Rumors of Opera's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

How do you make opera relevant for a modern audience? Honestly, I think it’s a phony question.

Conventional wisdom says that opera is a dying art form, that the audiences are aging and shrinking. But that’s not borne out by the facts: over the past half-century, opera in America has grown exponentially in popularity, from two opera houses in 1952 to 114 professional companies in 43 states, which give nearly 3,000 annual performances attended by 6.6 million people. American opera audiences grew 8.2% from 1992 to 2002, the largest audience increase of all performing arts disciplines.

The repertoire has greatly diversified. Fifty years ago, Handel was deemed hopelessly obsolete: now it’s standard fare. Fifty years ago, you couldn’t have found a production of Idomeneo to cancel.

Does this mean opera’s continued popularity is secure? Hardly. Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater, wrote in October’s Metropolitan Opera Playbill, “Opera is still vital, still magnificently compelling. But like everything else in life it must proceed with caution as it advances into the 21st century.”

For some, that means making opera “relevant.” I confess, I just don’t think that’s either a good idea, important, or even, in many cases, possible. Il Trovatore, with its disaster of a plot, wasn’t relevant when it was new in 1853, and never will be. But it is a lot of fun when it’s well-cast. Wagner’s Ring, with its near limitless interpretive possibilities, will never not be relevant.

Those who are interested in seeing opera kept alive must be realistic: opera isn’t for everyone, anymore than baseball or bungi-jumping or blogging or any other pastime. We also should not be concerned about the median age of the opera audience: opera tends to be something people come to appreciate later in life; go back and look at historical photos of the audience at the Old Met in its heyday: everyone’s old.

That’s not to devalue arts education or youth outreach programs. People need to be exposed to opera, and we need to keep emphasizing that opera isn’t (just) fat ladies in horns. But we also do opera a disservice when we try to pretend that The Magic Flute, a treatise on wisdom as profound as the Ring, is a kid-friendly cartoon opera.

Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s new general manager, says, “In order to support the timelessness of the great operas, we must keep pace with current theatrical ideas and innovations when staging them.” This is true, but that doesn’t mean pasting external ideas onto existing operas in order to make them “relevant,” which is what happened with the Berlin Idomeneo. If Hans Neuenfels wanted to express his opposition to organized religion with an opera production, he should have picked Don Carlo.

Playwright John Guare agrees: “Opera to me works as the highest form of theater when everybody involved – the composer, set designer, cast, director – are all telling the same story.”

So how do we keep opera alive? Bishop is correct when he writes, “Music is the art form that comes closest to expressing that which is inexpressible.” That’s a strength that needs to be emphasized. But he also astutely notices “the athletic requirements of classical singing.” Opera needs to be compared not just with other forms of theatrical entertainment, but with sports. Opera fans reminisce about Corelli and Tebaldi the way sports fans talk about DiMaggio and Mays. Semiramide might not be relevant, but “Bel raggio lusinghier” is certainly athletic, and if Tristan is a marathon, Violetta is something of a triathlon.

Opera also needs better PR. We can start by reclaiming the word “diva” from pop-culture, where it refers to any bitch with a CD. Divadom is part temperament, to be sure, but one gains the title through artistry. Diva emerita Beverly Sills says talk shows should feature opera singers as regular guests and performers. “There are plenty of interesting artists around with interesting stories to tell.”

Opera can be many things: funny, tragic, fascinating, profound – even relevant. But if you want to keep opera alive, stop telling people it’s dead.