Are you sure you hate opera?

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may have noticed that I write about a pretty broad mix of music. I can never answer the question “what music do you like?” because it’s not something I can narrow down to a particular style or genre and nor would I want to. I like a piece of music for how it makes me feel in the moment and it doesn’t matter if it’s cheesy pop or badass rock. So next on the playlist is the “Flower Duet” from the opera Lakme, by Delibes. Opera is a dramatic art form and it can, at times, be an acquired taste. However, it has the capability to be every bit as popular and accessible as any pop song - think “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot at the Football World Cup in 1990 which reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart that year. The “Flower Duet” is also enduringly popular having been used in film and advertising (British Airways most notably). It is at once exotic and intoxicating.

How do they do that?

The opera Lakme is set in India and Delibes uses the music in the “Flower Duet” to conjure the sights and scents of a riverside scene abundant with flowers and the sound of birdsong. The piece uses a 6/8 time signature (6 quavers in a bar that you feel as two sets of three in a gently swinging motion). This creates a lilting sensation which is mirrored in the gentle rising and falling of the vocal lines. The two female voices spend much of the piece close together, just a third apart, creating harmony that is always pleasing to the ear. In the shape of the melody, we can hear the birdsong that is depicted in the lyrics, as well as the swift flow of the river. In the instrumentation, the use of plucked strings further adds to the overall lightness of the piece, especially when accompanying the voices to their soaring heights. And at those climatic moments, the very air seems to shimmer.

Hope you enjoy it or feel inspired to listen to something new today.

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