In the “My cultural experience” section of the “OP” cultural program, entrepreneur Taavi Kotka told how he became an opera lover.
“If someone had told me 20 years ago that opera is your world, I would have laughed at them,” said Kotka, who divided his friendship with opera into seven phases.
“The first stage is what every person who has been to the opera at least once has experienced: it’s boring, it’s slow, you fall asleep. Let’s be honest, if you didn’t have a glass of cognac during the break, it would be completely useless anyway and obviously I wouldn’t want to go again,” Kotka explained and added that the second stage is for those who for some reason are still forced to go to the opera a second time. “Then you discover that Puccini and Verdi are actually quite okay: there are still a few arias you can sing along to and that brandy in the interval keeps you awake.”
The third level is reached when the same work is listened to a second time. “Then suddenly it becomes a completely different work and you start to like it more and more. By the third and fourth listen, it starts to feel like I could listen to it practically every day. You start to sense the level of the different singers, you start to silently criticize in your mind. But the main thing is that it’s happening inside you, it’s such a pain that the opera is no longer torture. It’s really like learning to snowboard: you have to endure the first couple of days and then it’s really nice,” said the entrepreneur.
At the fourth level, Kotka discovered Estonian works on his own. “”Cyrano de Bergerac” is a fantastic opera and a very intense story! At the fourth level you can look for the nuances in these different stories and you hear everything that the lighter composers have. And at the fifth level is where Wagner really starts to sound well and you’re really able to listen to it and understand how deep and multifaceted this creation is.”
At the sixth level, the opera lover dares to express his opinion. “It’s when you put on a robe and a scarf and start blogging about operas and develop a following. Luckily, that following is younger than you and real opera fans don’t read it, so nothing bad happens if you get the times,” said Kotka, who he said has not yet reached the sixth level.
“Level seven is—we call it the King of the Cape level—that you yourself are the opera,” he added, saying his greatest operatic experiences came from New York.
“When I go to New York, I always try to find a hole in my schedule so I can go to the MET (The Metropolitan Opera – toim). You have to admit that everything that is not on stage is quite terrible there: there is no glamor that we have here, that you go to Estonia, give away your clothes, there. People sit in jackets, some visitors have a dog with them, champagne is served in plastic glasses. But on stage the level and quality are highest,” Kotka described.
The cultural program “OP” airs on ETV on Thursdays at 8pm.
2024-01-11 15:14:00
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