Why are people who like classical/opera labeled as intelligent?

And classical /music opera is accessible with any internet connection.

Classical music has to be an acquired taste in a world that doesn’t value classical music.

The people who take the time to enjoy and study it just tend to be the more educated.

R2 True. But why is that? I'm not talking about "appreciating" classical music.

According to the esteemed elderqueens in my life, learning to love opera was a rite of passage for a young gayling, at least in NYC. You may not have grown up appreciating opera, but if you wanted to be regarded as a classy queen, it was mandatory. Pop music was fun but trashy. Bway was only slightly more elevated. Opera (and specifically, the season at the Met) was IT.

Apparently, this predates Stonewall and was true throughout the 80s. Alas, like so much else, AIDS killed a lot of the fans and followers, and some say opera just hasn't been the same since.

R4 interesting

Usually with classical music there are more notes, more intricacies with timing, and dynamic changes. For some people, It can be a struggle to listen to.

OP, is your covert point that you believe music other than classical/opera to be just as sophisticated as classical/opera (I take no stand on this question), and that it is therefore unjust to label classical/opera lovers as being intelligent and thus to implicatively exclude other music lovers from being intelligent? If that's the case (or perhaps in any case), the discussion will go nowhere without defining intelligence, sophistication, and their value in society (which is a pretty long row to hoe).

r4 is that about "intelligence" per se, or is it just about "you can't be part of the kool klub unless you do exactly what we tell you" ("rite of passage" indeed)?

R6 = Emperor Joseph II

A reminder that most rock or pop hits are based on just 4 simple chords (1-5-4-6).

That's it, rinse, repeat.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy those hits, but I also appreciate that the recipe is always the same and that there's a vast universe of richer music out there (classical music, but also non-western music).

More pop songs based on those same 4 chords. It's fun!

OP is a humble washer woman, who's had just about enough of the grandees! You tell em, sista!

Once the Vanderbilts got in, they stuck with it and seemed to enjoy it.

Cultivation.

OP, in the oldee worldy times, Opera was fun, and not for the highly cultured. It was an evening for the court or the rich in cities. Opera is LONG. Back then people didn't worship the spectacle. Most of an opera was an opportunity to gossip, leave the auditorium, eat, drink, fuck. Only certain spectacular passages were paid attention to.

This is why today's opera experience can be insufferable, and its a very good idea to have seats in a box or by an aisle, so one can get out of the fucking opera and breath and seduce one's companion.

R14 I enjoy it

Because there are people who listen to Britney Spears and think they're intelligent.

I enjoy it too. R14 is making blanket statements.

Oh I enjoy it too. And I'm capable of sitting through all the acts. But I feel no need to for many operas. Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier, operas like that, I enjoy more if I don't make it a slog and get out of the auditorium to breathe and hopefully have some fun.

Intelligent? On the whole I'd say they take themselves too seriously and as a result they're snotty as fuck. Opera especially. I mean, I'm glad you've found a style of music you enjoy listening to. It's a shame you've twisted it round to show everyone what a total cunt you are.

Fuck you, bitch! And your little aria, too!

I think they are labeled as cultivated--not necessarily intelligent.

These are two separate adjectives that can sometimes describe the same person, but not always--I know many cultivated people who are not especially intelligent.

[quote] On the whole I'd say they take themselves too seriously and as a result they're snotty as fuck. Opera especially. I mean, I'm glad you've found a style of music you enjoy listening to. It's a shame you've twisted it round to show everyone what a total cunt you are. Fuck you, bitch! And your little aria, too!

Not sure if this is directed at someone on this thread or all opera listeners. But do I sense a hint of anti intellectualism in your measured answer?

Next, r19 is going to ask all those snotty chess players to go fuck themselves.

Don't get him started on fancy pants farm to table.

I don’t think this is always true, especially looking at Italian American families coming from blue collar or working class backgrounds. I know multiple families where the parents in the 1950s and 1960s exposed their children to opera coming from being mailman and longshoreman handing down that love through the generations. I don’t remember the details, but isn’t that also the premise in that whole Moonstruck opera sequence?

R24 I think the Saturday afternoon live radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera that began in the early 1930s contributed to a broader appreciation of opera in the US in the early and mid-20th century, much as Toscanini and Bernstein did for orchestral classical music. In addition, music appreciation was taught in many schools. My mother's family was very poor and no one went to college, but she and my aunt knew and loved classical music and opera. My parents' collection of classical music records sparked my interest, and a good school system with lots of music classes enabled me to become a lifelong musician. So, it was definitely passed down through generations of my family, and it didn't track with anyone's level of intelligence.

R24 I was looking for back up to my experiences and found this scholar whose focus is on Italian Americans and Opera, though he focuses his research only up to the WWII. He does talk primarily about the Northeast corridor, especially NYC and Boston, but apparently there was also a strong contingent in San Francisco as well dating back to the Gold Rush and primarily male dominated society that existed there for a stretch of time.

It can work the other way. Sondheim (intelligent and cultivated, to understate) often when asked mentioned his dislike of most opera.

No disrespect to the opera fans, but I share Sondheim's view: it's some gorgeous music but pretty poor theatre, compared to the best of Broadway musicals.

Follies!