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If I may ask a moderately insane question in good faith:

What makes an opera an opera and not say, a stage musical? Like what's the defining features of the genre or is it a no-firm-borders "CATS is an opera in the same way a hotdog is a sandwich" situation?

absolutely not a moderately insane question because it is a genuine question! and i would honestly say that yeah, CATS is an opera in the same way a hotdog is a sandwich, because they're all related ideas and exist in context with each other.

the short answer is: it depends!

the slightly longer answer is: everything is made up and the points dont matter!

the real answer is this: it's kind of entirely arbitrary and comes down to a lot of ideas about high and low art, as well as historical precedence.

one of the first metrics people usually cite for "is it an opera or a musical" is whether or not there's spoken dialogue (separate from recitative, which is melodic dialogue accompanied by light music) but that falls apart in the face of operetta (gilbert&sullivan) and singspiel (zauberflöte, or famously die entführung aus dem serail, which has completely straight spoken dialogue without any melody at all and literally does not make sense without it. saw a production once where they cut the pasha's dialogue and that aint die entführung, baystaats) and then, the inverse with musicals with little spoken dialogue (les mis).

some people categorize it based on amplification (so, opera is done without mics/musicals are done with mics) but i've seen opera done with mics (again, baystaats, what the fuck was up with that die entführung?) and musicals done without (jesus christ superstar at the lyric was WILD)

i think the best differentiation to make is based on 1) the musical balance and 2) creator intention.

i'm not a person who understands music very well, but for me as a viewer/listener, i think of operatic music as being more about the relationship between orchestra and singers, and the support of the orchestra to give the fuller context to the emotions and thoughts by the singers. in musicals more often the vocals are supporting the orchestra, although this is still also not always true.

one thing that is usually true is that operatic voice is a very different beast from musical voice. some performers can cross over and do so very successfully, but many cannot, because the operatic voice is really designed for a very particular kind of singing, and many musical singers can't do what operatic singers do, even on mics. it's a different set of muscles and skills.

the other aspect is creator intention. there are some musicals that are verging on opera (phantom and hadestown are big ones) and some operas that are verging on musicals (again, gilbert and sullivan), but the intention behind the music. you could, very easily, put on zauberflöte like a musical—and people have done productions like this for kids all the time!—but at the end of a day, the intended nature of the art was as an opera, and it maintains operatic traditions that don't match musical traditions. you could, vice versa, easily do JCS as an opera, but it would still maintain musical traditions and not operatic ones.

there are a lot more detailed posts about this on the internet by people who understand music better than i do but at the end of the day i kind of still default to "i know an opera if i hear it" and a huge part of that does kind of boil down to how the voice is used. it's part of what makes phantom of the opera so cool to me—it's got fully operatic voice pieces (christine) next to fully musical ones (basically every ensemble number).

but at the end of the day: it's arbitrary. it depends. it's kind of up to the individual. sometimes people use "opera" to mean "high art" and "musical" to mean "low art" and sometimes they use "opera" to mean "a particular genre of vocal and orchestral music that developed in the 17th century and has continued to be refined and is an essential part of modern musical theatre tradition" but like. yeah essentially i'll know it if i hear it.

that said.

oh my god i want to see someone do don giovanni in a musical theatre style. just the whole damn opera but staged like a musical. im begging someone. i mean this is basically what the lyric 2015 production is they do have don giovanni on a table and elvira with a motorcycle but GO FURTHER.

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The only downside to talking to small children like they’re normal people and treating them like normal people (as per my mom) is that as they develop into bigger children they are viscerally aware of every single moment in which they are pandered to like stupid little accessories (as per my dad, my teacher, the special ed aide, every adult in my middle school) and you end up getting a lot of phone calls from people reporting your kid for (checks notes) “undermining authority”, “disrupting the classroom environment”, “disobeying elder peers”, and “unionizing the grade eleven gym class with intent to incite a mutiny” (as per me) and you end up with a Grown Adult who will absolutely encourage and enable other people’s children to fuck the sustem

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Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one of their online sessions, so Declan suggested they turn off their video feeds. Instead, his therapist began inadvertently sharing his screen.

“Suddenly, I was watching him use ChatGPT,” says Declan, 31, who lives in Los Angeles. “He was taking what I was saying and putting it into ChatGPT, and then summarizing or cherry-picking answers.”

Declan was so shocked he didn’t say anything, and for the rest of the session he was privy to a real-time stream of ChatGPT analysis rippling across his therapist’s screen. The session became even more surreal when Declan began echoing ChatGPT in his own responses, preempting his therapist. 

“I became the best patient ever,” he says, “because ChatGPT would be like, ‘Well, do you consider that your way of thinking might be a little too black and white?’ And I would be like, ‘Huh, you know, I think my way of thinking might be too black and white,’ and [my therapist would] be like, ‘Exactly.’ I’m sure it was his dream session.”

Among the questions racing through Declan’s mind was, “Is this legal?” When Declan raised the incident with his therapist at the next session—“It was super awkward, like a weird breakup”—the therapist cried. He explained he had felt they’d hit a wall and had begun looking for answers elsewhere.“I was still charged for that session,” Declan says, laughing.

omg that's so funny, all the worry about patients therapising themselves with ChatGPT when a real human therapist can do it for them 😂

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make your own foot scrub

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Hey. Gentiles. Listen up for a sec.

When September and October are nearing and you’re planning an event: google “Rosh Hashanah *year*” and *Yom Kippur *year*” and then, and I cannot stress this enough, don’t plan your event on those days. In fact, don’t plan any events starting sundown the night before. Those are the three most important days of the Jewish calendar, and, once again, I cannot stress enough how much this little bit of forethought and kindness will make every Jew you know cry tears of joy.

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no he's actually right about this. you tell them comrade

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The semester just started AMA

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i hope they never stop using floppy disk icons to indicate saving your file. doesn't matter how obsolete they are it's like honouring someone with a portrait on your currency

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hello physically disabled person reading this. it is not your fault that your medical supplies are made from a lot of single use plastic and you can continue using them guilt free. your health comes first. thank you for existing.

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> read library book

> it's good

Thank you library

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Running dog. La chronophotographie.  1899. 

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