Osborne’s own memories extend back to the very late 1940s. He regards as the core in opera how “greatvoiced singingactors” convey timeless stories through interacting on a stage. This focus became lost because both professionals and audiences lack the knowledge and patience to explore the original works, instead substituting visually dominated shows in their search for “relevance” and attention.
I find most of Osborne’s arguments convincing, but perhaps relevant particularly for the too-big, glamorous venues which should not be mistaken as the only contemporary opera there is. “Decline” in this thread has referred to stage production, audience interests, singers, new works and more. The major decline that frightens me is opera’s relative loss of support as an important part of our cultural heritage. It has always been an artform in need of subsidies.
The Stockholm Royal Opera is 80% tax-subsidised, and if we add regional and local money for opera on other Swedish stages my guess would be that every citizen on average (not taking into account that some pay more taxes and some nothing at all) via taxes pay about 50 USD or EUR annually to secure the art-form’s continued life at the current level. Politicians no longer regard “cultural heritage” as a convincing argument when they allocate money.
Sixty years ago, our Royal Opera had a large repertoire of traditional productions performed by a fairly large ensemble of artists doing what Osborne argues for: exploring the classical works for what they were meant to be. Now we get half the number of performances we used to, and maybe 11 operas this season compared to 30 or 40 when I was young. But instead of a few ten thousands of opera enthusiasts going every month there are maybe a few hundred thousand who find it one of many kinds of entertainment they take in once a year or with longer intervals. They do this in many places around the country, and most young singers are well-schooled and fight for a living as freelancers. New Swedish operas are premiered every year, but sadly there is rarely a second run.
A successful Traviata used to be performed a few times per year for decades. Now it is scheduled for 12 or 15 performances its first season, and maybe comes back a few years later with a new cast. Sixty years ago the Stockholm audience would have been depleted after four or five nights, but they would come back to hear the opera each year as few owned a recording and there was no Internet.
So “decline” needs to be narrowed down in order to be meaningful. It’s a bit like other art-forms: those of us who find earlier styles in painting or writing endlessly fascinating may deplore if museums or books are out-competed by the onslaught of 20th and 21st century media entertainment. But we accept that times have moved on, and that new visual arts and books don’t imitate those from previous centuries. Like Ralph implies, some may even retreat into their homes to listen to and view “traditional” productions on their screens.
But comparatively speaking, I think opera is not “in decline” but continues to gain a lot of new audiences world-wide, and to attract creators and performers. As long as someone is willing to pay! What may have declined is the kind of audiences who know the “canon” of important works intimately and find meaning in individual text lines or musical details. But even so it is hopeless to compare. Seventy years ago few could travel, and if your city did have an opera house it would give you access to just a small part of the repertoire. When complete recordings on LP started coming, it was commonly assumed you could afford at most one. Now we watch opera on our screens for free, many travel to opera, and the assumption when Ralph Moore writes his excellent surveys seems to be that readers are conversant with a range of styles, singers and conductors – and often can check at no cost on Youtube. We criticize singers partly because we have more evidence of their predecessors. Young creators and performers in opera deviate from traditional values partly to avoid becoming inferior copies of something which still is accessible to today's audiences, and because they want to reach broader groups who like to go occasionally and find opera "amazing" and "stunning", but don't really care about what its creators meant it to be!
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