So many people, some I know, others I don’t know, but all asking me the same question. “Why did you start this campaign? What are you trying to achieve with Only Opera?”
I really know very little about the world of opera. But I simply love hearing opera singers. Whether singing opera, music from the shows, folk songs or whatever. It’s something that is steadily growing inside me and I’d like to know more. No, I need to know more. I’m steadily building a huge knowledge base for opera. I’m sure there are tens of thousands of people like me, not only young ones, but people of all ages.
For the last few months I’ve been making it my business to study the opera media. Magazines, newspapers, blogs, newsletters, anything I can lay my hands on. The more I read, the more I’m learning. What strikes me forcibly is that the world-class singers get all the attention. I suppose that’s what the media needs to attract readership.
So what about everybody else who sings? What about the thousands of young singers fresh out of music school who look for opportunities to be seen and heard? And what about professional singers who also need public exposure but cannot attract the attention of the media?
This was why the seed of Only Opera was planted, a need for lovers of opera and opera singers to be part of a wider and broader-based community. The seed we planted started to grow and now it’s blossoming and we’re still in our infancy.
As a website designer I have created a site which gives people like myself who don’t sing and everybody who does sing, whether amateur or professional, well-known or otherwise the opportunity to air themselves in public. Not just individual singers, but opera groups and opera companies, in addition.
Members open their personal Profiles on the site and take advantage of all the different facilities available to them. Have a look at the site and see how it works.
However, there’s something else. It is so important for us to enlist the help and support of recognized opera professionals and opera companies, experts in the business who can disseminate material to embrace the likes of me and so many others like me into this fascinating and beautiful world of opera. I’d like to think that Only Opera can build an opera community, one where everybody can join and in which they can participate.
I hope that everybody who reads this article will now understand why I created Only Opera. Better still, come and join us in this exciting journey. Yes, we’ve made excellent progress, but this is just the beginning. There are so many new ideas already in the pipeline!