I was reading an opera review the other day that started out: "In each of the fifteen different productions of Richard Strauss's Frau ohne Schatten I have attended..."
First thing: I hope he's either getting paid for that, or single. Second thing: I've never seen Die Frau ohne Schatten, but accounts indicate it isn't the composer's masterpiece. My most trusted opera guide (Matthew Boyden's Rough Guide to Opera) speaks of a score more than three and a half hours long, "moments of profound obscurity teetering on pretentiousness," and "pages of painful dialogue punctuated regularly by tumults of ravishing song." If a Strauss fan has seen this 15 times, how many times has he seen Salome? Eighty?
The rest of the review is erudite, historical, comparative, and, for someone like me unfamiliar with Schatten or Strauss, inscrutable. I don't mean that as a criticism; that would be selfish. I imagine such a review serves a Straussian well. Here's my criticism: opera doesn't have enough of any other kind of review.
Opera is operating right now in a vortex of inaccessibility. Classic operas are performed so often that the conversation about them is dominated by subtleties. Newer operas are dominated by music appreciated mostly by experts. And opera in general is all but neglected except in the specialty press. It's as if cuisine were limited to 200 ancient recipes plus molecular gastronomy, and you could read about it only in Gourmet. How would anyone know what to eat? More important: how would anyone get a sense of the joy of eating?
Until opera penetrates back into popular media and culture - and I believe, perhaps naively, that this can happen - allow me to advance, on behalf of opera lovers newly made and opera lovers yet to be, these humble requests to opera reviewers everywhere, even as they bring their intellect and experience to bear:
- Say what the story is about.
- Give the drama as much attention as the music.
- Imagine you're seeing it for the first time, then...
- Tell us if it moved you.
I'll try to do the same, at least in this small space.
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