I never really thought much of the Opera, always seeing it less as music and more of pure art. Kinda like the art you saw as a kid that you were not allowed to touch. However, taking some time and actually hearing it, it really is a beautiful way of expressing one-self. The voices of the singers are absolutely gorgeous and you can see how they have affected modern musicians with the way they hit their high notes. I also found it interesting on how many changes the form of art went through, almost mirroring how paintings changed throughout eras of history.
“Scenes of the Latin Quarter” was an extremely interesting, I found the romanticization of artists in tough situations, which was very similar to the way Patti Smith romanticized her own life in her book. I found the book actually extremely enjoyable, with funny quips from the characters making them more believable but still with a light-hearted undertone in every scene. Almost like an early sitcom, where you knew the characters were going to be okay because they had each other. I also think the author does a great job of having some social commentary on the time, giving us an insight on how the time period the author lived in was like for an artist.
The movie “Rent” gave me a look on how life must have been for people during the AIDS epidemic. It was very similar to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, a play that was made in order to reflect on Kushner’s own experience during this epidemic that spread through the country. It also shows the struggle of artists in America and like “Scenes of the Latin Quarter”, they use the relationships of the main characters in order to develop these emotions and make the characters more believable. The AIDS epidemic also adds more tension as one of the main characters die, causing emotional turmoil in the other characters. It depicts the whole time period as dark and extremely rough to live through, especially for struggling artists. I like this movie the best out of the three things we had to watch or read, because I feel like it is the most real and gritty out of the three. The characters are believable and they go through a wide range of emotions throughout the entire story.
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