High culture vs low culture has always been at least partly arbitrary. I'm not an Opera fan in general, but used to love that there was a cafe in town that once

High culture vs low culture has always been at least partly arbitrary. I'm not an Opera fan in general, but used to love that there was a cafe in town that once a month hosted 'opera' night, where amateur and pro opera singers (some from the SJ and SF opera camps) to sing whatever they want. Sometimes you'd get someone singing pop tunes as arias, sometimes you'd see legit arias sung in full costume, sometimes just the local belting out of Carmen in sweatpants. It felt delightfully local, accessible, and devoid of highbrow/lowbrow nonsense.