Today we might compare Mozart to a major film director and the leading singers to world-famous actors.
Technology changed the center of culture.
Film, television, streaming, and social media moved public attention elsewhere. Opera became a niche art that many people ignore.
But that may be exactly why it fascinates me.
Opera is one of the most demanding forms of performance ever created.
It is not just singing.
It is singing while acting.
It is conveying emotion through the body, the face, the voice, the breath, the timing, and the text — while projecting over an orchestra without a microphone.
Bryn Terfel as Don Giovanni — a reminder that operatic mastery is not only about vocal range, but timing, charisma, and command of the stage.
The singer is not merely following the conductor.
There is a live dialogue.
The conductor shapes the orchestra around the voice.
The singer listens back, adjusts, stretches time, holds tension, releases it, and sometimes creates a silence so powerful that the whole orchestra seems to stop breathing with them.
That level of craft is almost absurd.
And when I think about it, I see a pattern.
Why was I drawn to tango?
Why was I always attracted to entrepreneurship?
Why do I admire great movie directors?
Because all these domains are incredibly hard when done right.
Many people dance.
Few voluntarily choose a dance where years of practice still make you feel like a beginner.
Many people do business.
Few can lead thousands of people toward a shared vision without destroying the soul of the work.
Many people create videos.
Few create films that people still talk about decades later.
Maybe we do not love things randomly.
Maybe we love them because they reflect something already present in us.
Deep inside.
I love opera because it represents mastery at the highest level.
Craft.
Passion.
Discipline.
History.
And the refusal to make difficult things small.
A young soprano performing Rossini — a reminder that opera is not only vocal technique, but acting, timing, and emotional presence.
