[Hogwash]

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).

1. Orchestras should-whenever possible-invite one of the lead singers from a forthcoming opera series to fill out a program with a aria or two to give the Symphony’s audience a taste of what’s coming.

2. Major Orchestras should host-at a large outdoor venue-a free opera from time to time. Perhaps not on an annual basis but whenever corporate sponsors are willing. People show up when the price is right.

 

[KenL]

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.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

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.

 

[Steatopygous]

1. Orchestras should-whenever possible-invite one of the lead singers from a forthcoming opera series to fill out a program with a aria or two to give the Symphony’s audience a taste of what’s coming.

2. Major Orchestras should host-at a large outdoor venue-a free opera from time to time. Perhaps not on an annual basis but whenever corporate sponsors are willing. People show up when the price is right.

Our orchestra does several free concerts a year, and my youngest son - dismissive of opera - goes whenever he can. His tastes are gradually maturing.Not saying he'll ever love opera, but he is appreciating classical music far more.

 

[Steatopygous]

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.

Very well done. A practised exponent of the Steatopygous principle! 🤣

 

[relm1]

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.

 

[Woodduck]

Let kids hear it and sing it before they learn they're not supposed to enjoy it.

Shirley di Lammermoor.

 

[Woodduck]

Exactly! I have told this story more than once but for those who haven't read it ... I once took a friend to a peformance of Gotterdammerung (!!) at a regional opera company and he loved it so much that he insisted that we take a trip to see a complete Ring Cycle done in one week.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[Woodduck]

I love modern operas, and I think the unconventional, ‘ugly’ if you will (although some are supremely beautiful), music and timbres suits the strange vocal production that most modern singers adopt far better than Verdi and Puccini. I think that for modern operas, and contemporary music in general, to gain popularity the entire industry would need a big rethink, concert etiquette thrown out the window, venues transformed, new audiences targeted... Maybe I’m somewhat with Boulez that we should be burning down the opera houses, but not to lose the artform forever, but just so we can start again with something fresh. No problem with old repertoire being performed, especially if we have performers who can do it justice, but ideally I’d want a culture where the majority of the music being performed was contemporary, such as it was in the times of Bellini and Donizetti. Maybe then the obsession with shredding up composers intentions to modernise the old repertoire could be overcome too and when those works were staged we could have them performed as they were meant to be, with voices which reflected the requirements of the music. Wishful thinking, I guess.

I wish I could believe in a world where opera is a living art, but the wish is by now mostly theoretical and disinterested. Fifty years ago I wondered with a sense of urgency and personal investment where music was going and what opera, among other arts, would be like in the next century. I'm sad to say that not much has emerged to inspire in me either excitement or hope. I listen occasionally to new operas, but however interesting may (sometimes) be the sounds they make, they rarely suggest to me that the craft of dramatic writing is alive and well. Composing music for opera is most definitely a craft, a complex craft, and it needs the continuity provided by a thriving community of composers sustained by avid audiences. It also needs a basis in a musical idiom understood and embraced by those audiences outside the theater. Both of these cultural conditions survived well into the 20th century, though with diminishing strength after WW I. Neither condition exists today. The line is broken, the grand tradition shattered, and composers with operatic ambitions have to scavenge among the detritus, picking up shards that they can piece together into some sort of collage that they hope audiences will perceive as coherent, compelling and - hope against hope - enduring. As I sit here, undoubtedly having outlived the musical culture that created and sustained me, I haven't a word of encouragement to offer. The young will have to figure it out, if that's possible.

 

[arpeggio]

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.

 

[Woodduck]

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.

What do you consider a "modern" opera? During how long a period have the operas you're speaking of been composed? The Ghost of Versailles was written 43 years ago. How many operas composed since then, successful with audiences, still in the repertoire, and performed with any frequency, can you name? By contrast, how many operas composed in the 43 years between 1840 and 1883 fulfill those conditions?

The existence of a relative handful of viable operas written in the last half century doesn't suggest to me that the art form is alive and well.

 

[schigolch]

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.

 

[Steatopygous]

I was aiming for "irony" - Sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit and I do have unusually high standards to maintain... but you're right, there actually is a lot of truth to it... which, in itself, is also kind of ironic as I make it a rule to never allow veracity to get in the way of the telling of a good tale...

Oh! Are you a journalist too?

 

[relm1]

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.

 

[schigolch]

I listen to many new operas, and I'm local only to Madrid.

Youtube is a great tool for that. Also, quite a few are released commercially. There are other, let's say, more circuitous ways too.

Which was the fantastic premiere you watched on that PSB channel?.

 

[pianozach]

What do you consider a "modern" opera? During how long a period have the operas you're speaking of been composed? The Ghost of Versailles was written 43 years ago. How many operas composed since then, successful with audiences, still in the repertoire, and performed with any frequency, can you name? By contrast, how many operas composed in the 43 years between 1840 and 1883 fulfill those conditions?

The existence of a relative handful of viable operas written in the last half century doesn't suggest to me that the art form is alive and well.

There are plenty of new operas. You might think that there aren't as many as in opera's "heyday", but you might be wrong.

The L.A. opera is presenting El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego (2022) and The Book of Mountains and Seas (2021) as part of their 2023/2024 season.

This season the San Diego Opera included El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego and the world premiere of three one-act operas by Nicolas Reveles (a collection titled "Ghost").

San Francisco Opera has Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1946) on the schedule this week (OK, almost 70 years old, but fairly young in Classical Music framing). In September they're performing Mason Bates' The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (2017). In November they're presenting Omar (2022), by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Music this year.

These are the large operas near me, although there are plenty of small groups presenting operas as well, they just cannot afford to present operas without name recognition.

Last year 28 new operas premiered. I cannot vouch for any of these operas' inherent "worth" to the genre, but Opera is certainly not dead.

This year 14 new Operas have premiered so far.

In comparison, a hundred years ago, in 1923, only 5 operas premiered (including Die heilige Ente and Ciboulette).

Two hundred years ago, 1823 saw the premiere of only 6 operas (including two from Schubert - Rosamunde and Fierrabras, and one each from Rossini (Semiramide), Donizette [Alfredo il grande], and Carl Maria von Weber [Euryanthe].

In comparison, we are experiencing a wealth of opera.

 

[Woodduck]

There are plenty of new operas. You might think that there aren't as many as in opera's "heyday", but you might be wrong.

The L.A. opera is presenting El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego (2022) and The Book of Mountains and Seas (2021) as part of their 2023/2024 season.

This season the San Diego Opera included El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego and the world premiere of three one-act operas by Nicolas Reveles (a collection titled "Ghost").

San Francisco Opera has Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1946) on the schedule this week (OK, almost 70 years old, but fairly young in Classical Music framing). In September they're performing Mason Bates' The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (2017). In November they're presenting Omar (2022), by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Music this year.

These are the large operas near me, although there are plenty of small groups presenting operas as well, they just cannot afford to present operas without name recognition.

Last year 28 new operas premiered. I cannot vouch for any of these operas' inherent "worth" to the genre, but Opera is certainly not dead.

This year 14 new Operas have premiered so far.

In comparison, a hundred years ago, in 1923, only 5 operas premiered (including Die heilige Ente and Ciboulette).

Two hundred years ago, 1823 saw the premiere of only 6 operas (including two from Schubert - Rosamunde and Fierrabras, and one each from Rossini (Semiramide), Donizette [Alfredo il grande], and Carl Maria von Weber [Euryanthe].

In comparison, we are experiencing a wealth of opera.

Sure, there are plenty of new operas. I wouldn't doubt it. The most important statement in your post is "I cannot vouch for any of these operas' inherent 'worth' to the genre." Can anyone?

The world's population has increased nearly tenfold since 1800. America was hardly more than a frontier in 1800. No surprise that the absolute quantity of operas exceeds that produced two centuries ago. But the operas you named for 1823 are mainly by composers whose works we still enjoy. Do you think no other operas were created, whether or not they received productions in the few theaters equipped to produce them?

The world is presently full of vast quantities of everything. Someone has said that 90% of everything is junk. When it comes to the arts, that's quite conservative. This subject can't be reduced to a numbers game, and a flawed one at that.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

There are plenty of new operas. You might think that there aren't as many as in opera's "heyday", but you might be wrong.

The L.A. opera is presenting El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego (2022) and The Book of Mountains and Seas (2021) as part of their 2023/2024 season.

This season the San Diego Opera included El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego and the world premiere of three one-act operas by Nicolas Reveles (a collection titled "Ghost").

San Francisco Opera has Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1946) on the schedule this week (OK, almost 70 years old, but fairly young in Classical Music framing). In September they're performing Mason Bates' The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (2017). In November they're presenting Omar (2022), by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Music this year.

These are the large operas near me, although there are plenty of small groups presenting operas as well, they just cannot afford to present operas without name recognition.

Last year 28 new operas premiered. I cannot vouch for any of these operas' inherent "worth" to the genre, but Opera is certainly not dead.

This year 14 new Operas have premiered so far.

In comparison, a hundred years ago, in 1923, only 5 operas premiered (including Die heilige Ente and Ciboulette).

Two hundred years ago, 1823 saw the premiere of only 6 operas (including two from Schubert - Rosamunde and Fierrabras, and one each from Rossini (Semiramide), Donizette [Alfredo il grande], and Carl Maria von Weber [Euryanthe].

In comparison, we are experiencing a wealth of opera.

I never knew the extent of this nor it's historical comparison, but I spend my money on the ones before 1930. I find the new ones make good stage works for the most part but I don't want to listen to them again at home or in the car in recordings. That is just me. There are a couple of notable arias like Marilyn Horne's big aria from Versailles and Fleming's Ain't it a pretty night from Streetcar, but not much else has caught my attention.

 

[Op.123]

There are plenty of new operas. You might think that there aren't as many as in opera's "heyday", but you might be wrong.

The L.A. opera is presenting El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego (2022) and The Book of Mountains and Seas (2021) as part of their 2023/2024 season.

This season the San Diego Opera included El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego and the world premiere of three one-act operas by Nicolas Reveles (a collection titled "Ghost").

San Francisco Opera has Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1946) on the schedule this week (OK, almost 70 years old, but fairly young in Classical Music framing). In September they're performing Mason Bates' The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (2017). In November they're presenting Omar (2022), by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Music this year.

These are the large operas near me, although there are plenty of small groups presenting operas as well, they just cannot afford to present operas without name recognition.

Last year 28 new operas premiered. I cannot vouch for any of these operas' inherent "worth" to the genre, but Opera is certainly not dead.

This year 14 new Operas have premiered so far.

In comparison, a hundred years ago, in 1923, only 5 operas premiered (including Die heilige Ente and Ciboulette).

Two hundred years ago, 1823 saw the premiere of only 6 operas (including two from Schubert - Rosamunde and Fierrabras, and one each from Rossini (Semiramide), Donizette [Alfredo il grande], and Carl Maria von Weber [Euryanthe].

In comparison, we are experiencing a wealth of opera.

The list for 1823 appears only to be operas which have remained somewhat in the repertoire or have some importance. I have a feeling the true number would be a lot higher, there are even some important enough to have libretti written by Felice Romani by composers such as Francesco Sampieri, Carlo Mellara, Feliciano Strepponi, Michele Carafa and Stefano Pavesi.

The problem isn't so much that new works aren't being written, they are, and many fine ones, but often they get one run and then nothing. And we're still waiting on recording of major works like Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur and Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland.

 

[Aerobat]

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.