For a 400-year-old art form,operas had a bad fame: overweight actresses singing the wordswhich were hard to understand in one of those Romance languages you were supposed to leam imhigh school. And with tickets costing as much as $145 a performance, opera singers also had acertain appearance in people's mind:rich, well-dressed and old.
But now opera companies around the country are loosening their ties and kicking off their shoes in an attempt to keep the opera alive and bring the opera to the audience, the young and not-so-rich.
Opera producers have found that to atract these crowds, they need to make the opera closer tocommon people. That means no formal suits, old-styled theatre or bank-breaking ticket prices. Andbecause young people don't or won't come to the opera, companies are bringing the opera to them,giving performances in such unusual places as parks, libraries and public schools.
The Houston Grand Opera's choice is the public library, where it performs mobile operas,shortened versions(版本)of child-friendly operas. This summer's production is Hansel & Gretel.By perforning smaller versions of large productions, producers are able to make people interestedwhile keeping costs at a reasonable level. The San Francisco Opera, which will celebrate its 75thanniversary this year, is staging Cinderella free of charge, keeping costs down by employing studentsfrom its Young Artists Training Program.
Which of the following is the main idea of this passage?
通读全文可知，第一段介绍了有四百年历史的歌剧的坏名声——女演员体重超重、所演唱的歌词难以理解、票价昂贵等；第二段接着提到一些歌剧公司决定打破旧的规则，尝试让歌剧继续存在，并且将歌剧带到年轻的、不那么有钱的观众当中；第三段提到了歌剧制作人为了吸引这些观众，选择他们更容易接受的地点、票价等来吸引关注；最后一段以休斯敦大歌剧院的选择为例，介绍了吸引年轻人的具体措施。由此可推知，本文主要讲述了歌剧公司想要让歌剧继续存在所做出的努力。
The underlined expresion "loosening their ties and kicking off their shoes" means"______".
根据第二段内容可知，现在全国的歌剧公司正“解开领带，脱掉鞋子”,尝试让歌剧继续存在，并且把歌剧带到年轻的、不那么有钱的观众当中。根据上文可知，在这之前，歌剧的女演员体重超重、歌词难以理解、票价昂贵，对年轻人的吸引力小。由此可推知，画线部分表达的引申含义为“打破旧的规则”。故选A。
Opera companies prefer to perform short versions because ______.
根据最后一段第三句"By performing smaller versions of large productions,producers are able to make people interested while keeping costs at a reasonable level.”可知，通过表演大型作品的简化版，制作人能在保持合理成本的同时引起人们的兴趣。
The San Francisco Opera employs student actors in order to ______.
根据最后一段最后一句"The San Francisco Opera...keeping costs down byemploying students from its Young Artists Training Program.”可知，旧金山歌剧院雇用学生演员是为了降低成本。故选B。
From the passage we can infer that ____.
根据第二段内容可知，现在全国的歌剧公司正打破旧的规则，尝试让歌剧继续存在，并且把歌剧带到年轻的、不那么有钱的观众当中；再根据最后一段第三句"By performing smaller versions of large productions, producers are able to make peopleinterested while keeping costs at a reasonable level."可知，通过表演大型作品的简化版，制作人能在保持合理成本的同时引起人们的兴趣。由此可推知，歌剧如今并不是特别受欢迎的艺术形式，所以歌剧公司才打破传统，把歌剧带到普通大众当中，所以C项符合题意。A、B两项是文章直接陈述的观点，并不是从文中推断出的观点；D项未在文中提及。故选C。