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Mansouri calls Magda’s third-act exit “one of the most beautiful exits in all of opera. And if it's done well, the audience will cry.” But doing this opera well means letting it be what it is. “It's a delicate piece and you should respect that and not doctor it up with melodrama. It isn't Tosca.” La Rondine has impact when the characters are seen as “real people with real dilemmas.”

THE FUTURE OF OPERA
“I see it as very bright. I'm a cockeyed optimist.” Mansouri will extemporize at length on the exciting changes taking place throughout the world of opera, such as simulcasting and computer-generated stage graphics.

America, a latecomer to opera, is now “finding its voice.” There are more houses, more performances, and audiences are growing — and growing younger. New American works are finding their way into the repertoire, and American singers are “better prepared and more flexible” than their European counterparts. Through the combination of young artist programs at opera companies and opera workshops at universities, singers here “get a fabulous music education. A lot of American artists are now the major artists in Europe.”

Though innovations are making opera more accessible, Mansouri warns that opera must never lower itself in order to widen its appeal: “Never try to undersell it. You must excite people to come up to opera. It's not spaghetti, it's not a hamburger... it's caviar. It takes time to develop a taste for it.” That doesn't happen passively. The audience, he says, must “take an active part in preparing themselves.”

Mansouri calls opera a “composite art,” as distinguished from the “singular arts” such as the symphony and ballet. People often come to opera after first learning to appreciate its separate elements.

Okay, say you've done your homework, you've developed your taste for opera and you're holding tickets to La Rondine — now what? “Before you come to the performance,” says Mansouri, “go to dinner with someone you love and order a wonderful bottle of wine, then come to this piece. La Rondine is for lovers.”

“I want to share opera with people. I want to say ‘Guys, this is fantastic! Come and take a taste and experience this world, filled with so many different treasures.’ That's why even at my age, and after nearly a half century in this profession, I haven't given it up.”

Mitch Carter is Michigan Opera Theatre’s Web Coordinator and Bravo's Contributing Editor. You may contact him at mcarter@motopera.org.

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