Thursday, September 06, 2007
NY Opera looks to minority audiences
Reuters: "Keeping opera alive in the age of the Internet and hip hop is no easy task, so when Donna Walker-Kuhne seeks to convince black Americans to come to a show, she dares not open conversation with the 'O' word."
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2 comments:
I love the idea of opera as a contemporary art embracing the American experience. Opera definitely has the reputation of being European, and these initiatives are really exciting. Arts that have generally been out of reach to minorities definitely need to reach out. Especially with the growing hispanic population in the United States, I think it's really important to be inclusive if the art wants to survive. How can opera be part of the "American Experience" if it's only about or for a portion of the population? Art has to explore and embrace every level of culture to be successful, to be meaningful, or to be true.
How much money the government spends on the classic art forms like opera or the ballet hardly matters. If there's nobody coming to see it, the form will die. And there's got to be a way to revive them like dealing with some comtemporary issues and popular ways to approach the audience. The ticket prices are another reason why people take opera more difficult. For me personally, the ballet is the most abnormally hardest thing to understand. But I try to support it, just because I need to. But other audiences wouldn't care.
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