Opera

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"The instruments and song, the drama and the melodrama, the pathos and the tragedy. It's a lie. A fiction. And yet what happens on the stage speaks a kind of truth just the same."

―Gallius Rax, to Rae Sloane^[1]

An opera was a dramatic work set to music and including songs. Such works were performed in theaters called opera houses^[2] and attending operas was regarded as a cultured activity.^[3]

The Bith culture notably produced operas,^[4] and some Bith operas from the Middle Era of the Old Republic were highly regarded during the Age of the Empire.^[5] During the last decades of the Galactic Republic, many politicians and other wealthy citizens of Coruscant often took in operatic performances at the Galaxies Opera House.^[6] Another venue was the Coruscant Opera.^[2] Opera-goers of that time included Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who maintained a private viewing box which had a premier view of the performance; Baron Rush Clovis, and Padmé Amidala.^[7] Shortly after the Battle of Coruscant in 19 BBY, the Mon Calamari play Squid Lake was performed at the Galaxies Opera House.^[8] Palpatine, secretly the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, attended the performance and invited Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to join him and told him the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise which was a major step in bringing Skywalker closer to the dark side of the Force.^[9]

After Palpatine reorganized the Republic into the dictatorial Galactic Empire, operas remained a common form of entertainment among the new government's elite. Imperial opera-goers included Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit of the Naval Intelligence Agency, and Kren Blista-Vanee of the Imperial Ruling Council.^[2] Gallius Rax was a fan of opera and tried to cultivate a taste for it in Rae Sloane.^[1] After her first term as queen of Naboo ended, Réillata went on to be a moderately successful opera singer before she was elected into office again in 28 BBY.^[10]