Yet another 20-something opera blogger! I fancy myself a director, but the professional opera lifestyle and I do not seem to be compatible (and this is based on pretty substantial experience). I recently discovered that not everyone treats opera as (or thinks opera should be treated as) theatre, and I wrote a thesis on theatre and opera broadcasts. Blah blah blah. Opera is like my horrible boyfriend that I break up with every few weeks only to get back together a few weeks later. I like to think of it as my “Bad Romance.”
As you may well know, the name “Goodbye, Florence!” is a reference to “Addio, Firenze”/”Prima un avvertimento” in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. I thought it sounded like a good name for an indie band and made a blog instead.
There are some great comments/debates about some very basic opera arguments in the comment section below. Please do take a look and add your own comments, if you have any to make!
Goodbye, Florence! 
Love the name and the blog!
Thank you so much! I’m enjoying discovering all of my fellow opera bloggers out there (it’s quite a substantial community!). And I am really looking forward to your upcoming month of modern opera.
Hello Caitlin,
You wrote:
“I recently discovered that not everyone treats opera as (or thinks opera should be treated as) theatre”
But are you really surprised by that?
Opera is defined by music of course. You can strip away the visual element and still have an opera. Movies — now there’s a medium that is first and foremost a dramatic/visual art form. Opera, not even close! The fact that so many directors take so many liberties with opera simply serves to underscore how relatively unimportant the visual element is. Clearly, music is the most important element.
Personally, I think way too much of the dramaturgy in opera is simply ridiculous. A couple steps below the average soap opera, about par for the average Hollywood movie. There are numerous exceptions, late Verdi, late Wagner, the Da Ponte operas. But most operatic storytelling is just as silly (to me) as most Broadway musical storytelling. The book is a hook for the music. Yes, most great operas have moments of intense drama because of the connection between the music and the words of a particular aria or scene, but those moments are at best intermittent.
(And if we are going to use the original intent argument, I would argue that drama is the LEAST important aspect of opera. I don’t think the restless, loud, inattentive audiences for opera seria, or French Grand Opera, or . . . were there for the dramatic intensity of the experience.)
Opera is less about drama and more about “emotion.” I think that for most operas the drama is simply a convenient McGuffin to allow the composer to write music for situations that reflect intense Human Emotion. How that emotion plays out in the context of the story is less important.
Yes, I was surprised by the fact. To me, opera is obviously and inherently theatre. You cannot strip away the visual element and still have an opera – I completely disagree with you. Without the staging or the costumes or sets, it’s an oratorio or a cantata or some other concert form. I will go back to intentions – opera was created as a means of recreating Greek theatre. The intended goals were theatrical. Opera is not a musical form the way a symphony or an etude is. The music is driven by the drama (even placement of formalized musical structures within opera – arias, recits, etc. – is driven by the drama).
“The fact that so many directors take so many liberties with opera simply serves to underscore how relatively unimportant the visual element is. Clearly, music is the most important element.” I’m not sure what you mean here. The music may be the constant element, but theatre is, by nature, transient. The ability to create very different tellings of stories from a single text is the life-blood of theatre. A text’s ability to bear infinite interpretations is what makes it an example of a great theatrical work and makes it fresh and affecting across generations. I agree that opera texts are (generally) not diminished by bad productions, but then why is anyone really bothered by the bad productions?
Yes, a lot of opera dramaturgy is ridiculous. I agree. But there are a hell of a lot of bad plays, musicals, and movies too (not to mention books, TV shows, popular music, etc.). I don’t see how this is an argument against opera being theatre. Opera is drama. It’s not just emotion, there are characters, there are stories – there is a temporal narrative. Those stories are important to the music. It was written to be staged.
This is, of course, an unresolvable argument. I’m not going to convince you, and you’re not going to convince me; but I fell in love with opera be because of the stories – there is not shortage of beautiful music out there, but only opera has those stories and those characters. My introduction to opera was an album of 12 or 15 opera highlights and a book full of synopses – the music was great, but the synopses are what really drew me in. To me, your exceptional examples of opera are, and should be,the rule.
Caitlin,
You wrote:
“You don’t have to agree with a director’s concept to appreciate it, and if we can approach productions with the same spirit of open-mindedness and education that we have brought to our understanding of the music then we can make a better argument for, say, what makes good regietheatre and what makes bad regietheatre rather than writing the whole culture off as “novelty”.
What I find vandalistic is the whole culture of Eurotrash Regietheater; Regietheater stagings that so distort the concept and vision of the opera’s creator as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions) that, were it not for the hijacked music and text of the opera’s creator, it’s *literally* unrecognizable as the opera creator’s work of the same name.
Please understand: I’m NOT arguing for the prohibition of such stagings. There’s room for pretty much everything in art, even Eurotrash. What I am arguing for is a prohibition of such stagings under today’s fraudulent practice of promoting and billing such stagings as a staging of the opera of the same name by the opera’s original creator. By no stretch of aesthetic or philosophic reason and logic are such stagings ever anything of the sort.
If one is an opera director with a compulsion to stage one’s “own take” of an opera by another, one should by all means go ahead and do so if one can get the financing (and the permission of the original creator of the opera if he/she is still alive). But one may NOT go ahead and do so by fraudulently promoting and billing that staging as a staging of the opera of the same name by the opera’s original creator. One must unambiguously promote and bill the resulting new opera as a new work *based* on the opera of the same name by the opera’s original creator and using that original creator’s music and text. Once honestly promoted and billed in that way one is perfectly free to do whatever it is one feels compelled to do vis-à-vis the staging and good luck to you.
Do you see the difference?
You definitely have a point there – I think it would be wise to bill Regietheatre productions as “So-and-so’s Marriage of Figaro”, etc.; but that’s something the opera companies have to be held responsible for, not the director. And in discussion, reviews, scholarly papers, etc. productions generally are referred to as “Chereau’s Ring”, “Neuenfels’s Idomeneo”, etc. It’s the opera company’s marketing decision to leave the title of works unaltered in advertising and on their websites – I’m sure it’s easier to sell tickets for La Traviata than for Peter Konwitschny’s Violetta, for example. And frankly, as long as the music and libretto are still intact (which they almost always are, given that opera producers and fans tend to treat the text as holy writ), all opera productions are recognizable in performance. You may not be able to look at a still and know what opera you’re seeing (see Parterre), but the same could be said of many theatre productions (particularly productions of classical theatre in which, like opera, there is a pretty set, limited repertoire of texts that get performed over and over). I don’t think anyone would begrudge a production of Richard III or Antigone with an outlandish concept but otherwise unaltered text from calling itself Richard III or Antigone. My problem is that the opera directors get blamed for doing what directors do and for wanting to bring their own creative vision to a production; and what you’re specifically requesting – renaming the work – is not within the jurisdiction of the director. As it is, I think most marketing materials make it pretty clear what kind of production one is about to see, and a quick google search of a director will generally indicate to what extent said director takes liberties with their interpretation. I think we would do better not to try an isolate regie productions, but rather to cultivate good, thoughtful, well-executed regie productions. I think opera companies need to provide more opportunities for directors and designers to discuss their productions and their goals with their audiences, and this will hopefully foster a better understanding of what specifically is or is not successful in a production and why. I don’t think the problem is false/disingenuous advertising but rather a lack of meaningful, constructive engagement.
Caitlin and Margaret,
The emergence of Regietheater over the past 3 or 4 decades has been the strangest development in opera in my opinion.
There was an editorial in Opera News on Regietheater a year ago. Here is an excerpt:
“For many of us who came to love opera before Regietheater took hold, current notions of effective dramaturgy boggle the mind. When did the directors and impresarios decide that an opera was a random collection of notes, independent of its dramatic and visual elements — a mere musical shell, to be filled up with and bent out of shape by whatever modern hang-ups seem most likely to catch the public off guard? When did wild controversy, booing and academic apologias in the press replace straightforward storytelling as signs of theatrical prowess? When did “making people think” become the top priority in an art form once clearly intended to make them feel?”
————-
I couldn’t agree more with the above!
Opera is an art form intended principally to make audiences feel, not think. That, in fact, is what opera — is what music — is all about. Prior to our modern age, there’s not a composer of opera (or of music generally, for that matter) who ever lived who thought otherwise. Whence, then, this perverse, noxious, and ass-backwards impulse to make opera audiences think first, feel after?
I am not really sure, but that it’s in some fundamental way bound intimately to our present-day scientific and technological modes of thought concerning all things — cosmic or terrestrial, sacred or profane, mystical or quotidian — is a certainty.
Is that a step forward for art and for us as a species; a development to be applauded and welcomed rather than savaged and rejected? I confess I don’t really know the answer to this question, either. What I do know, however, is that in matters of art, and in matters of music most particularly, whenever the intellectual trumps the emotional — whenever the emotional is in some fundamental way conditional upon the intellectual —impoverishment is the ineluctable consequence.
Matthew Tenzer
Well, Regietheatre in opera actually traces its origins to Wieland Wagner 60 years ago. If we place it within the context of theatre in general, we could easily trace it to Brecht (and, one could add, Piscator, Meyerhold, and maybe even Artaud), which places its origins almost 100 years ago. Not to mention that theatrical texts have attempted to engage people in thought and reflection for thousands of years. Even opera has engaged in social awareness and intellectualism at times – Mozart, Purcell, Verdi, Beethoven, Britten, Wagner, Janáček, Strauss, and Shostakovich, to name a few, have all written operas that require the audience to engage with social and intellectual questions and concepts.
“Opera is an art form intended principally to make audiences feel, not think. That, in fact, is what opera — is what music — is all about.”
I completely disagree, and I think it’s absurd to make blanket statements like that about an entire artform. You cannot speak for every composer. First of all, the belief that music is first and foremost an emotional art form is unique to Romanticism, and undermines all of the forms and technical aspects of classical music that do require a certain amount of intellectual engagement to appreciate – fugues, etudes, any music that deliberately breaks compositional rules, atonality, etc. Even the leitmotif has intellectual applications. You’re not supposed to feel the curse every time you hear the motive, you’re supposed to THINK about the curse, its implications, and how it relates what is happening at that moment in the opera. If music is purely emotional, than film scores and Renaissance music would be epitomes of the artform, but few proponents of classical music will even acknowledge the validity of the film score as a creative, artistic work in league with the classical repertoire; and, of course, Renaissance music is the realm of the specialist along with the rest of Early Music (and I daresay there are many classical music fans who essentially regard such music as primitive).
Placing opera within the context of theatre, your statement quoted above is the antithesis of Brechtian epic theatre – a concept that has had a profound impact on modern theatre (and especially on German theatre, unsurprisingly) and, therefore, modern opera production. I highly recommend reading Brecht on Theatre (specifically “The modern theatre is epic theatre”) and Brecht at the Opera by Joy Calico. Of course, Brecht is only one tiny part of contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, which places particular emphasis on the importance of critical engagement with culture and cultural works.
“What I do know, however, is that in matters of art, and in matters of music most particularly, whenever the intellectual trumps the emotional — whenever the emotional is in some fundamental way conditional upon the intellectual —impoverishment is the ineluctable consequence.”
How could you possibly know that? How have we been impoverished by thought? There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
I don’t think the goal of modern opera (or even of critical theory) is to entirely demystify art and life, or to completely undermine the significance of the uncanny. On the contrary, it seeks to understand and trace these mysteries and, by deconstructing established modes of thought and life, to find new or different meanings. The end of one era does not preclude the birth of a new one. You may be quite happy with the established modes and meanings, but how is discouraging people from pursuing new meaning a step forward?
Caitlin,
You wrote:
“I completely disagree, and I think it’s absurd to make blanket statements like that about an entire artform. You cannot speak for every composer”
In this matter, indeed I can — that is, for every composer prior to those who first began composing in the 20th century.
First, let’s get my full comment on record here as it’s short enough:
“[O]pera is an artform intended principally to make audiences feel, not think. That, in fact, is what opera — what music — is all about. Prior to our modern age, there’s not a composer of opera (or of music generally, for that matter) who ever lived who thought otherwise”
I challenge you to name *any* pre-20th-century composer of note who thought otherwise.
What’s that? That paragon and epitome of the intellectual composer, Johann Sebastian Bach? His _Well Tempered Clavier_, for instance?
Think again. Have you ever read Bach’s inscription on the title page of the autograph ms of the first book of those *study* pieces; those pieces intended to *instruct*, not to be performed for an audience? It reads in part: “For the Use and Profit of the Musical Youth Desirous of Learning as well as for the Pastime of those Already Skilled in this Study.” And of what value would those preludes and fugues as a pastime be for those “already skilled in this study” were it not for their value in exciting the feelings of such skilled players merely by their sounding? No value at all.
You wrote:
“Even the leitmotif has intellectual applications. You’re not supposed to feel the curse every time you hear the motive, you’re supposed to THINK ABOUT the curse, its implications, and how it relates what is happening at that moment in the opera”
It’s unclear what curse you’re referring to. But if it’s Alberich’s curse in Wagner’s _Ring_ you’re referring to, you’re quite wrong. Of all composers of opera, Wagner more than any other wants his audiences to do nothing BUT FEEL during the performance. He wants any thinking to come before or after, NEVER during. Ditto Gluck with his operas, and Mozart his, and Rossini his, and Verdi his, and Debussy his, and…etc., etc., etc. And why you brought Bertolt Brecht into this discussion (not here quoted) is a mystery. We’re here talking about dramma per music, not Brechtian agitprop shit.
You wrote:
“How could you possibly know that? How have we been impoverished by thought? There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. […] You may be quite happy with the established modes and meanings, but how is discouraging people from pursuing new meaning a step forward?
You hae accused me of doing or saying something I neither did nor said. Where, pray tell, did I ever….. “discourage people from pursuing new meaning”?
Matthew Tenzer
Michael,
Sorry for the delay, I was out of town for work.
You wrote:
“I challenge you to name *any* pre-20th-century composer of note who thought otherwise.”
In fact, I believe I named several… I imagine what you are looking for is a specific example. Well, once again, I choose to return to Wagner, who is an excellent example of a composer who expected his audiences to engage with certain philosophies and ideas through his work. Granted, he wasn’t particularly interested in having audiences disagree with or criticize his ideas; however, Wagner’s own thoughts and beliefs are quite plain in his libretti and the accompanying music. Die Meistersinger is probably his most philosophically explicit work. Yes, he abandoned politics in his work, but surely you would not totally undermine the significance of all of Wagner’s writing about his work and aesthetics in general, not to mention the influence he has had on all art and culture post-Wagner, by suggesting that his artistic intentions and his impact were/was exclusively related to making people feel. Based on your Bach example, it seems like you are of the opinion that emotional appreciation of a work must exclude or supersede technical or intellectual appreciation, but my point is that they go hand in hand. I agree that a musical work’s ability to evoke an emotional response is important; my point is that it is not the sole purpose and goal of music, as you seem to suggest. The value of playing the the Well-Tempered Clavier after one has already mastered the keyboard is not just in the emotional content of the music; it is also in maintaining technique and the study of counterpoint (and a desire to revisit such excellent examples of counterpoint). Chopin was a Well-Tempered Clavier fanatic. He continued to study the W-T C well after mastering his craft, and used it for warm-up pieces before performance.
Charles Rosen includes a wonderful discussion in The Romantic Generation of Schiller and the widely held Romantic belief that emotion was the means of expression but the ultimate end was thought in music. I highly recommend it.
Re your second point. I believe I’ve already said what I have to say about Wagner. I will add that you have to think about the ideas and events and references made in an opera as it happening, otherwise I imagine it’s very difficult to keep track of everything that’s going on and what it means within the context of the opera.
“And why you brought Bertolt Brecht into this discussion (not here quoted) is a mystery. We’re here talking about dramma per music, not Brechtian agitprop shit.”
This sentence is extremely disrespectful and unduly hostile. In the future, I will be deleting your comments if you can’t make them in the spirit of respectful, open discussion. I’m sorry if you interpreted my frankness as disrespect, that was not my intention; however, it does not justify your tone. I brought Brecht up because I was contextualizing Regietheatre which owes a great deal to Brecht as does modern theatre, as I have explained previously. I state very clearly in my profile that I believe opera is theatre. You are welcome to disagree with that, but to suggest that it is somehow irrelevant or a non sequitor in my argument is unfair and, again, very disrespectful. And I’m not sure I understand your use of “dramma per music”. Dramma per musica is a term that, in general use, refers specifically to Italian opera or opera seria, which has not been part of the conversation as far as I can tell. I am talking about music drama.
“Where, pray tell, did I ever….. ‘discourage people from pursuing new meaning’?”
Well, you seem to be opposed to alternative methods of seeking meaning or of approaching opera production (e.g. regietheatre and/or pursuing an intellectual/critical angle), the goal of which is to see new or alternative meaning. I’m sorry if I misunderstood. What do you think is the goal of regie and/or the critical approach?
“First of all, the belief that music is first and foremost an emotional art form is unique to Romanticism, and undermines all of the forms and technical aspects of classical music that do require a certain amount of intellectual engagement to appreciate. Fugues, etudes, any music that deliberately breaks compositional rules, atonality, etc”
The above posting suggests analyzing within the thinking process. But one can think
without analyzing…. Using the orgasm parallel as an example, one can think (fantasize) to enhance it without analyzing.
That is an important distinction. Thank you for bringing it up. I agree that analysis isn’t essential to appreciation – I’m an abysmal music theorist but am still an avid fan of classical music. On that basis I concede your point. I would argue, though, that in at least some of the examples I’ve cited, especially the fugue, the enjoyment or appreciation relies slightly more heavily on the form than the visceral impact. The interplay of the subject and answer is what makes a good fugue, and I think it’s a simple enough concept that even those who don’t wish to engage in analysis still draw some kind of intellectual stimulation from the form. You don’t have to know the rules of counterpoint to be impressed by a composer’s ability to successfully execute a fugue, just as you don’t have to know how build the Parthenon to appreciate the technical expertise it exhibits. The difference between a good fugue and a great fugue can certainly be made by emotional impact, but its primary goal is surely a feat of counterpoint.
Caitlin,
You wrote:
“Wagner … is an excellent example of a composer who expected his audiences to engage with certain philosophies and ideas through his work”
Not during the performance of the work he didn’t as I’ve already pointed out. Wagner was first and foremost a man of the theater and as a man of the theater he wanted his audiences to do nothing BUT feel during a performance, again as I’ve already pointed out. “Engag[ing] with certain philosophies and ideas through his work”… is something Wagner expected his audiences to do before or after a performance, NEVER during.
You wrote:
“Based on your Bach example, it seems like you are of the opinion that emotional appreciation of a work must exclude or supersede technical or intellectual appreciation…. I agree that a musical work’s ability to evoke an emotional response is important; my point is that it is not the sole purpose and goal of music, as you seem to suggest”
I suggested no such thing. What I suggested — what I asserted — is that… “opera [and music generally] is an artform intended principally to make audiences feel, not think,” to quote myself verbatim. That’s not at all saying what you above accuse me of saying or suggesting. And I stand by my assertion categorically other than the exception previously noted concerning composers and music of our modern era.
You wrote:
“This sentence [“Why you brought Bertolt Brecht into this discussion … is a mystery. We’re here talking about dramma per music, not Brechtian agitprop shit.”] is extremely disrespectful and unduly hostile. I’m sorry if you interpreted my frankness as disrespect, that was not my intention; however, it does not justify your tone. I brought Brecht up because I was contextualizing Regietheatre which owes a great deal to Brecht as does modern theatre, as I have explained previously. I believe opera is theatre. You are welcome to disagree with that, but to suggest that it is somehow irrelevant or a non sequitor in my argument is unfair and, again, very disrespectful”
The disrespect —- and the contempt — was directed not toward you but toward Brecht and his political theater for which one can never have too much disrespect or contempt. Bringing him and his work into this particular discussion was entirely inapposite as Brecht’s theater was and is a theater of WORDS and has little or no application to the theater of _dramma per musica_ where the dramatist is ALWAYS the composer, NEVER the wordsmith. And I know full well that… “Regietheater owes a great deal to Brecht.” That’s PRECISELY what’s so perverse and fatally wrong about it when applied to the theater of _dramma per musica_ as it is in Eurotrash Regietheater.
You wrote:
“And I’m not sure I understand your use of dramma per musica. Dramma per musica is a term that, in general use, refers specifically to Italian opera or opera seria, which has not been part of the conversation as far as I can tell. I am talking about music drama”
So am I. I use — and have for years used, here and elsewhere — the term dramma per musica_ in the same way it’s used by the great Joseph Kerman: to indicate a drama articulated through the agency of music — i.e., music-drama (which, not so by the way, is how the term is usually translated into English).
You wrote:
“[Y]ou [Mr. Tenzer] seem to be opposed to alternative methods of seeking meaning or of approaching opera production (e.g. regietheatre and/or pursuing an intellectual/critical angle), the goal of which is to see new or alternative meaning. I’m sorry if I misunderstood”
You did indeed misunderstand. But that’s OK. You’re not alone in that. The demonstrable fact is I’m not at all against… “alternative methods of seeking meaning or of approaching opera production.” What I am most passionately against, as I’ve made crystal clear here is the fraudulent practice of representing a Eurotrash Regietheater production of an opera (as opposed to a Regietheater production of an opera that makes an honest and earnest attempt to realize onstage in the most vivid and compelling manner possible the vision and concept of the opera’s original creator as made manifest in the score; music, text, and stage directions) as a production of the opera of the same name by its original creator when it’s in fact NEVER anything of the sort, not by any stretch.
You wrote:
“What do you think is the goal of regie and/or the critical approach?”
Please, let’s not go there or my prior comment on Brecht that you so objected to will begin to seem to you to have been complimentary. Let’s just leave it at this: the motivation or goal of a Regietheater Regie is his business and concern entirely and none of mine. My concern is with the end product exclusively which end product must speak for itself entirely and in its entirety.
Matthew Tenzer
Caitlin,
“I’m an abysmal music theorist but am still an avid fan of classical music”
A couple thoughts:
Knowledge of music theory is NOT the basis for aesthetic experience. What it describes is, but theory is the description, not the object. We still have the object without the technical data. We still have ears and we are still fully equipped to hear it. In other words, possessing knowledge of music theory and other technical matters does not correlate with a deeper aesthetic pleasure and love of music.
Of course emotion and intellect don’t operate independently of each other. There is some intellectual effort involved with what we deem emotional responses, and there sure are emotional colorations to what seem to be intellectual responses. I don’t however, think that emotion is EVER expressed through music “conceptually”, ie via an understanding of music theory which can “decode” an emotional message…. There is no such language to learn.
Yes, but the object is based on established rules of tonality, counterpoint, chord progressions, etc. Even pieces that do not follow these rules are generally deliberately breaking rules (or integrating new rules). Music in most (if not all) cultures has rules that it follows, and those rules shape the aesthetic experience. Moments of tension are created by subverting our musical expectations – we expect IV to resolve to V, delaying such resolutions creates a sense of longing, etc. I agree that it does not provide a “deeper” appreciation of the music or a more sensual experience, but I do think it provides a more comprehensive experience/pleasure.
I agree that there’s no specific language (D minor is the saddest key, suspensions mean melancholy, descending lines are depressing, etc.), but I do think our emotional response is related the mechanics of the music: where a melody is placed within the range of an instrument can create a sense of greater ease or strain, the delayed resolution example I gave earlier, shifting between modes and scales creates different effects. Technique and expression are directly related and inseparable, in my opinion.
Caitlin and others,
A very interesting discussion here! I have 3 questions.
1) Have you ever met anyone who regards opera as pure music without
any regard at all to the words, drama and visuals? In other words someone
who adores opera solely for the aesthetic value of the orchestral and vocal
sounds? Or to put it another way: someone who is solely interested in
exploring the expressive qualities of the vocal and orchestral web.
2) Have you ever met anyone who generally (and I stress the word
generally) prefers to experience opera at home via audio recordings as
opposed to hearing it live at the opera house?
3) Have you ever seen this type of opera lover shake his head and look on
with total bemusement at other opera lovers, critics and directors who
constantly fuss about productions and all stage business?
Thanks,
Nigel
Thanks for your questions, Nigel! They are good ones, and calling on specific, real-life examples is a good idea.
1. I don’t know anyone like that, personally. However, I do know people who value the music considerably more than they do the words or drama. I tend to feel that way about Hansel and Gretel and The Poisoned Kiss (though I had such hope for the latter as a piece of theatre!), but those are exceptions to my general feelings about opera. I wish I liked their libretti. But even the people I referred to, who think the value of opera as theatre is negligible compared to its value as music, have a one or two operas that they do like musically and dramatically. And I would hope they would know better than to think that the music truly has nothing to do with the libretto…
2. I don’t know any classical music fans (whether they prefer large symphonic works, chamber works, lieder, opera, choral works, etc.) who prefer recordings to a live experience, unless they know the live experience isn’t going to be a good one. I would rather spend $25 on a DVD of a good opera production than spend $45-$145 on a single ticket for a bad opera production (or a production that doesn’t include any singers I really want to hear live). The people from question 1 who prefer opera musically would still prefer to hear it live, I think. If you came to them and said, “We can either sit and listen to this recording of Deborah Voigt sing Isolde or go to the opera house and hear it live, but she will be standing in a dumpster full of sex toys, wearing a vinyl, magenta catsuit,” I think they would still prefer the live experience.
3. Usually the people from question 1 listen patiently while I fuss and offer a few observations interspersed with looks that seem to say “What did you expect?”
Of course, I’ve never met a question 1 person who would call themself an opera fan without qualifying that statement. They love some operas, but perhaps not opera in general. I don’t personally know any self-declared opera lovers or opera fans who only love the music. I’m pretty sure those people are a myth… (I hope so, anyway…) Do you know any?
What I like in opera depends on what I’m in the mood for, total engagement or as background music, and nothing pisses me off more than someone telling me I should do this or do that, or that I am inferior or lazy in some way if at some moment all I want is the musical experience.
Opera isn’t a religion, or a moral exercise or a test of intellectual superiority. It’s a multi layered art form that can be appreciated on many different levels, and sometimes just the music is enough, and sometimes I want a lot more, and sometimes I want it all. I don’t appreciate it any less one way or the other. Absolute music has it’s value, and some operas are musically superior to others. They just are.
Music can communicate drama just as intensly as words, and sometimes is can work on the subconscious in the background. All has its worth and value to me.
Yes, I agree, and I hope you don’t think I am telling you what you should think or that not taking a specific approach music/opera is “inferior”. As I have said, I believe the technical and visceral/sensual aspects of music are inseparable and therefore of equal importance. The gist of most of the arguments on this page is that taking an intellectual approach to an opera or music is somehow detrimental to the experience. I am not arguing against the validity of wanting an emotional experience from opera; I am simply arguing that wanting an analytical approach (whether in the music or the staging) is equally valid. Personally, I don’t really care if a production is traditional or regie as long as it seems to be the result of a careful, thoughtful process that delivers an effective and insightful interpretation of the story (however faithful or creative that interpretation may be). In my experience, neither approach is more likely to yield good or bad results.
I argue on behalf of the more controversial productions because I don’t think the traditional interpretations need defenders – they will always be around. They are the given circumstances and they are part of the text. When it comes to regie/experimental/avant garde productions, it always seems like the very concept of alternative interpretations and new approaches to productions is being brought into question. It is one thing to dislike particular productions (even a lot of particular productions), it is quite another to write off an entire approach to production. I’m not trying to tell anyone they have to like regietheatre productions or that their feelings and tastes are wrong; I simply ask that we not generalize. If we are more discriminating, more particular, and more constructive in our criticisms, opera will benefit as an art form.
Hi, Nigel.
Yep, I’ve encountered people who belong to all three of your categories. Opera is an art form that fosters strong passions, and opera lovers tend to be very particular about how they enjoy it.
Actually your three categories overlap a little. The opera lover who is in it for the music and doesn’t warm up to the theatrical aspects is fairly common. There are many opera lovers who relate to the art form almost exclusively through recordings, and there is the famous quote from Bernard Shaw who said that at the opera house he’d close his eyes and just listen to the music, refusing to look at the visual aspects and the acting (his argument is that if your imagination can’t do better than the stage director’s, then you have NO BUSINESS being there in the first place). These fans tend to compare best recordings, collect dozens of different versions, etc.
To each his/her own, but in my opinion, opera needs to be enjoyed live at the opera house. There is absolutely nothing like the beauty of the naked operatic voice (no amplification, no microphones) conquering those cavernous spaces, while the singer is also acting, dressed up in costumes and wearing make up, and interacting with props and sets, as long as it is competently done. Like Wagner said – the complete art work.
Opera in my opinion is by far the most sophisticated and complete expression of human art and human nature, and it is best enjoyed with all its elements. It is hard to stage opera flawlessly, and it’s really, really rare. But when it happens it is incredibly exhilarating! In the last two weeks I was lucky enough to have attended live two extraordinary productions that were both very close to perfection: Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House, and Maometto II at Santa Fe Opera. These were productions that in my personal rating system achieved scores between 98 and 100… They were competently rendered in every way, and to witness this degree of expertise and competent conducting, playing, staging, acting, singing, dancing, designing, illuminating, etc., produces peaks of pleasure that are incredibly powerful. Oh boy, opera is good!
I’d say, for instance, that The Ring of the Nibelung is *the* most beautiful piece of art ever created by a human being, throughout the entire history of our species. People seem to agree with me, since the Ring is the second item most written about (some 25,000 academic dissertations about it), the first one being the Bible.
But hey, nothing wrong with the introspective person who downs some high-end head phones and indulges the sheer beauty of operatic music, eyes closed, leaving the rest to the imagination.
Opera is great any way you approach it.
Caitlin:
Sorry for the long delay! I was away these past 2 weeks and had limited computer access.
Now to your questions:
***I don’t personally know any self-declared opera lovers or opera fans who only love the music. I’m pretty sure those people are a myth… (I hope so, anyway…) Do you know any?>>
Yes, that’s me. :-)
***Of course, I’ve never met a question 1 person who would call themself an opera fan without qualifying that statement. They love some operas, but perhaps not opera in general>>
Well now you have. I am that person though I will say that I’m not too keen about early Baroque opera in general.
*** But even the people I referred to, who think the value of opera as theatre is negligible compared to its value as music, have a one or two operas that they do like musically and dramatically. And I would hope they would know better than to think that the music truly has nothing to do with the libretto>>
We need to remember that no opera has ever remained in the repertory because it has a great libretto. It remains because the music is great.
I understand that probably a majority of operagoers need the ‘props’ of the libretto, staging and acting but I stand by my belief that the truest hardcore opera lover derives intense aesthetic pleasure solely from the glow and richness of the vocal and orchestral structure.
I totally agree with commenter Nigel above.
Opera is first and foremost a musical phenomenon. In opera the ESSENTIAL argument is posed in musical language.
Seriously, does anybody really believe that if the director were to take a backseat to the music, vocalists and conductor that this will encourage potential opera lovers to turn away?
Nigel, you raise interesting points, and of course I have lots of thoughts to share. However, I will try to be brief in answering your original 3 questions.
1. I know a lot of people who enjoy opera purely as music. I was introduced to opera via tapes and LPs and the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. It was only after learning to love the music that I got more interested in the other essential elements of music drama, i.e., text and story line (I am not a big fan of ballet, but that’s part of opera, too).
Marriage of Figaro is probably my all-time favorite opera. But if Beaumarchais didn’t write his play, and if da Ponte didn’t write a libretto based on the play, Mozart would never have written his beautiful, inspired, exquisite, genius music! That being said, there is much to enjoy in Mozart’s beautiful, inspired, exquisite, genius music without knowing anything about the opera itself!
2. I definitely know people who would rather listen to a CD than go to the opera. I personally hate crowds, so I understand. I listen to a lot of audio-only opera—complete recordings, highlights, aria collections, etc.—not to mention lieder recitals, orchestral, choral, and chamber music. (I am a big Mahler fan, too!)
One thing about opera that can be seen as a negative, both live and on video, is it really demands one’s full attention. And going to live opera involves money, timing, transportation, getting dressed; it’s way more convenient to enjoy opera from home—audio or video.
3. I have indeed—many times
Re: Music versus Drama
Wagner’s libretti are not worthy of their music. Needless to say the music is far deeper and more profound than the literary, political and philosophical ideas the composer was trying to express. He DOES express his views and ideas, and he DOES tell his stories, and he DOES use myths interestingly, but in general the music far surpasses these stories, plots and and ideas. As a literary artist he would have sunk out of sight long ago. I am grateful to his literary imagination for stimulating the musical ideas of the operas. There is ample evidence he could not write great music without literary ideas to fuel it. But I would no more highly honor the finished literary aspects of these works than I would eat the frying pan along with the omelette.
5 Reasons Why Traditional Opera Kind of Sucks:
http://reclassical.com/5-reasons-why-traditional-opera-kind-of-sucks/
Agree or disagree?
Thanks, Antonio! I’ll post my response in an actual post (since the About section is is getting HUUUUUGE). Keep an eye out – should be up tomorrow morning.
Caitlin,
Did you change your mind about the blog post?
I have not! This weekend ended up much busier than I expected. It will be up this week.
Oh ok, just curious.
Voila! https://goodbyeflorence.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/re-5-reasons-why-traditional-opera-kind-of-sucks/
Ok Caitlin. Thanks!
Caitlin,
This past June the Zurich Opera House staged Hindemith’s great work “Mathis der Maler”. There were 7 performances. The title role was sung by Thomas Hampson (his debut) and Daniele Gatti conducted. A real highlight on the opera calendar for sure and yet it received depressingly little coverage.
There was nothing in any of the main broadsheets (Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Herald Tribune). Not even the opera forums (i.e. Parterre Box) made note of the omission. But what is truly inexplicable to me is the fact that the 4 leading magazines — Opera News, Opera Now, Opera Brittania and the venerable Opera (UK) also chose to ignore it. There is not A SINGLE WORD on this major and rarely performed masterpiece or its star cast.
The website OperaCritic.com which usually provides about 10 reviews on average for each opera posted only 4 (yes 4!) entries. And these were mostly by freelance critics.
This entire situation is very weird.
Why does it seem like editors and critics wish to keep Hindemith’s great opera from receiving the exposure it so clearly deserves?
Thanks for your comment! I’ve written a response in this post: https://goodbyeflorence.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/concert-performances-at-le-poisson-rouge-and-mathis-der-maler-in-zurich/
Hi Caitlin,
Just for the record: my real name is ‘The Wistful Pelleastrian’. I used the screen name ‘Keleven’ here because I wasn’t sure if you’d respond to my missive/query.
Thanks.
Thanks for the update! I’ve seen you around Parterre. I meant to ask – why do you think Mathis der Maler (and operas/productions like it) doesn’t (don’t) get proper coverage? And if you could post your reply, if you choose to reply, to the blog post I wrote in response to your original comment, I would really appreciate it!
From the Columbia Spectator Mr. Browner writes:
“Opera is an art form that has the power to deeply move and captivate its audience, and despite the popular misconceptions, it is for everyone”
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/09/21/metropolitan-opera-provides-something-everyone
Contrary to what some young college students might think, opera is most definitely NOT for everyone.
Opera requires a degree of focus and concentration and a willingness to subsume oneself in the art form. Opera will never, ever be a medium of wide popularity. Its appreciation and love will always be confined to a relatively narrow segment of the population. Why? Because listening to and assimilating the great masterpieces requires a level of commitment and patience that most people are not prepared to give (or, more likely, interested in giving).
Also, the scientists who mapped the human genome say that ‘aesthetic perception and sensitivity’ is largely ‘programmed in’ (genetic). In most cases people come to an appreciation/love of the great masterpieces without getting it from their parents, teachers, or formal study and simply through exposure…. That sensitivity to music and opera is almost like an aptitude, you either have it or you don’t and therefore it is useless to assign blame or censure.
About Zachary Woolfe (opera critic at The New York Times)
I’m posting this not because I think many of us are really interested in this revival of “Il Trovatore”, but as a sample of Zachary Woolfe’s reviewing style. When we read that the Times was ditching Allan Kozinn to clear the way for Woolfe to be Anthony Tommasini’s successor as the paper’s chief classical reviewer, I was dismayed – not only at the loss of a seasoned and reliable reviewer, but that of all the classical music reviewers the Times
might have chosen for this prestigious job, they appear to have fastened on Woolfe. Read the review and judge for yourself.
Apart from being badly written – “ardent muscle” ?! “Il balen” a “longing monologue” ?! – and a major lapse in a professional reviewer’s decorum – the word “fabulous” is fan talk, not serious critical writing, Woolfe’s using only a performance from last season as a benchmark for assessing this one is callow and possibly ignorant.
Maybe this breezy style of writing speaks more to the current tastes of the Times readership. Who knows. I am not in a position to judge. This review would not be out of place in a college newspaper but this is the ‘Newspaper of Record’. Where are the great critics (not an oxymoron) of the past? Andrew Porter, Pauline Kael, Michael Steinberg, GBS. Even Winthrop Sergeant (who I cut my teeth on), despite his lack of musical sophistication, wrote with a certain elegance and grace.
Sign ‘O the Times (no pun intended).
Woolfe may well need an editor with some red pencils to circle the following, among others, in the review Ulyana mentions:
1. the performance was in a deep, delicious groove,
2. gloriously extreme plot,
3. peering into fevered thoughts.
And then, of course, there is Mr. Hughes-Jones’s “ardent muscle”, which Woolfe seems to have some knowledge of.
This kind of exuberance sounds more like a not very dim undergraduate from a good school, and can be easily remedied; but it is almost impossible to disabuse a reviewer from a style that relies on everyday collocations and cliches and twitterspeak. Woolfe may well represent a generational change some of us boomers will simply have to adapt to. The alternative is not to read him, which seems to be the trend at the New York Times which reported a loss of 27 cents a share.
Margaret
Caitlin and others:
The “power” of a given opera has everything to do with the music (rarely discussed on opera blogs today), and the archetypal impact of the narrative as expressed by that music, and much less to do with scenic contrivances (or the seduction of a particular demographic)
From an editorial in The New York Times this morning June 23:
“Mr. Gelb estimates that full-time chorus members earn $200,000 in salary and $100,000 in benefits, including nine weeks off with full pay”
You are right, Caitlin…. This IS excessive.
Things cannot continue this way at the Met.
And here is the link: