The Washington Post: The summer of 2019 has been a fraught one for opera. In June, diva soprano Anna Netrebko came under scrutiny not only for her use of skin-darkening makeup to sing the role of Verdi’s Ethiopian princess Aida but also for her blunt defense of a practice that has been widely discredited. This month, the legal battle between the Metropolitan Opera and its one-time music director James Levine — which began when the former fired the latter last year after accusations of sexual misconduct — quietly ended with a settlement. And last week, nine women accused superstar singer and conductor Plácido Domingo of sexual harassment over the past 30 years.
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The Met is certainly the center of the author’s focus, and it could be considered the top of the American opera production pyramid. In a sense, they have the power to provide leadership and set the tone for what opera in the U.S. can or should be. However, there is quite a lot of other opera happening around the country that this article barely alludes to, and only as “fringe” productions. While this article espouses the inflammatory argument that opera as a whole needs to die and be reborn as something else, it is really specifically talking about the Met. This discussion of the Met’s usefulness and viability is not new. It is also fairly widely known that they are struggling to stay afloat, and the only way they can continue to put on shows of the same scale is to please their subscriber base. In any case, letting the Met die is not letting opera die. Due to the exorbitant costs of producing even a lightly staged concert, “fringe” opera producers are having to get creative and approach opera with new methodologies. They are finding new ways for opera to exist.
The Met is certainly the center of the author’s focus, and it could be considered the top of the American opera production pyramid. In a sense, they have the power to provide leadership and set the tone for what opera in the U.S. can or should be. However, there is quite a lot of other opera happening around the country that this article barely alludes to, and only as “fringe” productions. While this article espouses the inflammatory argument that opera as a whole needs to die and be reborn as something else, it is really specifically talking about the Met. This discussion of the Met’s usefulness and viability is not new. It is also fairly widely known that they are struggling to stay afloat, and the only way they can continue to put on shows of the same scale is to please their subscriber base. In any case, letting the Met die is not letting opera die. Due to the exorbitant costs of producing even a lightly staged concert, “fringe” opera producers are having to get creative and approach opera with new methodologies. They are finding new ways for opera to exist.
Opera is certainly something that I have always legitimately wondered how it made so much money. I guess the fact that everything is rented, but rich people continue to give to opera institutions and tickets are expensive. The Met is an interesting frame with which to view “saving opera” because while it is certainly regarded as the pinnacle of American opera. This discussion being posed of how the Met is failing to stay afloat and engage an audience of a younger generation is not in any way new. Their theory of letting opera die is one that I don’t think that I really agree with. I think that opera producers need to allow their production teams design with creativity, and the public needs to provide the space for a new animal to come of that. Imagining an opera that is not the usual extravagant and luxurious production is a rather difficult thing to do, but I feel like that, due to expectations and pressures, we are not given space to explore anything other than that, but imagine how exciting it could be if we did.
I feel like this is the same old conversation that any art movement has to face. If you are not constantly growing or innovating then what is going to get people to come out and see it? I mean that’s not just an art problem but a business problem and the business of Opera for a long time has been supported greatly by the upper class of society and been embedded in tradition and ideas that honestly have been going out of fashion for decades. Starting and trying new things is hard but it takes baby steps sometimes allowing freedom for artist to work within these old and sometimes out dated pieces is the first part of that and then you can start growing and developing what the ideas of “New Opera” are it doesn’t have to die for Opera to reinvent itself, it just needs to step back and think in the world it performs.
I wonder if instead of letter Opera die, maybe it should be the Met that dies. I love Opera. I listen to it often. I’ve been to it many times over and would go willingly again and again. The problems that the Opera world is facing currently is not new, they have just been kept hidden (such as the issues in Hollywood) for a long time. In order to fix a problem, you must first acknowledge that a problem exists in the first place. The Met so far has swept issues under the carpet and “quietly settled” with people over accusations. There has been no change at the top and there likely won’t be until the subscriber base (who are providing the money) starts demanding the change. It is entirely possible to stage Opera without offending a race, class, or other group of individuals. Opera singers come from every race, gender, creed, national origin. Why must the leads always be white? Why can’t you modernize the story of Aida? Is it because the subscribers will stop coming? Maybe they will, but that just means that you can start producing work that reaches a new generation of subscribers. Instead of letting Opera die, the Met (and other institutions like them) need to stop, reset, take a step back and shift focus on producing those lesser known works, you know, the ones on the fringe and start to bring in a whole new generation of lovers of Opera.
While the popularity of opera may be waning that doesn't necessarily mean it is time to abandon all visions and inspirations drawn from the classics in order to make a push forward into the modern age. Giovetti proposes a rather hurried and extreme solution to a very long-standing problem. Her introduction which mainly focuses on sexual harassment among the giants of opera felt very out of place when taking into consideration the rest of the article and her claims. To fault all of opera based on the acts of a few that practice it is rash and insensible. Giovetti aims to tear down everything about the standing opera. The traditionalist values of the current viewers, the corrupted talent that makes up the core performers, the 16th-century designs, and the star focused shows. And while it is important in any art field to grow and change and diverge into non-traditional pathways, that is not any reason to stop performing and appreciating the classics. Giovetti has her heart in the right place as she talks about overhauling the opera scene and making it relevant to today's audience but the way in which she approaches it is so extreme that I as a reader became far too critical of and offput by her every word.
I think the analogy of "wearing the same wedding dress every day for the rest of its life" captures what the author is seeing in this industry. Every art form has its own tugging and pulling between the past and the future, which is one of the reasons why when you look back at any form of art you'll find an incredibly diverse history. Music, for example, changes so often that using the decade which a piece was written is starting to be too generic to categorize modern music since the turn of the 20th century. Now, should that same amount of development apply to opera as well? I, for one, love seeing new and creative takes on operas since they capture the timelessness of the stories and the music written long ago. But at the same time, I understand and admire preserving the works in their original form. I think the industry needs to find that balance between old and new that other art forms are constantly reworking to ensure that they reach their audiences and inspire them. I think it is akin to an art museum: it is lovely to see these masterful paintings done long ago in their own right, but if every museum in the world only supported Renaissance ere artwork, they too would struggle to find captive audiences. Both the respect for the classics and appreciation for modern works found in museums could really benefit the opera industry.
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