What follows is my response to that piece:
Dear Mr. McWhorter,
Your Oct. 19, 2021 piece in the NYT on opera conflated at least three, arguably distinct issues and in the process turned out to be something of a dog’s breakfast. It was sufficiently provocative nonetheless.
Dear Mr. McWhorter,
Your Oct. 19, 2021 piece in the NYT on opera conflated at least three, arguably distinct issues and in the process turned out to be something of a dog’s breakfast. It was sufficiently provocative nonetheless.
The easiest issue is whether Black composers and librettists (as opposed to singers) have been unfairly denied access to the Metropolitan Opera (and various similar organizations) and thus it is high time the Met staged something like “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” I think we can stipulate that is true. On the other hand, just because the piece is a true Black opera (not an opera about Blacks written by a white person) doesn’t mean it is particularly good. As is the case with all other operas, time will tell.
Second are questions of cultural appropriation, or misappropriation – a trendy and highly “woke” topic. If you failed to bring this up, you would be viewed as seriously out of touch by certain constituencies in the current sociopolitical environment.
Artists have always depicted cultures other than their own, or been influenced by them and incorporated the narratives or aesthetics of another culture in their own work. There is, I personally believe, nothing at all wrong with this. The current cultural appropriation wars arguably have little to do with art and much to do with sociopolitical power.
(This is a different issue than what happened in the jazz era and beyond when white musicians and entrepreneurs basically stole music, or most of the revenues accruing to it, that had been originated by Blacks.)
Third, and in my case by far the most interesting topic, is the prevailing state of opera, no matter what the race or cultural background of the creators. Here, you seem to think you “should” like what opera has become although you are far from sure you actually do. Join the club. Why do you suppose opera companies stage only a limited number of contemporary pieces while relentlessly re-staging the old favorites?
In a nutshell and with broad generalization, in contemporary opera the singers serve the music. In most of the older forms of opera, the music served the singers. Singing, or extraordinarily virtuosic vocalization, was what it was all about. The stories were secondary and often somewhat ridiculous, or set well in some often mythic past, in large part because the threat of censorship was always present. Patrons largely bought tickets to hear their favorite singers sing particular roles, and to compare such performances to that of other prominent singers. The rest was spectacle.
That is far from the case at present, and as such raises the question, why opera? Why not just put on a play or make a film, the latter if you insist that background music adds to the story as opposed to at least partially obscuring it – as may be the case in the two operas under consideration in your article. You urge readers to listen to them repeatedly, not to hear great singing, but simply to make sense of them, which is apparently difficult otherwise. Oh well, there is nothing new about the notion of art for the sake of art. Viewers have frequently been told, for instance, that when gazing at abstract art: “it means whatever it means to you.”
You seem to wish that Blacks could, in effect, find a third way that they could call their own: opera somehow different from that characterized by the stand-alone arias of the past and more approachable and more broadly appealing than most contemporary opera. Something that would appeal to and be understood by an audience beyond those who attend because they think they “should” for one reason or another, but different and presumably more “high brow” than musical theater. “Porgy and Bess,” but written and composed by Blacks and with a story that avoids stereotypes? Porgy and Bess survives, of course, because the songs (or arias) are so good one (such as Angel Blue) can overlook the rest. Oops. There we are, back to opera as great songs and great singers with everything else secondary. Well, good luck.
One can argue that contemporary opera started or got into high gear with Wagner and his “it’s all about me” approach. Don’t give the singers arias that put them first and foremost. Make them serve my “total work of art” instead. Well, OK, that’s one approach and it arguably worked for Wagner (whatever one things of him), but less so for most of what has come in his wake.
That’s a sharp contrast to Handel who would regularly alter his compositions, and even drop parts of a story, or add new parts, so that a particular singer would come across at his or her best. That’s what the ticket buying public was paying for and Handel had to sell lots of expensive tickets. Mozart regularly wrote arias with the capabilities of particular singers in mind. And so forth and so on.
Everyone these days seems hung up over the race (or sexual orientation) of the creators and performers. As for me, where did I put that fabulous recording of Kathleen Battle singing G.F. Handel’s “Semele?” (I’m more than happy to overlook Ms Battle’s cultural misappropriation of the role and sorry I missed Angel Blue singing Mimi in “La Bohème” at the Seattle Opera as a result of the pandemic.)
Keep up the good work, and with my very best wishes. Maybe you’ll be able to make sense of it – for ALL of us – someday.
Fowler W. Martin
Second are questions of cultural appropriation, or misappropriation – a trendy and highly “woke” topic. If you failed to bring this up, you would be viewed as seriously out of touch by certain constituencies in the current sociopolitical environment.
Artists have always depicted cultures other than their own, or been influenced by them and incorporated the narratives or aesthetics of another culture in their own work. There is, I personally believe, nothing at all wrong with this. The current cultural appropriation wars arguably have little to do with art and much to do with sociopolitical power.
(This is a different issue than what happened in the jazz era and beyond when white musicians and entrepreneurs basically stole music, or most of the revenues accruing to it, that had been originated by Blacks.)
Third, and in my case by far the most interesting topic, is the prevailing state of opera, no matter what the race or cultural background of the creators. Here, you seem to think you “should” like what opera has become although you are far from sure you actually do. Join the club. Why do you suppose opera companies stage only a limited number of contemporary pieces while relentlessly re-staging the old favorites?
In a nutshell and with broad generalization, in contemporary opera the singers serve the music. In most of the older forms of opera, the music served the singers. Singing, or extraordinarily virtuosic vocalization, was what it was all about. The stories were secondary and often somewhat ridiculous, or set well in some often mythic past, in large part because the threat of censorship was always present. Patrons largely bought tickets to hear their favorite singers sing particular roles, and to compare such performances to that of other prominent singers. The rest was spectacle.
That is far from the case at present, and as such raises the question, why opera? Why not just put on a play or make a film, the latter if you insist that background music adds to the story as opposed to at least partially obscuring it – as may be the case in the two operas under consideration in your article. You urge readers to listen to them repeatedly, not to hear great singing, but simply to make sense of them, which is apparently difficult otherwise. Oh well, there is nothing new about the notion of art for the sake of art. Viewers have frequently been told, for instance, that when gazing at abstract art: “it means whatever it means to you.”
You seem to wish that Blacks could, in effect, find a third way that they could call their own: opera somehow different from that characterized by the stand-alone arias of the past and more approachable and more broadly appealing than most contemporary opera. Something that would appeal to and be understood by an audience beyond those who attend because they think they “should” for one reason or another, but different and presumably more “high brow” than musical theater. “Porgy and Bess,” but written and composed by Blacks and with a story that avoids stereotypes? Porgy and Bess survives, of course, because the songs (or arias) are so good one (such as Angel Blue) can overlook the rest. Oops. There we are, back to opera as great songs and great singers with everything else secondary. Well, good luck.
One can argue that contemporary opera started or got into high gear with Wagner and his “it’s all about me” approach. Don’t give the singers arias that put them first and foremost. Make them serve my “total work of art” instead. Well, OK, that’s one approach and it arguably worked for Wagner (whatever one things of him), but less so for most of what has come in his wake.
That’s a sharp contrast to Handel who would regularly alter his compositions, and even drop parts of a story, or add new parts, so that a particular singer would come across at his or her best. That’s what the ticket buying public was paying for and Handel had to sell lots of expensive tickets. Mozart regularly wrote arias with the capabilities of particular singers in mind. And so forth and so on.
Everyone these days seems hung up over the race (or sexual orientation) of the creators and performers. As for me, where did I put that fabulous recording of Kathleen Battle singing G.F. Handel’s “Semele?” (I’m more than happy to overlook Ms Battle’s cultural misappropriation of the role and sorry I missed Angel Blue singing Mimi in “La Bohème” at the Seattle Opera as a result of the pandemic.)
Keep up the good work, and with my very best wishes. Maybe you’ll be able to make sense of it – for ALL of us – someday.
Fowler W. Martin
(P.S. No surprise: there has been no response from Mr. McWhorter.)
No comments:
Post a Comment