Is Opera Part of Pop Culture? Pretty Much Pop #15 with Sean Spyres

Opera used to be a cen­tral part of Euro­pean pop cul­ture, Pavarot­ti was as big a pop star as they come. But still, it’s now the quin­tes­sen­tial art-form of the wealthy and snob­bish. What gives?

Guest Sean Spyres from Spring­field Region­al Opera joins his sis­ter Eri­ca along with Mark and Bri­an to dis­cuss oper­a’s place in cul­ture (includ­ing its film appear­ances), how it’s dif­fer­ent from music the­ater, the chal­lenges it faces and how it might become more rel­e­vant.

Some arti­cles:

• “Expect­ing Rain: Opera as Pop­u­lar Cul­ture” by John Storey
• “14 Artists Who Are Trans­form­ing The Future Of Opera” by Priscil­la Frank
• “As Hip as Elvis: Caru­so the Pop Idol” by John Pot­ter
• “Emo­tions Unveiled: Romance at the Opera in Moon­struck (1987), Pret­ty Woman (1990) and Lit­tle Women (1994)” by Kor­du­la Knaus

Watch the Shaw­shank Redemp­tion opera scene or per­haps the Pret­ty Woman scene. What Is pop opera? Here’s Ranker’s list of artists. Paul Potts sings that famous song on Britain’s Got Tal­ent. Plus, check out albums from broth­er Michael Spyres. Yes, you can hear an opera-singer sing “Take Me Out to the Ball­game,” but you prob­a­bly should­n’t.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.