CommentNov06 - Page: 1 of 1

More and more opera companies are resorting to lowering ticket prices to attract larger audiences to their productions. The Met did it, and San Francisco Opera, last month, announced that it was going to be doing it as well. Tickets at SF that normally sell for $185 for an orchestra seat can now be had for $50. Of course there are strings. Regular seat holders are not going to give up their prized viewing locations out of the goodness of their hearts. Still, it’s worth a try.

It’s worth a try, but we’re a little skeptical that it will work as hoped -- or that it’s even wise.

Until you find a way to cut the cost of producing opera, cutting the income that helps produce it only shifts the burden to contributors to give more, and few of the smaller regional companies we know of can do that -- and even if they could, would staging something like Previn’s melodically challenged “A Streetcar Named Desire”, for example, turn on or turn off younger audiences? We think the later is closer to the truth than the former. Good music still plays a major role in what survives and what doesn’t, and if you want to attract a new, younger audience, opera and musicality have to be more synonymous. That’s something for composers, conductors and those who commission new opera need to think about.

Three years ago we talked about the opera audience in a feature article, titled, “Did opera bypass the X Generation?” (Archives) In that piece we noted that the opera audience was likely to be limited indefinitely because of its very nature. The reasons are myriad: it’s sung in a foreign language, not all tunes are melodies, and the image of opera – not as a pastime of the rich, but as a predilection of snobs, is at least partly deserved. As for price being a factor, well it’s hard to believe that price is really what is keeping audiences from breaking down the doors. Still, it’s possible, even though high ticket prices don’t dissuade people from paying for popular Broadway productions, do they?

We have followed this issue closely here at OperaOnline.us and have offered a number of suggestions to grown the base, such as presenting younger, fitter singers; promoting new productions that are actually melodic – and shy away from the so-called challenging works that appeal to the hauteur but leave most others in the audience dry; using marques and theater lobbies to show off what is occurring inside; phasing out countertenor and pants roles, substituting in their place more contemporary sounds that are more realistic to younger audiences; and lastly, timing operas to take advantage of favorable press and then using good press to promote the remainder of the shows. The latter is something we never see anywhere, and it’s worth asking, why?

For many in the opera world, it’s still just about voice; everything else is secondary. And while we agree that voice is important, it is not the end all in the search for a wider audience. We are convinced that a combination of things as outlined above is one sure way to expose younger people to what is going on inside a theater. We noted last month, the need for some promotional video, too. Something that could be used in schools to excite young audiences.

We observed that, “younger people today have to overcome a lot more ambivalence [about opera]. [See, September Commentary: “Reaching out to a younger audience”]. Still, rather than dumbing down opera, young people should be encouraged to reach out and appreciate what it is that the musical style is all about – a goal which opera companies all across the United States take seriously. Tomorrow’s audience may be small, but it will be loyal, sufficient, and if we nurture it correctly, it will grow and expand because smart growth will be based on preserving what exists, while looking for new operas that show promise of longevity, thus adding to the growing opera base. This means more, not less, good music.”

It’s a point that can’t be stressed enough. Many new operas, often the very type we criticize here as being too modernistic and “challenging” (something other critics swoon over), are commissioned, produced and staged, then disappear and become part of the obscure repertory, trotted out occasionally, then shelved when the audience doesn’t show up. What a waste of time and money. These operas add nothing to the base of the twelve or so operas that audiences have been enjoying for years.

So, yeah, lower ticket prices help, but paying heed to the music offered is likely to yield a greater harvest if done right and started sooner rather than later. See below.

Look, we like James Levine. When he conducts, you just feel that he has a special grasp of how things ought to sound. With deft direction it’s a fair bet he’ll bring any orchestra he is conducting along with him, eliciting from every musician as near perfection as one is likely to hear.

Even so, Mr. Levine, can err – and bringing to Boston, or anywhere else, Arnold’s Schoenberg’s horrendous opera “Moses & Aron”, is a monumental blunder, no matter how effusive the critic’s praise of Schoenberg’s artistic, modernistic genius is. The praise and irony of it all was exemplified last month by Jeremy Eichler of the Boston Globe who wrote on the one hand that this was “some of the most urgent and vital music that he [Schoenberg] ever composed,” while acknowledging on the other hand that the piece was “seldom performed.” And that brings us to the point. Why is it seldom performed? And if it's seldom performed for a reason, we ought to know what that reason is.

As for the score itself, it thrills conductors, and Mr. Levine is one who thinks highly of it. It taxes musicians and singers, since there is little in the way of coherence in the score itself. To perform it you have to read the music, adhere to its internal markings and watch the conductor. In our judgment, it’s a good rehearsal piece for those very reasons, but as to whether it should ever be performed before a general audience, that’s another story.

Symphony Hall had a good crowd, a patient audience, the night Mr. Levine conducted this piece. Most, no doubt, came for the celebrity of it all, others probably came because they wanted to attend a BSO concert, still others – well, maybe there are some who actually like this stuff. But that’s not the point either. If you want to bring audiences in to listen to an orchestra or hear a concert version of an opera, it is the audience that should be paramount, and outside of the few who like to experiment with sound, most want to be entertained, thrilled and moved by what they see and hear. It’s a fair bet that few left the hall after the performance thinking they got the better end of a night out -- even if Maestro Levine was thrilled.

It’s not the musicians or singers, and it’s not the conductor, it’s the music that falls flat here – and music directors have to understand the importance of that point. Not all do. Mr. Levine has marked out his territory in Boston and said he wants to energize the base and expand the audience by bringing new and exciting works to the audience. Taxing that audience with this Schoenberg piece is not the way to spike the growth curve; it is the way to kill it and drive audiences away. We find it hard to believe there are no other little-performed operas or symphonies that the BSO couldn't have brought to the stage.