CommentMay07 - Page: 1 of 1

This month we begin a new phase of OperaOnline.us, one we hope will attract singers who want to have their profiles listed somewhere other than on “My Space,” “U-Tube,” or any of the other free sites offering space for postings of resumes and profiles.

Why this as opposed to other sites?

We can think of four compelling reasons: The first reason is obvious: would you rather say, “I have a resume on “My Space.com” and then hope someone can find that space amidst all the other stuff, or would you prefer to say, “I have a page on OperaOnline.us”? If you sing opera, the choice seems obvious. Secondly, OperaOnline.us brings people in the opera world to you – or at least to a place where you can posit something about yourself. Third, we layout and design your web page with us and then update your page as you ask on a regular basis. We can even include a sound bite. Lastly, Fourth, every month OperaOnline.us grows and attracts new readers, and this has to be good for those who list with us, and we make a link to singers a priority by including the link directly on our front page. Lastly, there are no membership requirements to visit our site. Anyone can visit and see what we have to offer, and we can promote singers who list with us, too, with individual profiles – at no extra cost.

So, there you have it. It’s a new venture, we intend to keep it around, and we invite singers to list with us, and make our website the place to posit your home page.

If you hope to expand the opera base, the argument goes, you need to (A) expand the repertoire by commissioning new pieces that (B) will attract a younger audience, while (C) holding the base you already have. It’s rather evident. Alex Reedijk, general director of Scottish Opera sees the need, as equally as Met GM, Peter Gelb.

“We absolutely must expand the opera repertoire by adding new creations that are of high quality in terms of music, libretto and staging,” Reedijk told Kenneth Walton in a recent interview with “living.scotsman.com.” And Gelb’s view is no less definitive: “Opera will be off into the sunset,” he was quoted recently in a UPI story, “unless something is done. That’s why I feel justified to mount the campaign I’ve mounted to jumpstart the younger audience.”

The fact is we can all agree on the need to expand the base; the only question is this: expand into what? If you look at the English National Opera example of the political mockery passing off as art with its new production of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” where satire has turned into cynicism and ugly invective hurled at world leaders, having them dance drunkenly in their underwear on stage. Robert Carsten has described his new production as “deadly political and social satire.” On the other extreme, Gelb gave us the perfectly hideous and musically challenged “The First Emperor,” as of this writing, at least, has curiously refused to revisit the piece to give the audience something to bring home in terms of melody. Neither approach, in our view is likely to help.

We have a suggestion to save opera, meaning how to expand the repertoire and attract a new, younger audience: Instead of producing smarmy, tasteless political diatribes and obtuse musical excursions into the annoying and abstract, both of which do little more than feed the self-centered individual egos of directors and composers, why not include in the mix of those who will have a final say over what pieces get commissioned and which do not, a few voices that demand solid stories, moral purpose to a story and – and dare we say it -- pleasing musical composition?

We’re terribly old-fashioned in that regard, but we actually believe it will work. You want younger people lining up to see new opera, give them a solid production, a good story, and music to take away and cherish.