Lend me a tenor... or, well, maybe don't.

Anyway, the ad's voice goes on and on about how great and exciting Rigoletto is until the end when a tagline comes: "Opera: It's Not as Bad as You Think!"

Apparently opera ranks somewhere around going to the dentist and leg waxing among radio listeners, even classical radio listeners who subject themselves to WGMS' brand of butchery. I don't really understand why an institution would try to sell itself by saying "we don't suck as hard as you think we suck!"

Doesn't make much sense to me, anyway. I think if I were trying to advertise opera in the same vein, I might have tried "You never know; you might like it!" On the Baltimore Opera's web site, the marketing folks take the tack of trying to get tickets at the last minute as extreme. So, uh, whatever works for y'all up there. Whatever you have to do to sell tickets... good luck. I guess. I think if you're going to mention the extremeness of opera, you should mention that there will be guts, and you should sell popcorn and beer in the lobby, but that might be too extreme for the WGMS set.

before - after