Opera Rat: The Blog

IS OPERA TOO LONG, OR ATTENTION TOO SHORT?

Commenters on the BBC Radio 3 message boards didn't take strong issue with the assertion here that the opera is too damn long, but implied the problem lies not with opera, but with us. Said one:

"The electronic media have totally transformed our expectations and demands, haven't they? I'm aware of this in myself: I sit in the opera house or theatre and want to adjust what I'm hearing: more volume, a touch less bass, widen the stereo image, alter the balance - all things that I can do easily, and do do habitually, at home. And surely if attention spans have become shorter, that's down to the same reason: with drama of all types available at the touch of a button, to be sampled, paused, rewound, abandoned, and revisited at the viewer's convenience, is it any wonder that some people, even those sympathetic to the genre, can struggle to enjoy a full-length opera in the theatre?"

Perhaps. But let's not be too hard on ourselves. When Carmen appeared in 1875, live performance was the only performance. When opera came around, audiences were eager to soak up hours on end. We are not so easily entertained now. One could say our attention span has been narrowed. One could also say our taste has been refined. It's not just a matter of pause and rewind. The greatest voices of all time, in their peak moments, await us in rows on our living room shelves. It's no wonder we find it harder to tolerate a dramatic lag in the opera house. Modern opera companies have a duty to adjust.

WELCOME BBC RADIO 3 LISTENERS

The previous post has sparked a discussion on the BBC Radio 3 message boards about whether the opera is, indeed, too damn long. And a spike in blog traffic from across the sea. (I wonder if the British visitors understand the allusion in the headline.) Welcome, BBC opera and classical music fans.

THE OPERA IS TOO DAMN LONG

Took in Carmen last Friday night at the Lyric, and while departing the house heard repeated variations on the well-worn theme, "I liked it, but it was a little long..."

Seriously - how many thousands of times do we have to hear this from operagoers before WE JUST CUT THE DAMN SHOWS? This is killing opera. The composers are dead, OK? They aren't going to mind. Among the living you'll offend 18 purists and draw cries of gratitude and relief from everyone else. I love opera but there isn't a show in the repertory that runs more than three hours without stretches that drag. Let's get rid of those stretches. Please.

SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

Yesterday brought my first opera of the season, a matinee of Verdi's Macbeth at the Lyric in Chicago. The singing and acting were first-rate. The opera, not so much. Macbeth lacks that melody (or several) you wait for beforehand and hum for two days afterward. And it has some serious dull stretches, exacerbated by an act structure that kept us imprisoned for nearly an hour and a half before the single intermission. (Note to opera companies everywhere - it's still legal to cut the score, y'know?) 

I did get a few of the requisite chills at the end, as house snow fell on the victorious king and celebrants. And let me say this about Nadja Michael: wow. Still and all, the fact that a minor Verdi like Macbeth gets as much play as it does this many years after its conception is yet another illustration of how the opera repertory could use some - pardon the Shakespearean double entendre - fresh blood.

WHO NEEDS A NEW PAVAROTTI?

Vittorio Grigolo is auditioning for the world as the "next great tenor," and that means incessant comparisons with the last one. Anthony Tommasini has weighed in, with this from a review of Grigolo's star turn at the Met in the Franco Zefferelli "La Boheme," in Sunday's New York Times: "I had reservations about his voice, which has a bright cast and a narrow, sometimes tight, vibrato that will not be to all tastes... He started a little nervously, understandably, given all the talk of his being the successor to Pavarotti, which cannot help him. But once he warmed up, the natural ardor and the rich texture in his voice came through. His is essentially a lyric tenor, able to shape Puccini’s phrases with tenderness and lovely colorings."

Which cannot help him, indeed. Or us.

Let's stop doing a disservice to opera by comparing every rising tenor with Pavarotti. There wasn't a voice like Pavarotti's in the history of the world before Pavarotti; there's no reason to believe we'll see one soon afterward, if ever again. With Pavarotti as the standard, aren't we setting ourselves up for continual disappointment, predisposing such disappointment on new operagoers, and hurting the entire art form?

It's disheartening how praise like "lyric tenor" and "tenderness" and "lovely colorings" turns faint in shadow of the Pavarotti comparison. Not every role calls for what Pavarotti brought to the stage. And can we celebrate what Grigolo brings that Pavarotti couldn't? Such as...well, look at the guy.

If Grigolo is an heir, it's not to Pavarotti, not from what I've heard online and seen in the pictures. It's to the prior tradition of matinee-idol lyric tenors, like di Stefano, and Bjorling, and Corelli. Is anything wrong with that? Pavarotti had a voice like no other, and personality to burn. But Grigolo is no slouch on those scores, and let's face it - nothing sells better than sex appeal. Opera needs this guy more than a new Pavarotti. Sic 'em, Vittorio.

THE LADY IS A TRAMPLER

Fellow opera tweeter Cheryl A. Pierce (@OperaZone) has joined the chorus against what she terms "tramplers" - operagoers who dash from their seats at the last note to prevent a cab wait, often trampling others in the way. She writes: "If you're gonna go to the opera but you spend the entire time planning your cab/exit row strategy then a) hire a car or b) get the DVD."

Trampling is an epidemic in American opera houses, particularly in trafficky cities like Chicago, where Lyric Opera patrons jockey over main floor aisle seats to facilitate the fastest departure possible. @OperaZone points out trampling shows a lack of respect for the performers and fellow patrons. When the opera being trampled has a particularly stirring finale, like Turandot, I say a silent prayer in thanks for gun carry laws without which a crime of passion might be inevitable.

More than disrespect, though, trampling is emblematic of those who are in the opera house not to enjoy the opera but to be seen looking like they enjoy it. Anyone who loves opera loves the curtain call almost best of all. It's the first and often most knowledgable review of the show. Reading the curtain-call reaction from the audience is indispensable to post-opera conversation over the beverage of one's choice. Which the trampler is likely forgoing as well. What is the point of attending in the first place?

In short, bounding out of an opera house during the curtain call is like leaving a football game without knowing the score. No one who cares about the game would do it.

CONCERT VS. STORY: ARE YOU A DRAMA QUEEN?

I divide operas into two basic groups, concert operas and story operas. In a concert opera the story is too complex or illogical to make fine drama, so you're there mostly for the music, like a concert. A story opera is true drama set to music, the sort of show where you might not even read the synopsis, for fear of spoiling the suspense.

Broadly, I would call Verdi, Bellini and Mozart concertians, and Puccini, Donizetti and Wagner storians. Many Shakespeare adaptations are story operas. Much French opera I would classify as concert. Eastern European: story. Operettas are story (and I find, as I mature as an operagoer, I'm enjoying operetta more, not less). Older operas tend toward the concert; newer operas tend toward the story. If I could pick one great opera to symbolize the concert form, it might be Il Trovatore; if I could pick one great opera to symbolize the story form, it might be La Boheme. (Your suggestions or corrections welcome below.)

I write fiction and teach journalism; I like stories. As I embark on a new season of opera-going with three shows this coming week - two at the Lyric in Chicago with Macbeth and Carmen, and a world premiere at the Florentine in Milwaukee of a rare opera in Spanish, Rio de Sangre by Don Davis - what excites me most is the preponderance of story opera on my list. Two Shakespeares. Three myths. A great Wagner. And, if I can work it out, Lucia at the Met.

So this season, as I watch, listen and write, I'm planning to concentrate on the story. Drama queens, unite.