Great Stories, Bold Vision Will Keep Opera Grand: Comment
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-30/great-stories-bold-vision-will-keep-opera-grand-comment.html
Having survived my seventh season as general manager of the
world’s largest opera company, I have recently been traveling in Europe, assessing singers and overseas productions, and
negotiating to include some of them -- like the brilliant new Salzburg Festival
production of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg” -- in the future
artistic plans of the Metropolitan Opera.
With the economic crisis bringing Europe
to its knees, leaders of opera companies over there are being forced to think
more about their audiences than ever before, as government subsidies are cut
significantly back.
Of course, we in the U.S. don’t have this problem, since we
have hardly any public subsidies to begin with -- which is why our government
hopefully will not reduce the tax benefits for our loyal donors any further
than it already has.
Opera dwarfs its descendant, the for-profit Broadway
musical, in its epic scale and grand musical ambition. Unlike Broadway, with
its comparatively small, amplified pit orchestras, opera musically goes for it
all, boasting hundreds of orchestral musicians, choristers and star singers to
perform together in staged spectacles that defy financial logic.
In order to avoid becoming a cultural dinosaur, opera must
continue to attract an audience that will not only buy expensive tickets, but
also make generous donations. (Last year alone, the Met raised $150 million in
contributions to balance its budget.)
Sophisticated Extravagance
Reinterpreting the classics with a new breed of opera stars
who possess acting skills to go with their high C’s, and guided by conductors,
directors and designers at the top of their game, we at the Met aim to offer
extravagant yet sophisticated entertainment.
Of course, most of opera’s past success was based on its
ability to entertain audiences, which should be self-evident to anyone who has
been moved by the tragic circumstances of Verdi’s “Otello” or tickled by the
comic relief of his “Falstaff.”
But today the notion that high art can also be entertainment
is anathema to those who think that genius is not suited to accessibility and
that opera presentations should be a Spartan exercise.
This concept has potentially threatened opera’s very
existence, resulting in the staging of some operas over the last several
decades that misguidedly deconstruct familiar plots, thereby depriving
audiences -- particularly new ones -- of the satisfaction of being able to
follow the original storylines.
Infamous Jester
That’s how “Rigoletto” came to its infamous German
production, where the action was set in a post-apocalypse “Planet of the Apes”
world, with most of the singers, including the Duke of Mantua, in ape suits. It
is also how a recent Dusseldorf
production of “Tannhauser” ended up being set in a gas chamber. (In the wake of
protests, it was quickly cancelled.)
Now, with global finances for the arts tightening like never
before, a reality check is in order. Since opera is an art form that depends on
the positive response of the public and on attracting new audiences, it’s not a
good idea to turn off either. Audiences are not going to spend hundreds of
dollars on tickets to be confused or insulted.
Pinning ‘Butterfly’
In 1904, when Puccini’s original two-act version of “Madama
Butterfly” was met with stony silence at its La Scala premiere, Puccini
immediately went back to the drawing board to re-work it. The following season,
“Butterfly” returned triumphantly in a new version that the public found highly
entertaining.
Verdi, too, worried about the size of his audience,
believing it to be the single most important factor in judging the success of
his compositions. Both Verdi and Puccini rejoiced in knowing that their most
appealing arias were hummed outside of the opera house in the main streets of Italy, a
popularity meter of the times.
Opera cannot exist in a vacuum. While experimentation is
essential, we must also have the widespread support of the public, particularly
when we have thousands of seats to fill in the larger opera houses. (The Met is
the biggest with 3,800 seats.)
It is possible for a single work of performance art to
achieve success on more than one level, appealing to both the experienced
operaphile and the newcomer -- if the storytelling is good.
Director’s Theater
Fortunately, there have always been creative stage directors
who are up to the challenge, unafraid of the potential backlash that sometimes
accompanies a lucid staging.
Before the late Anthony Minghella directed his stunning
“Madama Butterfly” at the English National Opera and at the Met (the first
production I presented in 2006), he was asked by a skeptical critic, “What are
you going to do to ‘Madama Butterfly?’” In response, Anthony said, “I’m not
going to do anything to ‘Madama Butterfly’ except tell the story.”
Minghella’s breathtakingly beautiful production went on to
become a huge hit in London and New York. Even the
critics loved it.
In our most recent season at the Met, Tony Award-winning
director Michael Mayer staged “Rigoletto” in a 1960’s neon-lit Las Vegas
setting that resonated with traditionalists as well as the uninitiated because
the story, though updated, clung faithfully to the plot.
The court of the misogynous Duke was moved from its
16th-century Mantua
palace to a 20th-century casino. With its spectacular self-illuminating sets, it
was opera delivered as high-minded entertainment for a 21st-century audience.
Although the Rat Pack might not have approved of seeing
their antics depicted on our stage, I’d bet that Verdi would have been pleased
by our packed houses. As he once said, “Opera of today will also be the opera
of the future.” Our job is to be true to Verdi’s word.
(Peter Gelb is the general manager of the Metropolitan
Opera, whose 129th season opens September 23 with Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene
Onegin.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
Muse highlights include Jeremy Gerard’s Fall Preview, New
York Weekend.
To contact the writer of this column: Peter Gelb at generalmanager@metopera.org
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela
Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.