I've heard people say "Opera is dead" or "Opera is dying." Its very sad if that's the case. I think people's stereotypes about Opera are keeping them away from it. It seems like they think its too elitist, too boring, too old, etc. which is absurd. Opera is far from boring.
Isaiah90
If we can revive good technique and once again have singers like Gigli, Ponselle, Tebaldi, Callas, Gobbi it would go a long way.
Nice plan. But how do you plan to hide all of the people who currently "love" opera so the others would buy it? 
That hasn't worked out so well for symphonic music. Modern operas that people have enjoyed are far and few between. Our local opera company commissioned and produced a new one several years ago - Riders of the Purple Sage - that did pretty well but hasn't spread throughout the opera world. No recording or DVD. It's tonal and very listenable and utterly unmemorable. So many opera composers write ugly music. Writing an opera is a very difficult thing and it seems to me few composers out there have the background in writing for voice combined with a sense of drama. We don't have the likes of Wagner, Puccini, Verdi and Britten anymore. Opera has to be intelligible to the listener and maybe that's why Broadway musicals are more popular than ever. Plus, the operatic style of singing is really annoying for many people; they've gotten so used to pop voices (many are excellent btw) that they can't take a trained voice.
Bring back gorgeous traditional staging and truly magnificent singing. Have classical music in music classes for children in school from kindergarten.
This will amaze you, Isaiah90, given our discussion on your other thread, but I think the best way to encourage opera is for people to see it, to actually go. People I have taken who are seeing it for the first time are sometimes overwhelmed by the richness of the experience (not always, though). It's the same with an orchestra - many people have no idea of the power and richness of an orchestra, the senstivity and all the other virtues, until they actually go. Again, I am proud to have introduced many friends to the orchestra.
Biggest hurdle for opera is that it really must be seen live. It doesn't transition well to CD. Aural-only playback lacks on-stage visual and drama. (On the other hand, listening to a performance by a string quartet may actually sound better at home with headphones than live.) Perhaps the growing popularity of large-screen TVs will be good news for the advancement of opera as an art form. Putting Met productions on big screens around the country also is good idea.
I have successully introduced quite few people to Opera using different techniques.
Then again, I have also many failures, using the same techniques.
In the end, the important thing is to get exposed. And then, it's up to the individual. Opera is not dying, there are thousands of performances every year, and also a sizable number of new operas are being written each and every year. Anyone can check that in the Contemporary Opera thread.
Then again, I have also many failures, using the same techniques.
In the end, the important thing is to get exposed. And then, it's up to the individual. Opera is not dying, there are thousands of performances every year, and also a sizable number of new operas are being written each and every year. Anyone can check that in the Contemporary Opera thread.
I agree with many of the previous comments. The fact is, the classical music tradition we all love is DEAD, just like Elizabethan blank verse drama is dead, though Shakespeare will live forever as will Mozart and Verdi and Wagner and Puccini and a few others. Yet the modern prose drama is alive and well. People continue to write, produce and enjoy them. The theater has its own canon of modern classics. It's still a LIVING ART. Modern musical theater is also a living art but its products are called Musicals rather than Operas. I'm not a big fan of musicals though there are some good ones, but whether I like them or not is besides the point. It's still a living art that many people enjoy. The few contemporary operas I've seen, mostly from opera broadcasts shown on PBS, seem stuck in a time warp of early 20th century modernism that wasn't much liked even then, even if it produced an occasional masterpiece like Wozzeck. Speaking of which, a recent history of opera by Carolyn Abbate and Robert Parker has a chapter on contemporary opera. They mention a 2012 work Written on Skin by George Benjamin that has won considerable acclaim. (I don't know it.) They have this to say:
"Wozzeck and Written on Skin sound in many ways rather similar, even though separated by nearly a century. But Wagner in the 1850s was not writing operas that people extolled by saying they wonderfully evoked or significantly resembled works from the 1750s. Tristan does not sound like late Handel or early Gluck."
Unless opera composers evolve some contemporary vernacular that appeals to a large number of people it's going nowhere.
"Wozzeck and Written on Skin sound in many ways rather similar, even though separated by nearly a century. But Wagner in the 1850s was not writing operas that people extolled by saying they wonderfully evoked or significantly resembled works from the 1750s. Tristan does not sound like late Handel or early Gluck."
Unless opera composers evolve some contemporary vernacular that appeals to a large number of people it's going nowhere.
Opera to me is a niche within the broader classical music world, and could be argued an "acquired taste." That being said, exposure is usually a consistently effective way to develop new fans of a genre, composer, piece, etc. - and I think economics and how music is produced/consumed are working against Opera in many ways. Producing them isn't cheap, the impact of digital music platforms has hindered classical music access in general (mainly by providing a deluge of alternatives that people ARE used to vs. giving them a reason to branch out).
I was more a casual classical fan (other than choral, which has always been a personal love of mine) until about 3-4 years ago. What changed it for me was going to see live classical music performances and experiencing it. I can tell you that there's little to no access to operas in compared to more "mainstream" classical here in Philly, and I've been LOOKING to go see Opera. Browse Apple Classical / Apple Music's classical section - there's not even a ton of vocal music in general, never mind opera, save for "songs" (a la Schubert etc.) that can be performed/recorded with a single soloist + a few musicians.
To try and summarize my perspective better: there's just not enough opera being performed, which in turn leads to not enough of it being exposed to casual fans (which could in turn make them enthusiasts). Less exposure = less demand. Less demand = less incentive to produce/distribute the pieces.
Just one lay person's viewpoint.
I was more a casual classical fan (other than choral, which has always been a personal love of mine) until about 3-4 years ago. What changed it for me was going to see live classical music performances and experiencing it. I can tell you that there's little to no access to operas in compared to more "mainstream" classical here in Philly, and I've been LOOKING to go see Opera. Browse Apple Classical / Apple Music's classical section - there's not even a ton of vocal music in general, never mind opera, save for "songs" (a la Schubert etc.) that can be performed/recorded with a single soloist + a few musicians.
To try and summarize my perspective better: there's just not enough opera being performed, which in turn leads to not enough of it being exposed to casual fans (which could in turn make them enthusiasts). Less exposure = less demand. Less demand = less incentive to produce/distribute the pieces.
Just one lay person's viewpoint.
I did 20 opera appreciation talks to my two Toastmaster Clubs and put them all on Youtube. I got 10 people who never had been to opera before to go with me to the Seattle Opera.
I think it is very important audiences connect with the subject. Germanic myth isn't that universal but great themes and experience. In contrast, John Adams operas premiers sell out because they are very interesting contemporary yet dramatic subjects. Plus of course you can rely on very good arias and moments.
I have lost my patients with those who claim that classical music of any form is dead.
I have seen several modern operas that were awesome.
Some examples:
John Corigliano's the Ghost of Versailles
Heggie composed an effective Moby Dick.
John Adams has composed two opera that are frequently performed: Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic.
The final aria of the first act where Oppenheimer, "Batter my heart, three person'd God; For you", is singing to the bomb is very tonal and dramatic.
I can think of many others. How many do we need?
I can deal with a person who may dislike the music.
It is frustrating to deal with those who think that if they do not like something it is bad.
Just because I dislike Verdi and Wagner does it mean that their operas are bad.
I have seen several modern operas that were awesome.
Some examples:
John Corigliano's the Ghost of Versailles
Heggie composed an effective Moby Dick.
John Adams has composed two opera that are frequently performed: Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic.
The final aria of the first act where Oppenheimer, "Batter my heart, three person'd God; For you", is singing to the bomb is very tonal and dramatic.
I can think of many others. How many do we need?
I can deal with a person who may dislike the music.
It is frustrating to deal with those who think that if they do not like something it is bad.
Just because I dislike Verdi and Wagner does it mean that their operas are bad.
From long experience, I would say contemporary (rather than modern) opera is anything written in the last 40-50 years. The age of the genre is now well over 400 years, so we need to take some perspective.
I have good news, the art form is alive and well.
During the last decades we have had also the full recovery of a big part of opera heritage, the Baroque period. That was mostly lost, except for a handful of pieces, that were not even correctly performed in many cases.
Even within the Mozart-Puccini historical period that many fans and general managers adore, there have been quite a few neglected operas that were given a new opportunity.
Today there are many new operas, but then again there were many more new operas were written in the past. Just one example, in the early 19th century there were hundreds of new operas each year. How many of those operas written in, let's say, 1831, are performed today?.
In 2022, and still officially recovering for COVID in some countries, according to Operabase there were 15,000 performances of different operas, in different places (the actual number of performances was much bigger, as they are counting Turandot at Teatro Real, for instance, as 1, while there are several performances offered during one month)
So you see, Opera is not going to disappear tomorrow. More probably, our grandchildren will still continue to discuss about that, fifty years from now.
I have good news, the art form is alive and well.
During the last decades we have had also the full recovery of a big part of opera heritage, the Baroque period. That was mostly lost, except for a handful of pieces, that were not even correctly performed in many cases.
Even within the Mozart-Puccini historical period that many fans and general managers adore, there have been quite a few neglected operas that were given a new opportunity.
Today there are many new operas, but then again there were many more new operas were written in the past. Just one example, in the early 19th century there were hundreds of new operas each year. How many of those operas written in, let's say, 1831, are performed today?.
In 2022, and still officially recovering for COVID in some countries, according to Operabase there were 15,000 performances of different operas, in different places (the actual number of performances was much bigger, as they are counting Turandot at Teatro Real, for instance, as 1, while there are several performances offered during one month)
So you see, Opera is not going to disappear tomorrow. More probably, our grandchildren will still continue to discuss about that, fifty years from now.
One important challenge with getting new music adopted is it's virtually impossible to hear it. Let me explain. If you aren't in the local area of the premiere or can't afford the $100+ price, you have no option. Sometimes, very rarely, a major blockbuster might get a broadcast on tv but if you missed that, you can't order it, there isn't a commercial release, you really have no options. One time while visiting my mom, I was watching tv and on their PBS channel, they broadcast a local orchestra performance that included a premiere and was fantastic. I only saw the last minute of it and no way to hear the work. At times, I've reached out to the composers who simply said, not available. So you have very, very limited options to actually hear new music if you aren't local to where it premiered and happened to catch it.
There is one other thing that we need to do to get more people loving Opera. It's big, it's important, and this forum is failing spectacularly in it.
Stop telling people that modern singers are no good, and that no-one today can sing. Not only does this put people off, it's simply not true. There are plenty of strong voices ou there today, and audiences gain a lot of pleasure from their performances. But....
If this forum was my only source of information regarding Opera, I wouldn't bother going to a live performance, or buying any recordings, because according to this forum it's not worth it. If we want the art form to continue, it needs to be encouraged, not derided by some of it's biggest fans.
Stop telling people that modern singers are no good, and that no-one today can sing. Not only does this put people off, it's simply not true. There are plenty of strong voices ou there today, and audiences gain a lot of pleasure from their performances. But....
If this forum was my only source of information regarding Opera, I wouldn't bother going to a live performance, or buying any recordings, because according to this forum it's not worth it. If we want the art form to continue, it needs to be encouraged, not derided by some of it's biggest fans.
The general public don't listen to what a bunch of random people on TC say, they listen with their ears. The general perception of opera is ugly singing, wobbly, throaty, out of tune, no beauty. Telling them that this is what great singing is just seems elitist and snobby. No wonder people are put off and would prefer popular music where at least voices generally sound natural and attractive. If we want people to go to the opera it is imperative we see a technical improvement. If we want opera to survive, then catering for the current audience of those that like this unconventional vocal technique or, far worse, believe that operatic singing should be ugly and difficult and that finding pleasure in it is a sign of developed taste, will make it a struggle to find new audiences. That operatic singing nowadays is throaty, wobbly, effortful etc. is not a subjective argument. Many, many singers show these traits and whether you like it or not it is far out of touch from all other singing traditions including the old operatic tradition, musical theatre, pop music and the classical traditions of many other cultures world-wide. Telling people to enjoy what they've got when the artform is already something many people feel out of touch with is in no way helpful. If we want this artform to survive we need to start understanding that people want attractive, 'natural' sounding singing and that wobbles, copious amounts of constriction, artificial darkening etc. have no place in good singing. I am fed up of people defending poor singing just because it's "operatic" and "great art". Let people enjoy what they want, but if you want new audiences you gotta cater for the people who aren't interested in opera just because it's the "great Western tradition" regardless of whether the singing is at all beautiful or impressive.
The operas by George Benjamin, John Adams and Brett Dean have had multiple performances. Of course staying power won't be known for another 10 or 20 years.
How do we get more people to love the opera? Are numbers even important at this point?
Anyway, I'd suggest dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. Let's say we 'commission' Kanye West to write an 'opera' about his rise to stardom. Of course, this won't really be an opera as we know it, but a tired, drawn out collection of beats and cliches. I bet a lot of kids would gobble it up.
Anyway, I'd suggest dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. Let's say we 'commission' Kanye West to write an 'opera' about his rise to stardom. Of course, this won't really be an opera as we know it, but a tired, drawn out collection of beats and cliches. I bet a lot of kids would gobble it up.
So these are only the operas composed in 1823 to libretti specifically by Felice Romani.
Gl'Illinesi by Francesco Sampieri
La voce misteriosa by Carlo Mellara
Chi fa così, fa bene by Feliciano Strepponi
Abufar by Michele Carafa
Francesca da Rimini by Feliciano Strepponi
Egilda di Provenza by Stefano Pavesi
Again, these are all from 1823 on libretti solely by Romani. In fact many of his libretti became the basis for three, four, or even five operas by various composers. It is also worth noting that the population was considerably smaller at the times these operas were being produced and that there are inevitably many more with libretti written by others from the same year in Italy. This was obviously a time when the operatic tradition was flourishing. To say that operas nowadays are bad and that the status of new works has remained the same since the early nineteenth century is silly.
Gl'Illinesi by Francesco Sampieri
La voce misteriosa by Carlo Mellara
Chi fa così, fa bene by Feliciano Strepponi
Abufar by Michele Carafa
Francesca da Rimini by Feliciano Strepponi
Egilda di Provenza by Stefano Pavesi
Again, these are all from 1823 on libretti solely by Romani. In fact many of his libretti became the basis for three, four, or even five operas by various composers. It is also worth noting that the population was considerably smaller at the times these operas were being produced and that there are inevitably many more with libretti written by others from the same year in Italy. This was obviously a time when the operatic tradition was flourishing. To say that operas nowadays are bad and that the status of new works has remained the same since the early nineteenth century is silly.
I have seen many topics like this.
Based on my experiences it appears that it is very difficult to make someone like something that they dislike.
Based on my experiences it appears that it is very difficult to make someone like something that they dislike.
When discussing her mentor, the poet Milton Kessler, Camille Paglia mentions the profound impact that Kessler’s readings of his poetry had on her and touches in passing on the limitations of opera’s appeal:
“[For Kessler] Poetry was music-drama. I recently learned that Kessler studied voice and opera as a young man and had even been a spear carrier at the old Met. This explains much of his impact on me. Italians invented opera. It is our way of living and reacting to the world. In opera, emotions fill the body. Italians experience emotions in sensory terms, as if it were something eaten, drunk, or poured over the flesh. Long ago on TV, Dick Cavett said he didn’t like opera; he didn’t ‘get it.’ As I looked at his small, thin body and large smirky, Ivy League head, I said: yes.”
“[For Kessler] Poetry was music-drama. I recently learned that Kessler studied voice and opera as a young man and had even been a spear carrier at the old Met. This explains much of his impact on me. Italians invented opera. It is our way of living and reacting to the world. In opera, emotions fill the body. Italians experience emotions in sensory terms, as if it were something eaten, drunk, or poured over the flesh. Long ago on TV, Dick Cavett said he didn’t like opera; he didn’t ‘get it.’ As I looked at his small, thin body and large smirky, Ivy League head, I said: yes.”
There is a link to a second opera called “Mary” by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West): Mary by Ye.
And, if it is insufficient to satisfy your curiosity, the full link to the Nebuchadnezzar opera is also included: ”Nabucco” by Ye.
I am sure that you all will appreciate my effort to provide you with the full performances.
And, if it is insufficient to satisfy your curiosity, the full link to the Nebuchadnezzar opera is also included: ”Nabucco” by Ye.
I am sure that you all will appreciate my effort to provide you with the full performances.
Answer to the post question:
Allow the new, young and inexperienced opera cynics to explore on their own without relying on so many self-proclaimed experts who, in detail, expound on how it should be done and in so doing tend to confuse the original positive thinking of the listeners who only know they like what they hear -- right or wrong -- and would like to explore more of the same on their own without viewing opera as a snob art that so many currently turn their backs on.
Allow the new, young and inexperienced opera cynics to explore on their own without relying on so many self-proclaimed experts who, in detail, expound on how it should be done and in so doing tend to confuse the original positive thinking of the listeners who only know they like what they hear -- right or wrong -- and would like to explore more of the same on their own without viewing opera as a snob art that so many currently turn their backs on.
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