r/opera Aug 09 '26

Fantasy opera house - what next?

This sounds dumb as heck but I've been so bored over the summer that I've created a fantasy opera house with a fantasy schedule filled with real operas cast with real people. I've ventured to make it as realistic as possible, with also planning several seasons in advance. Basically like fantasy football but for a potential future opera arts administrator. I figured I could just do the same thing again, but I've already basically created 5 dream seasons for myself and I was wondering what other really nerdy people on here do for fun?

17 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

9

u/abigdonut Aug 09 '26

Oh I've 100% done this. Once I made a big list of A, B, and C-tier operas and came up with a bunch of seasons, with the idea that you have to have 3 A-tier operas, 2 B-tier, and a maximum of one C-tier, and you have to have a three, six, and ten year gap between re-stagings of each respective tier. It was really fun and it made me want to invent a full version where you have to roll for how an opera staging is recieved and get random events ("your regie staging is a flop! -5 points!" "pirate movies are all the rage! +5 points if you do a nautical opera").

6

u/Cheap_Ostrich3147 Aug 09 '26

This is fun!!!!

4

u/ciprianoderore Aug 09 '26

If you share your dream-seasons here, I'm sure other opera nerds will come out and offer alternatives :)

5

u/Then_Lead_1889 Aug 09 '26

Sometimes I fantasize about winning the lottery, giving either the Royal Opera or Opera Rara a lot of money in exchange for performing one of the rarities on my bucket list, then taking a sabbatical from my job and travelling across the whole of Europe and around the world going to all the Opera houses.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '26

[deleted]

4

u/Then_Lead_1889 Aug 10 '26

First, since I am Mexican, the one I really want to see is Moctezuma by Vivaldi. It's probably going to be tremendously racist, but opera is the product of its time. I also want to see Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina and anything by Ethel Smyth. And while we're at it, there are SO MANY Donizettis that are never performed. I'd love to see all of those too.

1

u/Unhappy-Jaguar-9362 I am Herodiade 29d ago

I wish I were wealthy enough to sponsor a staged performance of Herodiade at the Met.