ComOct05 - Page: 1 of 1

Now I know how “Lucy” felt on the “I love Lucy” show, standing in the kitchen when Ricky entered and, discovering that his wife did something that needed explaining, calls across the room: “Lucy, you have some splaining to do”.
A good friend once told me that the first person who has to explain onesself in a debate loses. And so now I have to explain why in our “Best Of” category for the 2004-2005 season we awarded a “Best Performance in a comprimario role” to singers who didn’t technically fit into the category of “comprimario”. They’re not comprimario roles, we heard from a number of readers who reminded us that some of these roles are considered lead roles. Yes, we agree! Scarpia, for example, is a major role that probably has more stage time than Cavaradossi. And maybe we were being too picky when we denominated the role as “comprimario” for the purposes of which we meant it.
Here’s the explanation:
The intent was to try to separate lead singer from another lead singer but in a “secondary” role. It seems, in opera, there is a precipitous drop from lead singer to maids, servants, and then supernumeraries – and no one in between. Good for the ego, but hardly descriptive. Everyone who either doesn’t carry a spear or chirp like a bird is a lead. Dah! Not hardly! Hence, our attempt to ask what and who is the opera about? Tosca is about the fated relationship between the painter Cavaradossi and the singer Tosca AND the evil Scarpia – certainly a major role in opera. The role, to us, serves as the counterpoint to the story – albeit a strong one, but counterpoint nonetheless. So, for our recognition, we made the distinction. The problem is, we did it before just about anyone else in the opera world acknowledged there is a need to redefine the definition of comprimario. So we’re right and everybody else is wrong? No! We were simply trying to acknowledge outstanding performances that served to make the strong counterpoint to the main story, and we called the singer charged with the duty of singing that counterpoint, a comprimario, closing the gap between lead characters and secondary characters and widening the gap between comprimario and supernumeraries. It seemed to us there is something missing. And that’s why we called a comprimario as we did. Frankly, we think it makes sense.
For the true opera buffs, that answer is not satisfactory. We stepped outside the line. After all, there’s one’s dignity. Again, there is no disagreement here. But since we defined what the parameters were for naming one singer a lead role and the other a comprimario or secondary role, we ask singers to take no offense. We promise, not to deviate so far from the norm next year. We’ll stick closer to the definitions as most people understand them, while holding fast to our belief that not everyone can have a lead role, even if they can have a major role. This year, we ask singers to understand that the awards and nominations we issued should be taken in the context of “secondary leads” as we defined them: comprimario.

If you listen to the hauteur, new operas are supposed to be cutting edge, imaginative, challenging and different. Music, we are told, is not supposed to be tuneful, comfortable, metrically steady, melancholic, pleasant or, worse, conveyor-belt predictable. That’s why Europe, which produces a lot of new operas, is state funded. Nobody wants to pay serious money to fund new opera with music that sounds dissonant, chaotic and unpleasant. Like those who dabble in experimental jazz, outside a small circle of critics and gullible fans, the audience is too small to make the effort worthwhile for a major tour. The fact is, there are a lot of operas produced each year, and many get a chance to be heard. But how many of them make the top ten or fifteen operas produced by opera houses around the world? And why are there so few? Is it that the hauteur is right and we’re all wrong? Should the sound challenge us? Irritate us? Be chaotic and have an unpleasant dissonance to it, such that we walk away shaking our heads? If the opera audience is to grow, those who compose need to grow with it and challenge themselves to write melody that wraps itself around its audience and draws each into the mystery and power of music that exists less on music sheets than in our minds. If that’s pedantic, so be it. Bring it on. Until the bias against writing beautiful music runs its course, expect to see new operas produced and then die by the wayside for lack of an appreciative audience.

A recent article by Jeannine Stein in the Los Angeles Times, titled, “The opera’s on a grand scale, but not the diva”, was yet another acknowledgement of something we have been saying for years: weight matters BIG TIME to the new opera generation.
Readers of these commentaries know that for years we have been urging opera companies to cast their lead singers with an eye on fitness, not just voice, if they want to pack opera halls.
“The days of the fat opera singer are waning,” the article began, describing the workout schedule of 38-year old former gymnast and mezzo-soprano opera singer Milena Kitic. “Opera has become an increasingly visual medium,” Stein continued, “because of the influence of television and film, and directors want singers to look the part, not just sing it.”
Ironically, it was the cancellation of Deborah Voigt’s performance as Ariadne from the London Royal Opera House’s production of “Ariadne auf Naxos” that served as the catalyst for rethinking the place of “fat lady” in contemporary opera – something that was never really considered as little as five years ago. While many an opera opinion-maker found the firing repulsive and said it would have been preferable to fire the director, some of us argued, and still ague, that casting “fat lady’s” in leading roles is just plain foolish. Audiences today do two things very well: they hear AND see, and because of the changing times, what the contemporary audience wants to see is close to what it expects to see. We reiterate, voice matters, more so when recording than in an opera hall – but it matters. Having said that we just assume that when a company selects a singer, that company is listening closely and chosing singers wisely. But if all a company does is listen but not look, as well, it is only deceiving itself. Here at OperaOnline.us we take what we believe is a responsible position on the issue. We comment on weight when we see it and write about it when it seems to interfere with the believability of the performance. We never ridicule. If the future of opera is the younger generation, and if opera companies want that audience to grow, singers have to slim down and opera companies have to understand and appreciate its importance to a production.