Comment_Saving_Opera - Page: 1 of 1

Over the past few years a number of opera companies closed their doors. Others cut back performances as the New York Met.

Early December, 2009, it was announced that Washington National Opera plans to cut staff, reduce the number of shows it performs, freeze salaries and impose rolling furloughs. Just a few days later, in December, we learned that Los Angeles Opera so overextended itself with lavish spending for the Ring Cycle ($32 million for a stage production that will likely never be used or rented) that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors had to step in with a bridge loan of $14 million to keep the company afloat and prevent the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion from closing its doors.

The trend is downward, but entirely predictable. We have been warning about it for years through our various commentary and articles. We have repeatedly added a voice, often dismissed, to the mix suggesting ways to reverse the slide. As we see it, there is no single reason that stands before others for the decline, but rather a systemic and entrenched mindset that resists change and seems to welcome its own self destruction.

We start with the obvious: staging opera presents unique obstacles. It has never been what you might call a profitable enterprise, although singers, musicians, conductors and others have made very profitable careers from it. Opera almost never carries its own weight. It needs donors, big donors; it needs subsidies; but most of all it needs a larger audience.

Let’s compare two forms of live stage performances: opera and Broadway. Broadway shows have suffered during the recent downturn in the economy, but not like opera. Broadway shows come and go, but when there is a failure in one show, for whatever reason, other shows are created that replace them and those shows seem to do very well.

Opera, to an extent, follows the same trajectory: the staples survive and always seem to attract audiences, but their run is shorter because the audience is smaller – and audience share is a large part of the problem. It’s economics 101. The opera audience seems static and bad opera is often replaced with new bad opera. The chic rule and the avant garde, the hauteur of the opera world, never seem to relent in their pursuit of opera that offends the ear. Melodic opera to them is so pedantic, so amateurish, so – let’s face it -- beyond them – that they don’t commission or write it.

They not only insist on reviving melodically challenged opera, but they commission new expensive opera that arrives with great hoopla and then disappears. Then you have major companies like Los Angeles Opera spending an astounding $32 million to stage a Ring Cycle that easily could have been staged more modestly and less foolishly (have you seen the costumes?). Opera needs a breath of fresh air, it doesn’t need silliness or extravagant costuming that borders on silly and obtuse.

This stubborn trend to make opera unpleasant in pursuit of being stylish or satisfying the hauteur burdens the old audience and kills off any chance younger people will want to give it a try – and if they do give it a try, come back again and again.

Everything from trouser roles, which cast women in men’s roles and countertenor parts to the cost of large orchestras, needs to be reconsidered – as do some contracts. Technology exists that can lessen the number of musicians needed

to create the big orchestral sound, and that technology should be used, even at places like LA and the MET. Composers need to be sought out and told that their commission will consist of solid melody in addition to whatever else they wedge in chromatically. Costumers have to place egos behind story and use costumes to place the audience in the right state of mind. Peter Sellars' DVD Julio Cesar was outright offensive with a masturbating Cleopatra and a bikini clad Cesar. What was he thinking, or not thinking as the case may be. And large expenses, such as LA’s revolving stage, that probably ate up a large share of the cost of that production need to be scrapped.

Directors and conductors need to take a look at what they do and use creative intellect to take out or modify – yes, even from great works -- to fit what modern audiences want to see and hear. Solid drama or comedy, solid singing, smart costuming and set design, and direction that respects the performer and the audience need a rebirth and a new respect from those who produce opera. Bring on the melody and give us new opera that matches the old, and yes, even surpasses it.