I know I am a little late to the discussion, but I found this very interesting study about where dramatic voices have gone in recent years. I think it sheds some valuable light on how operatic singing has declined and dismisses some convincing but ultimately faulty ideas about what has happened. Thanks
- Noah
https://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/Final%20Chapter%20Moravcsik%20v2%20Comments.pdf
"1. Opera (all opera) has declined greatly in popularity, and is now cherished only by a very tiny minority of the population, most of them moribund old fogeys like myself.
2. Historically informed stagings (i.e., stagings in the manner that the composer would have envisaged) have become rarer and rarer, to the point that Regietheater has now almost totally displaced them.
I fully acknowledge, and accept, that "our tastes" have changed in those respects, just as I fully acknowledge, and accept, that Handel's operas and Cherubini's no longer appeal to "our tastes" as they did in their own day." Evan Blackmore.
I have extracted this passage from a post on the thread about Cherubini's Les Abencerages which, from its innocent beginnings about a recent recording of the opera just growed like Topsy, in order to invite comments from others who either agree or disagree with Evan's views.
Along with most of the rest of us I feel sure that opera companies are "Feeling the pinch" and have responded by reducing the repertoire to a handful of popular works in shoestring-budget productions while expecting the public to stomach ever-increasing ticket prices.
In the 70s and 80s I was a regular opera-goer at both Covent Garden and ENO, the latter company producing such relative rarities as Smetana's Dalibor, Darghomisky's Stone Guest, Janacek's Makropoulos Case and Weber's Euryanthe. There were also productions of contemporary works such as Iain Hamilton's Royal Hunt of the Sun, David Blake's Toussaint, Henze's Bassarids and Ginastera's Bomarzo that I remember. I also recall some very elaborate and glamorous productions like Strauss' Salome, and Massenet's Werther, the latter starring Janet Baker. Dame Janet also appeared in the title role in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda.
I haven't been able to afford tickets to go to the Garden for many years (the last time I went there was courtesy of a friend who wanted a companion to see The Ring with....luckily he was able to afford reasonably comfortable seats! ) but on the few occasions I've been to ENO in recent years I have been extremely disappointed either with the standard of performance - Porgy and Bess with some principal singers who were barely of local music festival standard (although a few were very good indeed , especially the man who played Crown)- or of inappropriate or/and ineffably silly stagings such as The Queen of Spades where I remember, amongst other horrors, one scene being performed against a pile of old wooden chairs in the centre of the stage....why ??? Is it any wonder that people don't want to go out of their way to watch such things when they can buy cds and envisage the works much more appropriately in their mind's eye ? I would add that a smaller company like Holland Park opera put on a much more traditional production of Mascagni's Isabeau which shows what can be done if the will and imagination is there.
DVDs , too, ought to be issued with trigger warnings. Recently I considered buying a filmed production of Schumann's rarely-performed Genoveva until I saw some stills from it which appeared to be set in a whitewashed broom cupboard.
I wonder if , as Evan's post states, that tastes have changed in these respects. The last time I ventured abroad was before covid and saw a completely traditional production of Tosca in Budapest. The house was packed and the performance was very good. The best production I saw at ENO in recent years was of Prince Igor presented by a travelling company with traditional sets and costumes. I suppose what I'm attempting to say, amongst all this rambling, is that the problem with opera nowadays is not opera itself but the way it's presented.
I know that Handel's operas, in spite of some splendid music they contain, appear very stilted and need some updating with a bit of flesh on show and episodes of knockabout comedy (as in the dvd of Julius Caesar that I have) to make them "Go" but anything from Mozart onwards can , and in my opinion SHOULD be done, without deviating too much from the intentions of the original creators. Perhaps if we got back to that, opera might return to the popularity it enjoyed forty years ago.
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