A Night at the Opera

The general consensus: Queen’s 4th studio album, “A Night At The Opera” is their magnum opus. It’s not Queen’s biggest-selling LP; that distinction would result from 1977’s News of the World unless “Queen’s Greatest Hits” counts, one of the world’s best-sellers, period.

Of course, it is Freddie Mercury’s song, “Bohemian Rhapsody“ that has broken its share of records during its 43-year-history as of late 2018, upon the release of the biopic of the same name. The epic song put the “opera” in “A Night at the Opera”, sorta. It’s mock-opera, thus its high drama is seriously comedic, like a scene from a comedy movie, “Wayne’s World”. Of course, "A Night at the Opera”’s moniker was lifted from the 1935 Marx Brothers comedy movie classic (let’s call it “Opera”, moving along …).

Commercially, given its musicality, “Opera” was a major risk. The final deliverable left UK EMI execs nervous; it was the result of an unprecedented financial gamble. Too many of this eclectic set of songs failed to “rock”, or pop-out, commercially speaking (or hearing). Relief arrived in record time, despite the executive decision (or indecision) to not relieve, or release, as a single, the six-minute song of languid balladry to rhapsodic sections, etc., etc. (and so obviously too weird, and radio-unfriendly, right?). It didn’t stop certain turntables from turning (or 45 RPM’s from pressing). Why? The band’s unflinching insistence came with proactive harmonic actions, from invoking the right manager (before), the right muse (during production), and the right, or perfect, DJ (the advance vinyl product, delivered in person, just in case it was a “go”, and it did, through the airwaves).

Rewinding to before “Opera” began, Mercury convinced a busy John Reid, Elton John’s manager, to also manage Queen, after a bitter (legal) battle to exit from their prior “deal” was a done deal, leaving the band nervous, remaining in debt-sunk poverty (despite the lucrative worldwide success of album #3, Sheer Heart Attack? Yes, precisely).
John Reid simply told the band to record their best music ever, without money-worries. Their creative flow led to unprecedented levels of cash-flow in servicing their creative musicianship.
“Opera” became the most expensive album ever recorded (until 1978 made the record with the more costly Fleetwood Mac record, Tusk).

To (w)rap a Bo(w) around this writ, let’s close with a quip from Galileo himself (allegedly, given the song’s character references), Dr. Brian May, who eventually earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy (or actually, in Astrophysics). During a 1990 BBC Radio 2 interview, May provided a brief quote about album #4 aptly summarizing the above,

For A Night at the Opera we sort of returned [to the] Queen II philosophy. We had our confidence because we had a hit. We had a kind of almost desperation about us too because we were totally bankrupt at that point. You know, we had made hit records but we hadn’t had any of the money back and if the A Night at the Opera hadn’t been a huge success I think we would have just disappeared under the ocean someplace. So we were making this album knowing it was live or die …each of us individually wanted to realize our potential as writers and producers and everything …