What Happens When Opera Is Bad.

Because, frankly, it can be.

This post originally appeared on The Opera Snob.

I talk about opera a lot with my friends, and even more with my romantic partner (he of all people deserves to know why I spend so many hours cooped up in my office watching DVDs of musical fairy tales).

For the most part, we all have excellent discussions about opera and the arts in general. But there’s one big problem: We can’t agree on what exactly constitutes a bad opera performance.

Before we discuss this, let us establish that bad opera performances indeed exist. A bad version of anything can exist. We’ve all met people who love something so badly, they believe that no version or tackle on it has the ability to be bad. My first thought is that of Sonic the Hedgehog fans, but the same could also be said of fans of Quentin Tarantino films or DIY blogs. To these people, everything is sacred. And as a result, mediocrity is tolerated for far too long.

WHAT? You know of what I speak.

Here’s an anecdote about the worst opera performance I’ve ever seen. It was Don Giovanni, performed by an opera house…