CommentJuly06 - Page: 1 of 1

Readers of these Commentaries know by now that we here at OperaOnline.us have argued repeatedly to end the practice of casting women in men’s roles (Cherubino and Prince Orlofsky to name two of the better known) and eliminate the practice of casting countertenors where, in each case, a tenor would not only do, but do much better – especially with younger audiences.

The practice of castration may have produced strong male alto voices in the Baroque period (1600-1750) when women were prohibited from singing on stage and males routinely took on the persona of female characters to the delight of audiences. But when Giovanni Battista Velluti made his farewell performance in 1825 in Meyerbeer’s “Il Crociato” most thought the practice of casting this style would end with it. Women would take to the stage, assume the alto range and male tenors would reign in the higher register for men. Mozart and Gluck took it upon themselves to write and, in some cases, re-write their scores (Mozart in 1786 rewrote the role of Idamante in his “Idomeneo” from woman to male tenor, even though the Met chose to recast the part in its 1982 production with the very female Frederica von Stade singing Idamante).

Interestingly, while casting men as women disappeared from the stage, the practice of casting women as men is as common – and curious – as ever.

A recent production of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” by Opera Boston saw the same gender bending decision when it cast Christine Abraham as the sword-yielding, menacing gang leader, Maffio Orsini.

Much of the blame here goes to those who make the decisions to cast productions. They cast what they think is artistically appropriate, or what the composer wrote when the style being written was in vogue, but has long since passed. If there are other reasons for these casting decisions we are unaware of them; enlighten us.

Until then, we here at OperaOnlne.us, think such casting decisions are outdated and actually harmful to opera in the Twenty-First Century. Contemporary audiences -- and we look here to the next generation of opera audiences -- who see a level of realism in every other medium except opera, will not accept as real a style that was even odd in the Baroque days. Gender-bending roles are awkward vocally and even more awkward visually. They present the ear and eye with something that is unreal and quite preposterous in some situations and for this reason should be abolished for good.

Several months ago we wrote about the fame that followed a clever decades-old TV commercial by American Express featuring a very talented, very heavy, outgoing and gregarious tenor by the name of Luciano Pavarotti. The brief TV spot quickened the inevitable movement of Pavarotti to international stardom. Pavarotti’s managers translated the name recognition (“Hello, do you know who I am?”) into a bankable commodity, not just for the singer, but for every opera hall and auditorium Pavarotti headlined.There’s a lesson here. Pavarotti’s name, meant money in the bank for opera companies.

More and more we see singers taking excerpts from reviews we do here and using them on their personal pages to promote themselves; in still other cases we see opera companies taking those same quotes and using them on their own pages when they want to promote the production they are featuring. It’s all smart business. But there is still reluctance from opera companies to take full advantage of the press their singers bring with them and capitalize on it by using what they are freely given to its greatest advantage. It’s almost as if companies see their role of promoting themselves as separate from promoting who is singing in their performance. There’s very little fusing of the two into a single whole. Broadway has learned decades ago that marques are for more than simply announcing a new production; they are a vital link to the passing public, a means of communicating some of the excitement others felt for what is occurring inside.

Opera lags in this regard, and as we have written in this publication in the past, big and small opera companies miss a golden opportunity to market their productions when they fail to take advantage of all the press attached to the singers. The simple truth is: there’s gold in third party endorsements – magazine, TV, radio, newspaper and Internet. Opera companies that fail to take advantage of what is offered, are foolishly missing an opportunity that is clearly in front of them.

A June commentary in “The Brooklyn Rail” by Linnea Covington touched on a theme we have been writing about for years: opera’s decline among young people. Opera audiences, she wrote, seem to be growing in one area, and one area alone: age. Worse, she notes, many of the new operas being written lack anything even resembling melodic music. “”Composers are not writing operas that people want to hear; they are very contemporary and they don’t generate enough interest. New operas often do draw crowds initially, but they don’t have a follow-through. People simply don’t have a desire to revisit them”.

Much of the blame for so many melodically challenged new compositions is due to composers who write for themselves and hauteur critics who simply swoon over anything they believe is above the public’s ability to understand. Surprisingly they have much of the opera world convinced they are right. Nonsense!

The best of operas survive and are played over and again because they contain good solid scoring based on thematic compositions that endear and endure because of their musicality. Our archives are filed with commentaries and articles on this subject and we suggest that before any new work is commissioned, those doing the commissioning lay down a few rules – not the least of which is a reminder to the composer that “It’s the music, stupid”, not the ego that brings in audiences and is the future of opera.