A thought on opera (and suddenly breaking into song)

“No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”
— W.H. Auden

So wrote the British poet W.H. Auden, during a period of his life after he had emigrated to the United States. His comment on opera — as high art as it gets — does speak to something fundamental to the form: on face value, it’s all over the top.

As much as opera characters don’t sing when they are sensible, we also need to suspend our disbelief when we watch a musical. After all, in real life, we simply don’t switch into singing our hearts out on a dime (nor with everyone else around us waiting to sing along).

Consider the staple of many musicals: what’s called the “I want” song, in which the main character expresses in song what they wish for. Think My Shot in Hamilton, Somewhere Over the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz. My own feeling about the “I want” song is that it also sweeps the audience into the narrative; go along with that one, and you’re set. In for a penny, in for a pound.

A thought about breaking into song, and one of my favourite scenes. Here’s a moment from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where one of the characters wants to tell his story in song … and not everyone is on board, even if the West End-style court has its waving hands and choreography at the ready.

Eric Idle wasn’t letting things rest there.

When he revisited the Holy Grail to make Spamalot, he and collaborator John Du Prez concocted an “I want” songs about the very genre.