How familiar are you with opera? Well, if you’re a fan of films like Pretty Woman, Rent, or Phantom of the Opera, you might be more acquainted with the genre and its themes than you think. With its new YouTube series, Getting Into Opera, GBH Music endeavors to introduce viewers to the unique power and pleasures of opera, bringing it out of the gilded theater and into the lives of a wider audience.
The videos, averaging 10-15 minutes, showcase masterclasses between early-career opera singers and established vocalists, interpolated with interviews, instruction, and performances in the GBH Fraser Performance Studio. They make for a fascinating on-ramp into opera, providing the layperson with a deeper sense of how the genre works, the joy and labor involved in it, and the stories of the people who devote their lives to mastering the art form.
Curious about the series, we sat down with Sam Brewer, General Manager of GBH Music, and Alan McLellan, producer of Getting Into Opera and a CRB Classical 99.5 host, to talk about the series’ origins and their hopes for it, the role public media has to play in supporting the arts, and, of course, their favorite operas.
I’d love to hear how Getting Into Opera came about in the first place.
Sam Brewer: The series started two years ago when we began filming live, in-studio events that paired opera singers with New England Conservatory (NEC) students and emerging artists from Boston Lyric Opera. This is the first time we’re releasing videos from these events. The project is very much a credit to my predecessor, Tony Rudel. He grew up in the opera world, and was the executive producer who originally conceived and led the series.
The series is a new way for us to engage audiences with events filmed expressly for YouTube and other social media platforms. Together with our partners, Boston Lyric Opera and NEC, we’ve filmed masterclasses featuring renowned singers — Davóne Tines, Susan Graham, and Patricia Racette — coaching NEC graduate students as they refine their craft.
Alan McLellan: In this series, you get to hear some fabulous singing from opera’s future stars. [The singers] are at such a high level, and it’s amazing to see these great, established opera singers come in and give them instruction to raise it even higher.
Can you talk about the audience you’re hoping for?
SB: We created this series for YouTube with the goal of attracting new listeners to opera — people who are curious but haven’t spent much time with the genre. It might seem like a funny choice — a masterclass as an entrypoint — but we’re thinking about viewers with fresh ears. Many of them might not know what makes an aria performance great. By watching an up-and-coming artist work with a professional, you gain a sense of all the details that shape an outstanding singing performance and opera piece. We hope that’ll spark a deeper appreciation or curiosity for the genre.
AM: The masterclass format is unique and a new way to promote music digitally. The master-teacher dynamic illustrates how experts talk about the genre, how it can be done better, and how they communicate an idea or emotion through a phrase or piece of music. Moreover, it gives us an opportunity to appeal to someone who’s learning a piece of music, or a classical music lover who, say, loves a piece from Carmen but wants to learn a little more about that genre. And we know that many of our CRB listeners and YouTube subscribers will enjoy the programs too.
We get to show things like the astounding piece that Morgan Mastrangelo sings; I forget how many high Cs he goes through, but it’s really high in his range, and it’s quite a physical feat as well as a musical one.
Most of the videos include interviews with the singers, and it’s great to hear them talk about their first experiences of learning to sing, realizing they have an exceptional voice, and pursuing a life in vocal arts.
How did you come to opera?
AM: I studied voice at university and had the opportunity to sing in an opera, Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten. I had a great time doing that. Ever since then, and through my years of producing here at GBH, I’ve enjoyed the genre and even had the privilege of producing a few opera programs. We’ve also broadcast some of Boston Lyric Opera’s productions on CRB — the last one was Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto.
I have a lot of favorites in the genre. I love Tosca. We just broadcast the Boston Symphony’s performance of it this summer at Tanglewood, and the audience response was tremendous. I have a favorite recording of La Bohème from the 1950s. Even though its sound is monaural, the performance packs such an emotional punch.
SB: One of the great things about classical music is the huge range of eras and subgenres to explore. My first love is orchestra music. So even after a decade working for the Boston Symphony and photographing hundreds of classical performances, my interest in opera was only truly sparked in recent years. I’ve enjoyed discovering and learning about it alongside our audiences.
The title of the series, Getting Into Opera, implies that it might be a less approachable art form for a contemporary audience. Why do you think that is?
SB: You’re saying it, not us! With attention spans reduced to three-minute Instagram reels, asking someone to watch a three-hour performance of an ancient story that’s not in their native language — that can be a hard sell, right? So part of what we’re doing is taking the music and art of opera and making it very digestible for a modern, digital-first audience.
One of the things that makes opera so incredible is that, from its inception, it’s the most multi-genre art form. You have composers writing the music, writers crafting the libretto, musicians interpreting the score, singers acting while singing, as well as the dance elements, costumes, and set designs. A great opera is a compelling amalgamation of so many different art forms.
What are some things that people can look for in an opera piece or performance that can help deepen their appreciation and understanding of it?
AM: Some of the greatest melodies that exist come from opera. Puccini was an amazing melodist, for instance. You walk away whistling, and that’s by design.
The other thing is the drama. The dramatic essence of a story in opera is expressed in the arias, the music we’re presenting in this series. I remember seeing somewhere that 28,000 operas have been written. Throughout the genre’s history, composers have found myriad ways of expressing foundational themes — love, war, jealousy, revenge, you name it.
SB: In the six arias we’re presenting, you hear the same elements of music that draw listeners to any kind of music — memorable melodies, great performances, and storytelling.
Opera can be more accessible for modern audiences when listeners realize that these are familiar stories. Anyone who loves Rent will recognize its similarities to Puccini’s La Bohème. Mozart’s The Magic Flute is like any fairytale you heard as a child — a lost prince, chased by a monster, has to save a kidnapped princess.
And with the technology at our disposal, we can help viewers better enjoy and understand opera. For the live performances as well as these videos, we used a program called ConcertCue, which syncs up translated subtitles and lyrics to the videos for the audience. It was developed by Eran Egozy, a good friend of ours and a professor at MIT.
Why is right now the right time for GBH Music to help translate this centuries-old art form?
AM: In these times, there’s a need for artistic expression: for people to see this happening and people engaged in it. These young singers are dedicating their lives to this art form, and we’d like more people to see and hear them.
SB: It’s always worth doing. We had the interest, time, and capacity to do it. Opera has inspired audiences for over 400 years and will long after any of us are gone.
As the world feels increasingly chaotic and challenging, it’s nice to retreat into and find meaning in art — whether that’s listening to CRB or taking a deep dive with Getting Into Opera and other programs on the GBH Music YouTube channel.
What are some operas that you would both recommend to someone who’s unfamiliar with the genre?
SB: The six in our series are a pretty good place to start:
Gaetano Donizetti: La fille du régiment, Act I - “Ah! Mes amis, quel jour de fête”
Georges Bizet: Carmen, Act I - “Près des remparts de Séville” (Seguidilla)
Giacomo Puccini: La bohème, Act I - “Mi chiamano Mimi”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, Act I: “Parto, ma tu ben mio”
Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos, Act I - “Sein wir wieder gut!” (premiering on 9/29)
Georges Bizet: The Pearl Fishers, Act III - “L’orage c’est calmé” (premiering on 10/6)
AM: The Daughter of the Regiment [La fille du régiment] by Donizetti gets you there. We’re featuring a tenor aria with a whole series of amazing high notes and an exuberance that’s just wonderful to hear. Carmen is deeply dramatic and emotionally powerful. Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito is a little more classic in that it’s based on Greek drama. Really, I recommend them all.
What role does public media have to play in promoting opera?
SB: Public media has a key role to play in elevating all musical art forms. For us, classical music and jazz are where [GBH] has its deepest experience and what we’re committed to. But throughout the public media system, there are stations focused on bluegrass, folk, and other genres that can fly under the radar but have large fan bases. They just require a bit more of a non-profit model to sustain themselves.
AM: Art exists within the marketplace, but also outside of it. We are privileged to be able to work in this area, where we can say, “What is beautiful? Let’s present that.” Rather than only worrying about what sells.
SB: Some of these works were written 400 years ago, commissioned by noble families or patrons who loved music. In that way, the funding model isn’t too terribly different now. We’re relying on really generous individuals or major donors to come in and say, “We want to keep sharing and supporting this art that defines us as humans.”
We hope it reaches a wide audience, that people watch and listen and are inspired by it. I also hope that it opens up doorways for us to think about the GBH Music YouTube page as a place where we can tell stories in new formats that don’t exist on radio and television, as we’ve done in this series.
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You can watch Getting Into Opera on GBH Music and the GBH Music YouTube page, as well as short videos on Instagram Reels. The series launched on Monday, September 1, with new videos coming out each Monday through October 6.
