Life's Pleasures Quote by Lesley Garrett

Garrett’s line lands like a well-aimed high note at the expense of opera’s laziest punchline. The “fat people in breastplates” gag is old tabloid shorthand: opera as museum-piece spectacle, all Wagnerian armor and body-shaming, performed by an art form supposedly indifferent to modern taste. By pairing it with “shattering wine glasses,” she folds in a second caricature, the cartoon physics of divas and the myth that opera is more about decibels than drama. It’s funny because it’s cruelly familiar; it’s effective because she’s letting the stereotype into the room only to evict it.

The intent is less defensive than strategic. Garrett isn’t begging for opera to be taken seriously; she’s reframing the terms of seriousness. “No longer about” suggests a cultural pivot: from vocal athletics and grandiose costume toward storytelling, theatrical intelligence, and a wider range of bodies and aesthetics. Underneath, there’s a subtle swipe at gatekeeping. If the public still imagines opera this way, the industry has either failed to communicate what it does now or has been too comfortable selling tradition as a substitute for relevance.

Context matters: Garrett came up during a period when British opera was actively courting mainstream audiences, and she herself became a crossover figure in media. The quip works as outreach without condescension. It reassures skeptics that the art form has evolved, while signaling to insiders that the future isn’t “respectability” - it’s vitality.