Steve Schwartz writes movingly of the positive audience to "The Miraculous
Mandarin" in New Orleans a mere 75 years or so after the premiere.
It mirrors many experiences of my own.  How curious, though, that the
conductors and orchestras (who prefer playing these works instead of the
small, tired 19th c.  repertory) still feel the need to be so defensive -
nay, apologetic - about inflicting them on their public.

Of course, this defensiveness is the result of ceaseless pressure from
ancient and/or tone deaf managerial boards who are still living in the
land of the plesiosaurs.  Conductors of international reputation, even,
are powerless to change the mindset of these ossified monsters, whose
attitudes persist in spite of just such audience reactions.

Having thrown my hands up in despair at the glossy brochures pushed my way
recently by the 'major' London orchestras (BBC Symphony Orchestra proudly
exempted) for their plush Festival Hall series, I think there's a lesson
here for these terminally cautious organisations and their managers.

Example: the Philharmonia's full-colour, silky sheen number is a
superb marketing dream, a great piece of modern design, to sell .....
well, a complete Beethoven cycle under Sawallisch, stablefuls of romantic
warhorses, and a couple of token Walton concerts (beware!  dangerous
stuff!).  There's also a small paragraph announcing their commitment to
contemporary music, but no tangible sign of this commitment in the actual
programming.

Contemporary marketing genius masks yet another second-hand old hat.
Nothing here for me or the many like me, that's for sure, outside the
Festival Hall's really fine world music and dance programs.  The venue's
imaginative programming, alas, does not extend to their "core" business.
Hardly their fault, for they can only mount what the orchestra managers
have on offer.

Perhaps less money on marketing, more on clean, readable print advertising
their Bartok, Martinu, Honegger, Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams series
....  and hey presto!  audiences may magically start to come back - to hear
what, nowadays, most people under the age of 50 actually enjoy hearing!

How long before the managements - let alone the brigade of "appreciation"
pedagogues - cotton on to the Louisiana Experience? We have a duty to stop
whinging about all this, and another to make our views known to these
organisations by voting with our pens as well as our feet.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site