Who Wants to Be in Love in a Movie When Love in an Opera is So Much Faster?

Puccini's La Boheme:  Act I - love between Rodolfo and Mimi (really Lucia, we don't know why she's called Mimi) happens, as Mr. Bean would say, in the flashiest of flashes.  Why would you want to be in love in a movie when it can happen so much faster in an opera?  Maybe it's because operas rarely (do they ever?) have happy endings.  Movies can end tragically, but the romantic comedies we're so fond of are engineered to make us feel euphoric, at least momentarily.

I heard a funny thing on the radio the other day.  Women respond more, romantically speaking, to action movies than to what we call romances.  Apparently the adrenalin works its magic through a good gun battle or car chase.  As I see it this "fact" works well for both men and women.  And, I'm not a bit surprised, really, when I think about how much I enjoy ice hockey and how the game inspired my first romance novel.  Considering further, my second romance novel was actually propelled by gorging myself on Doctor Who battling evil aliens and not on Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan sharing anonymous emails at all.

Maybe we should consider a new hybrid?  A fusion, if you will - adventuopera.  Or, romaction?  Hmmm.