I love lists. You can call me a listomaniac. But at least I’m aware of that. I value the benefits of having a list of things and I know a few of the bad things related to it. To me, lists are a good way to stay motivated on the long term to discover parts of culture I don’t know well. For literature, my teachers of prepa (the year after baccalaureate to prepare for French best management schools) gave me amazing lists who made me realise how much I had to read to get to know a minimum of what we call in France culture générale. For operas, I did my own todo lists: I looked for “rankings” of most played operas (operabase) as well as the favourite operas of media like the guardian or Telerama.
Depending on the years, I manage to watch 3 to 5 new operas that are on my list.
Sometimes it helps me identify things I’ve actually already seen and forgotten. But it also reminds me where I’ve seen an opera , which year and which one I want to watch again. And there are a few that I really enjoy watch more than once. Like The magic flute, Fidelio, Pelleas et Melisande, Pagliacci…
I also try to attend Operas with the lost famous singers, but that’s a bit more difficult.
In my list, I can tell that one of the most important thing for me has been to move to Berlin. With its 3 operas and its low prices, it enabled me to discover way more operas after being 30 years old than when I was younger in Paris but getting cheap student tickets meant queuing for hours.
