Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

It's been an interesting day. Now I know you've probably had your fill of the Peter Gelb/Metropolitan Opera/Opera News story as have I. But I realized something about this story that I still thought was worth mentioning here because I think everything that has transpired in public says something about the state of arts journalism. I don't know if you noticed or not, but this entire story arc from Dan Wakin's original repost in the New York Times that Peter Gelb had convinced the Met Opera Guild's Opera News to stop reviewing its productions to the Met's eventual recapitulation of the confirmed policy took place in less than 24 hours. And it took place entirely online.

Pay attention to that last part. Wakin's original report, which appeared in Tuesday's print edition of the NYT, showed up on line in the late evening on Monday. The story was carried via Twitter instantly everywhere and within hours there was already a cacophony of responses of concern about the change from authors including myself. These voices were enumerated on sites including Lisa Hirsh’s Iron Tongue of Midnight and Parterre Box. By the next morning, the story was everywhere on Twitter and it inspired parody accounts from @FakePeterGelb and @FakeOperaNews lampooning the decisions. Arts journalists used to seeing their work in old-fashioned ink and paper didn’t wait around till the next edition to comment with the likes of Alex Ross and Anne Midgette jumping into the fray. Both writers, and many others, posted reactions on their own online spaces whether sponsored by their primary big-box media employers or not. None of it in physical print and all of it at the speed of the Internet. Not long after lunch time on Tuesday, the Metropolitan Opera announced that Gelb and the powers that be had changed their minds due to the public outcry via Facebook, Twitter, and blogosphere. After a good old fashioned press release emailed and posted on the Met Opera website, Wakin posted an update to his original story on line. Now while there may have been some old school phone calls and dirty looks mixed in here along the lines of real world experience, this “outcry” didn’t involve killing trees, and took place entirely in the electronic world of posted comments, Internet blogs, and social media.

I doubt this is the first time that an entire news event or story unfolded and resolved almost entirely within the context of the virtual world. However, it’s not an everyday occurrence when it comes to the arts. What strikes me most about how this happened, though, is that as I sit here and write these words, I can still think of numerous arts journalists who view the world of social media and on line existence disparagingly and somehow removed from what they do. These folks imagine their world as solitary writing after reasonable calm reflection in the spaces between their tete-a-tete’s with artists and administrators cultivating their sense of an insiders world of the arts and delivering their missives from on high. This is no longer an sustainable way to do business. Now I’m not trying to argue against arts journalism as it has been practiced well into the past. On the contrary, if it wasn’t for tried and true basic practices, Wakin’s report wouldn’t have existed to begin with. But this story was born, lived, and resolved itself online and in social media, and if you weren’t there in some fashion, you were just waiting for someone else to fill you in after the fact.

Writing about the arts today means knowing what’s happening on line and ignoring it means you aren’t getting the whole story. It’s not everything one needs to do, but staying on top of this activity is no longer optional for people who are relevant in the world of arts journalism. Media organizations (Are you listening Los Angeles Times?) should know that by now, and they neglect it at their own peril.

Labels: opera rant

UPDATE: Or then again, maybe we will.

BEFORE: Or at least that would seem to be the wish of Peter Gelb’s Metropolitan Opera. Though ironically, his actions seem to keep the headlines, and online outrage, coming. The latest kerfuffle: according to a report by the New York Times Dan Wakin, Gelb requested, and got, the editors of Opera News to agree not to publish any further reviews about productions at the Met after feeling the sting of some not so positive remarks in the magazine about the company's much maligned new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle this spring. And thus the drum beat of why on-line arts criticism, warts and all, matters continues unabated. But there is another issue here that bears some attention. Wakin quotes Opera News Editor-in-chief F. Paul Driscoll as clarifying that only productions of the Metropolitan Opera will be excluded from the pages of the magazine while other companies can continue to expect the kind of critical coverage they produce.

Now let me say that I’m not necessarily concerned so much here about this loss of coverage as some sort of censorship. To be honest, the place of Opera News in the world of opera generally has always been tepid and highly problematic with conflicts of interest. The most faithful of readers may recall that I wrote about this topic (albeit somewhat tangentially) in one of the very first posts here at Out West Arts. Opera News has long been first and foremost an advertising supplement for the Met Opera. It is, in fact, published by the Metropolitan Opera Guild: a support organization for the company. That Gelb would see a conflict in a support group of the organization being critical of the Met's productions makes sense to me and broaching that subject with them would make sense.

But distinguishing Opera News as an advertising supplement from an in-house support organization, as opposed to an outlet of independent journalism has other implications that don’t seem to have been fully explored, at least based on what Mr. Wakin reports in the Times. Specifically, if Opera News can write critically of other opera companies’ works, but can only speak in glowing, non-critical terms of its sponsoring institution, what value does its criticism have to begin with? Under the scenario laid out in Wakin's article by the editors, Opera News is now more or less about the Met passing judgement on the world of opera while its own house is beyond question and examination. This is neither fair nor necessarily wise. Is the rest of the opera world so desperate for coverage that they need the Met’s advertising supplement to come around and bless or disapprove of them? Given the Met's recent track record, one wonders how the company, and its advertising supplement is in a position to tell anyone what kind of job they are doing. If I were in charge of a regional or major opera company, I’d think long and hard before inviting anyone to review my work on behalf of Opera News again. By eschewing work at the Met but continuing to publish reviews of other houses, the magazine and the Metropolitan Opera generally have cast a pall over their credibility if not their ethics. Or in the words of Mama Morton, whatever happened to class?

Labels: opera rant

So on Thursday I got to meet a group of important American classical music writers including Tim Mangan, Mark Swed, and Anne Midgette. And no, I did not walk into a meeting of the executive committee of the Gustavo Dudamel fan club. The occasion was instead a panel discussion I had been invited to take part in along with these well-regarded journalists at the 2010 Opera America conference that has been taking place in Los Angeles this week. The panel was entitled “Critics, Bloggers, and the Changing Media Landscape” and was moderated by Sherry Stern, the Deputy Arts and Culture Editor for the Los Angeles Times. I enjoyed getting to meet the other panel participants and we talked about a number of topics in a wandering fashion that would be hard to reiterate in any detail here. I tended to be the odd man out in the group, given that most of the moderator’s questions concerned the kind of blogging that print journalists do as part of their broader job activities. This panel may have been about the changing media landscape, but it seemed most concerned about the area around traditional print journalists and the struggles and rewards they encounter when an increasing amount of their work is created for an on-line audience. I did learn a couple of interesting things, though. For one, Midgette noted that the Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog is a respected model for other news organizations around the country. Ms. Stern also noted that Culture Monster has been "successful" in attracting worthwhile ad revenue. Who knew? But still I couldn't help feeling that a lot of this focus on news organizations that may well not be operating in a few years seemed misplaced. Not that these are irrelevant issues, but it seemed to me that this was still about the same press departments talking to the same journalists they always have.

Still, it was interesting to me to meet people I've read so often in the flesh. Tim Mangan is a gentleman and a true scholar. It’s easy for me to see why he’s so popular with the OC. Some of his inventive work on a range of topics has recently been picked up by bigger outlets than his home organization, the Orange County Register, and he deserves the attention. His commentary about his approach to writing about artists like André Rieu and Andrea Bocelli who hold little interest for him personally was quite interesting. The Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed meanwhile informed the crowd that he was an anarchist. No, really. And then he name checked John Cage twice in an hour. This, of course, was followed with his disdain for social media and his insistence that there is nothing inherently good about the kind of writing that appears on blogs or the Internet. The idea being that good writing is good writing wherever it appears and just because more people can get their thoughts distributed more easily doesn't make the conversation any richer. He's apparently only in it for The Art. Or at least The Art of Writing.

I was particularly taken with some of the commentary from The Washington Post's Anne Midgette. Perhaps the most interesting exchange I was involved in was when Midgette politely challenged me on my contention that I am not a journalist and that what I do here at OWA is not journalism. I’ll admit that the assertion is in itself meant to be somewhat a provocation. But I argued, and would continue to, that what I do here is not equivalent to what Midgette or other journalists do. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve had no formal training in journalism, nor am I a music professional in any way. I support myself with activities far outside the range of topics on this blog and it is this employment which pays for me to see the things I do and go to the places I go. While I certainly have and do express opinions here, I don’t feel that they are necessarily equivalent to those that come from a source with some formal education or training in the above areas. Now that doesn’t mean that I think what I write is necessarily worse or of lower quality. It just means that I think there’s something worthwhile about professional, well-informed opinions and that they are worth paying for, even in the arts.

But this isn't just about professional credentials. My hesitancy to accept a "journalist" label also stems from what I view as ideological differences I have with the tradition of journalism as a field of endeavor. For me, there's always this issue of the truth when it comes to journalism- getting facts right for "stories" that appear in order to inform some large public. But I've often sensed a real lack of awareness about the social and political forces that shape what is "news" and how these "stories" get made up to begin with. The post-modernist in me refuses to let go of the notion that "news" is essentially a bunch of made up information we as a culture arrange in ways to reaffirm or deny our own anxieties about ourselves. But still we insist on presenting information in contexts where we claim it is "fair and balanced". Well, I don't want that to be true here. OWA is not fair and I certainly hope it isn't balanced. I don't mean to suggest that I think it isn't worthwhile or that you or anyone else shouldn't read it. I just mean that this is a world of words I have created and it may or may not have anything to do with reality. Or more accurately, it's this world of words that helps create reality. Specifically mine, but perhaps some of yours as well.

Labels: opera rant

Alice Coote as Maffeo Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia
Photo: Bayerische Staatsoper 2009

Here at Out West Arts, I’m not usually one to breathlessly follow the ins and outs of casting changes at opera houses around the world. It’s endlessly boring and puts too much emphasis on the vocal performances in the art form as a whole for my taste. Not that I don’t like to get chances to see big stars as much as the next guy, I just don’t think it rises to the level of news all that often. But I will admit getting a chuckle this week over the sniping coming out of the San Francisco Opera press department over the withdrawal of Elina Garanča from this fall’s upcoming production of Werther. As noted on both Parterre Box and Iron Tongue of Midnight, San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley had some pointed words about Garanča’s apparent “buh-bye” via her website announcement of a series of conflicting recitals she had scheduled in Europe during the dates of the Werther run. From the press release:

Regarding Ms. Garanča, Mr. Gockley commented, “It pains me greatly to announce that Ms. Garanča has chosen not to appear in next season’s Werther as promised. She is a glamorous young star who has created a stir in Europe and at the Metropolitan Opera, and I was looking forward to presenting her West Coast debut. However, after extensive discussions with her management and having filed a grievance through the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), I am satisfied that the financial settlement we have reached disposes of the matter.”

The replacement will be the lovely Alice Coote and I for one am thrilled to have another chance to hear her, though I've preferred her Mozart and Baroque appearances over others I've heard her in. Oddly, she doesn't quite rank for a photo on the SFO website's Werther page like Garanča did. But I'm no expert in the politics of these things that determine who is and isn't a big star.

As for Garanča's departure, I find the tone of Gockley's comments comical. He's the one who has been hell-bent on bringing "star power" back to San Francisco at nearly any cost—encouraging audiences to focus on the issue at post-show feedback groups in the past few years and soliciting contributions specifically for the purpose of recruiting big stars. When getting names starts to take precedence over broader artistic values, trouble can certainly arise both on and now off-stage. Apparently, Gockley and SFO weren't quite able to offer the money or prestige that Garanča wanted or she wouldn't be doing something else I'd wager. I guess being a "singers' house" isn't the plum draw that it once was for international talent. And in the meantime the old adage about playing with fire appears to hold true.

Labels: opera rant

The first page of the autograph score of Dvorak's Symphony No 9

Following a recent review of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Christoph Eschenbach, I received the following comment about conductors’ use of scores during performances that I though deserved a fuller response in the body of the blog.

"Since when has it become remarkable that a conductor doesn't lead with a score? I ask because yours is the third or fourth mention of scoreless conducting I've read in the past several weeks, by different reviewers/commentators. There have been conductors who performed with or without scores practically since the time conductors had become the rule and not the exception, i.e. a very long time ago. It is more a matter of preference than a demonstration of anything significant about an individual conductor's capabilities. Sometimes (often, actually) it's easier to conduct from memory, and there can be closer interrelation with the players as a performance unfolds. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that has struck me oddly. I wonder, though, and am curious to know what if anything is up?"

While I agree that there is nothing unique or new about a conductor leading a performance without a score, I think it's worth mentioning in a review because something is most definitely up. What that is may not be clear, but that's part of why its interesting. Conducting without a score is still less common than using one at least in the current cultural practice. Historically, I wager there have always been conductors who've practiced one approach or another at various times to various degrees. I agree that the use of a score probably doesn't tell us much about a conductor's abilities, or even perhaps familiarity, with a particular score. And as the comment suggests, one's choice to do so or not may serve other artistic purposes.

The idea of performers relying on written material during the course of a performance is not new in any way. However, there are certainly trends in perceived cultural norms over time about what is acceptable and what isn't. And by acceptable, what I mean is what an audience expects from the performers as a sign of professionalism and preparation. For instance, conductors may or may not use scores, but for most orchestras, it would be unusual, though not unheard of, for all the musicians in an ensemble to have committed their parts to memory in their entirety. Prompters are still standard practice at most opera performances around the world even in light of the comparatively limited repertory of most opera companies and vocalists. And yet, currently, the idea of feeding an actor lines in a straight play is apparently anathema despite a long history of such practices in the theater. At least that is if you believe the recent reports in the New York Times of audience members demanding refunds for preview performances recently where Matthew Broderick was fed lines from an off-stage prompter while learning rapidly changing material. Certainly nothing is new under the sun and the cultural preferences about these kinds of practices in performance change over time.

But I tend to think there is a lot more to the choice to use a score or not than simply personal preference or artistic intent. I’m a psychologically-minded person, which means deep down I don’t believe anything anyone does is capricious or random, or just a matter of personal preference. Using a score or not during a performance is a public act - one that will be observed by both fellow musicians and audience members and electing one approach over another is an act of communication. Not only does the conductor send a message to his or her fellow performers, but more importantly refutes or validates personal beliefs. If you're taking the road less traveled, even if you're not the first one to go down it, what are you trying to say to others about yourself and more importantly what does your desire to communicate this tell us about you. Could not conducting with a score be used to buttress one's own sense of competence or perhaps to compensate for being disliked by colleagues? Maybe such a choice could be used to reaffirm ones worth against rivals that are either older or younger. There are probably as many underlying motivations for making this kind of a choice as there are people who make it, but it undoubtedly says something and making that choice is certainly one worth commenting on. Conducting without a score may say less about a maestro's capabilities or artistic approach than it does about their perception of those capabilities or preferences.

Labels: opera rant

John Treleaven in LA Opera's Siegfried
Photo: Monika Rittershaus/LA Opera 2009

Is Anthony Tommasini the most ridiculously out of touch writer working for a major media outlet today? I’ve often felt the New York Times critic has gotten a bad wrap on the internets and such, especially from the kind of opera goers that populate the comment sections of Parterre Box. But when you read the kind of garbage he's got in this week’s NY Times on the ups and downs of updating opera productions (“Updating Opera? Halfway Won’t Do”), I begin to have second thoughts about my deference to well-trained professional journalists and their academic backgrounds.

Tommasini’s argument basically runs along the lines that if one is going to rework an opera for a new production, it’s best to go whole hog with a thought out, fully realized concept as opposed to taking half-measures resulting in a work that often pleases no one. It’s a fair point that Tommasini supports with some of the most wrong-headed arguments you’ll find. I won’t get in to his ridiculousness about Luc Bondy’s Tosca, which is the major target of the piece. However, Tommasini returns for another swipe in print at Achim Freyer’s staging of Wagner’s Ring now being rolled out at Los Angeles Opera. On a positive note, he does cite Freyer’s work for LA Opera as an example of a company’s complete commitment to an idea that is “unabashedly avant-garde.”

Of course, he can’t let it go at that without taking further jabs at a production he apparently hasn’t quite wrapped his brain around yet. He refers to it as a “sci-fi Ring” noting that the characters wield “neon spears that look like Jedi light sabers.” Nothing could be further removed from the truth in a production that has more of a rough-hewn primitive look than anything futuristic or high-tech. Freyer maintains a cheap and intentionally artificial visual sense throughout often in the service of laughs. This is Tommasini's third mention of the presumed likeness between neon lights and light sabers in the NY Times, but it tells us more about Tommasini’s own misconceptions about Los Angeles and it’s No. 1 industry than it does about Freyer’s Ring production. I suppose that all neon lights do look like light sabers except for the fact that Freyer’s lights have no hilts, are frequently handled in the center as opposed to their ends, and are used for many other elements in the staging besides just spears and swords. It is also true that L.A. Opera originally approached George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic during initial plans to produce a Ring cycle years ago. But none of this has anything to do with Freyer’s Ring. Yes, movies are made in Los Angeles. But, believe it or not, that does not mean that everything associated with Los Angeles intentionally references film. It's not that the similarity doesn't exist. But calling Freyer's production a "sci-fi Ring" is perhaps the least informative and insightful observation one could make about it.

But that's not all. Tommasini then continues to rehash his main criticism of LA Opera's Die Walküre from earlier this year in that it doesn’t deal with the “human dimensions of the characters.” Considering that Act III of Freyer’s Ring packs more emotional impact with its bizarre stage-length outstretched arms and primitive costume changes than anything that’s appeared in the same opera on a New York stage for decades seems to be lost on him. Why must humanism permeate everything that's worthwhile? Tommasini continues, “Wagner meant for us to see ourselves in this story of a tormented, overreaching god and his dysfunctional family.” So there you have it, folks. When all else fails, you can always fall back on the fallacy of authorial intent to justify your argument. Who cares what Wagner intended? Freyer's staging is enthralling precisely because it isn't always what you would expect and doesn't always demand that we see ourselves in every last thing. So remind me again, why again are we so worried about the demise of arts criticism in the print media?

Labels: LA Opera 09/10, opera rant

Dick Shawn as Lonrenzo St. DuBois in Mel Brooks' The Producers

Ah, California. The state you love to hate is at it again. From the people who brought you the Twinkie defense, Ronald Reagan, and wrongheaded voter initiatives too numerous to count, now comes a new installment of remarkable idiocy to marvel at. This time the primary source is one of our not-so-illustrious Los Angeles County supervisors, Mike Antonivich (A Republican, natch!) who has broken his long-standing disinterest in the arts with a new pet project. According to the Los Angeles Times, Supervisor Antonovich intends to introduce a motion for the County to send a letter to the board of the Los Angeles Opera about their upcoming presentation of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and the concurrent "Ring Festival" that will accompany it. The Festival will sponsor a variety of events examining Wagner's life and music and will involve several other arts organizations around town. But this is Hollywood baby, and the Board of Supervisors has got notes for the opera company. You see he loves what LA Opera is doing with the whole Ring-thing and all. Really, it’s great and they’re doing some fabulous work. But you see, it’s just that, well, he was wondering if maybe we could keep the whole cycle and festival but maybe have, you know, a little less Wagner in it.

Apparently, some of the crack research staff in his office have discovered that over a century ago, the composer expressed some rather anti-semetic sentiments. And I know that may come as a surprise to many of my readers, but apparently of the millions of people who’ve admired Wagner’s work in the last century or so, one of them happened to be Hitler. As hard as it may be to believe, the fact remains that one of the worst despots of the 20h century admired Wagner's art. Antonovich suggests, according to the LA Times report, that a broader focus of the festival on other composers such as Puccini, Verdi, and Mozart may make Wagner more palatable to the reportedly legions of citizens in LA who will otherwise be offended out of their minds over any reflection on Wagner’s work. And while I’m impressed that Antonovich can actually name three other opera composers, it does seem a bit of an odd suggestion. But maybe he's right, Puccini and Mozart's racism and misogyny make Wagner much easier to stomach don't you think?

Of course, the Times article goes on to point out that Antonovich is apparently only responding to constituent concerns. But who those people are remains unclear outside of one apparently very media-hungry "journalist" by the name of Carie Delmar. We’re told she has a “blog” (which I won’t link to for obvious reasons) specifically devoted to protesting the LA Ring Festival and recently posted a long piece explaining her idiotic position. Apparently when she's not busy doing the hard core research into Wagner's moral shortcomings from over a century ago, she also dabbles in criticism. Elsewhere online, Ms. Delmar provides us not only with a lovely glamour shot, but also bestows the coveted Delmar award for Best Opera Production on the West Coast for 2008 to LA Opera’s production of La Rondine with Patricia Racette. So it’s comforting to know that Ms. Delmar’s lack of sense may only be matched by her lack of taste. But hey this is a free Country and the beauty of it is that you can express your opinions as you see fit, regardless of how misinformed they may be.

What Ms. Delmar and Supervisor Antonovich fail to understand (and I realize that is a big category in and of itself) is that it is not a Festival examining Wagner and his Ring cycle that will make L.A. look foolish, but the fact that this city would have this “debate” at all in this day and age that does so. Wagner, like all humans, was a complicated person with both good and bad qualities. Some of them, like his anti-semitism are sadly quite common in people. Others, like his artistic achievements, are among the most rare in our species. To suggest that we should not discuss and focus on the life and work of a single person who did great things because some of his opinions from over a century ago don’t jibe with our modern day morality or that he shared opinions with others who much later on did unspeakable things is so myopic it begs reason. We celebrate “great” individuals every day who were anti-semities, racists, and frankly worse for far less than Wagner achieved. (Lincoln and Washington were not the nicest of guys at times either, believe you me.) To sort out only those historical figures who said and believed all of the things we feel most comfortable with today would leave us very little to talk about.

But you know what. I can comprehend that some people may not want to hear about Wagner and are just too offended by the man to see any value in anything else he ever did. So be it. And if you feel that way, I would suggest that you don't spend your time attending the festival events or Wagner's operas. Save your money and stay home. Or better yet, start a festival of your own to talk and hear about things you find less objectionable. And if you wouldn't mind, could you please let those of us who do want to hear and talk about Wagner do so.

Labels: opera rant

The bad flashback of Marta Domingo's first L.A. Opera Traviata
Photo: Robert Millard/LAO 2009

I know that this is carrying on too much, but I can't help myself. That poor excuse for journalism the Los Angeles Times is at it again today. Like many online outlets of major papers, the L.A. Times has elected to dump all of what little arts journalism they have left into a “blog” consisting solely of posts representing all the articles that appear in that day’s print edition. They also cleverly put together a daily summary post consisting of links to all the other posts that have appeared in recent days for those who've yet to master the scroll bar. It is in today’s summary that we are provided a link worded as follows to a prior story about a technical malfunction in a performance on March 5th:

“More 'Ring' woes: Aside from audience disdain (see comments), Los Angeles Opera's multimillion-dollar "Das Rheingold" faces technical problems.”

Apparently if a mechanical lift doesn’t operate as planned in one scene in one paid performance, suddenly the accurately designated multi-million dollar production has “problems”. I suppose if your business is generating news, this might be true, but the two women I sat next to during the show in question were surprised to learn that anything had gone awry at all during the show after I mentioned to them in passing afterward about the technical glitch. There may be problems yet to come, but to imply that this financially massive undertaking has gone awry after one or two unnoticeable mishaps in one or two shows is ridiculous.

As for “audience disdain,” I suppose that less than 20 negative comments (as of today) in response to Mark Swed’s original positive review of the production posted on February 24 represents something. (It is the second time the Culture Monster blog has mentioned the supposed outpouring of negativity.) But I sincerely doubt this qualifies as a “woe”. In fact, sales have appeared to be quite strong with nearly full houses over the last several shows from what I've seen. It may be upsetting to people whose subscription longevity has outpaced their taste, but the company hardly seems to be suffering from a little controversy.

And as for all those complainers and their myriad threats to drop their subscriptions – please do. It will improve my seats, and, without your bitching and moaning, I might not have to sit through another dreadful Marta Domingo Traviata again.

Labels: opera rant

Balloon Flower by Jeff Koons
Photo: mine 2006

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of this stuff bemoaning the sad condition of opera. In particular, I keep seeing these missives about how arts administrators determined to improve the bottom line are eschewing musical values in favor of whatever appears to be hot, young, sexy, or visually palatable at the expense of musical performance or the art of opera as a whole. Typically, these rants arise when someone’s favorite plus-size soprano or mezzo isn’t on the cast list for the umpteenth performance of the same-old-same-old somewhere around the world. They can also crop when people are busy writing headlines about someone young or relatively inexperienced who dares to do something orchestrated to shock or grab those headlines to begin with.

Oh, please. Now I’m not here to condone discrimination against any performer based on weight or other issues. And certainly, there are people with poor judgment and little minds who have done bad things to colleagues and other performers. But all this hand wringing over the “glamorization” of opera and its negative effects is mostly hogwash. When has opera ever been about anything other than glamour? For centuries, major casting decisions have been made on far more base issues than a pretty face. Roles have been cast and performances have been staged just as frequently based on who’s cheap, who’s sober, who has the “right” political beliefs and who the primary patron was sleeping with at the time. These concerns don’t seem much more noble to me than who’s pretty, who’s skinny, or who’s sleek and sexy. Once all of this big “art” business entered the opera picture things really started to go to pot.

The music? Sure it’s important, but it’s far from the whole picture. The opponents of “glamorization” always hold up the bogeyman of what listeners will be left with under these forces if they simply close their eyes. But frankly if you’ve paid good money for a ticket, why would you want to? I see plenty of audience members with their eyes-closed virtually every time I'm at the opera but the cacophonous snoring suggests it’s not because they’re lost in rapture over the musical qualities of anything. If it weren’t for the staging, there would be little point in seeing an opera at all. Let’s be honest. No one ever really looks forward to a straight concert performance of an opera as anything other than a mere evocation of a greater or more perfectly satisfying evening in the past or one imagined in the future. Opera is in large part theater and if the art form has suffered anything it is a century of well-intentioned purveyors trying to pass off a rapidly decomposing corpse to an audience that will hopefully be impressed by an aura of authority and art like some nightmare version of Weekend at Bernie’s.

Yes it’s fashionable for insiders to drone on about the loss of musical artistic values, but I for one think things are happening just as they probably always have, despite all our heavily revised versions of the past. Or, to put it another way, there is immense beauty in the temporary and disposable just as there is in the permanent and enduring. A big shot of pretty and easy-to-swallow may be just what the doctor ordered for all those looking to be “transported” by a world of high art.

Labels: opera rant