does opera always need to be perfect?
I just saw a performance of Norma at the Berlin Staatsoper and while I had a very nice night - in fact Norma might be my new favorite opera in terms of the story - the music was sometimes beyond the soprano who played Norma. Sometimes she could not sustain the note, and sometimes she would make a sound that was not any particular note at all. Adalgisa sometimes struggled too. And I'm not a professional musician and could hear this.
However. Even as someone with no professional training I could tell that both Norma and Adalgisa are INSANELY DIFFICULT roles. Not just technically but emotionally! I've seen operas with bel canto gymnastics and I've seen operas with emotional fireworks but Norma demands both - simultaneously - for hours. I don't ever think I've heard such crazy music + crazy drama before. Criticizing these singers, I felt like one of those people who talks trash about Olympic athletes while eating a super-sized big mac and lying on the couch. Even with the flubbed parts, there is no way I could ever do anything as demanding as what I just saw, at the level I saw it performed.
While the singers were not always able to sing the music perfectly throughout the opera, they were always 100% invested in their characters and I was very emotionally invested in them and their story. And overall they were able to do their jobs, it was just in places you saw cracks. Granted Staatsoper tickets are some of the most affordable you can get - I splurged for a 65 Euro ticket to get a good seat that at other opera houses would have cost hundreds of Euros. And some of the "difficult moments" made me think "uh oh" and I had to readjust my attention to the story. If I had gone to the Met and spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars, for example, I'm not sure I would have been as ok with the music being a bit meh.
Bu it had me thinking - especially for music of this difficulty level, is it reasonable to expect technical perfection in professional opera houses? Are there other mitigating factors (like good acting)? Do you give grace for certain operas (like Norma) being difficult and not everyone being Maria Callas? (Sometimes I feel like it must have been easier to be a musician before recording technology!)