Denis Fodor <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>Our age has made available to us new media to further more effectively
>than can opera a revolutionary cause.

Such as?  Music still has incalculable power to at least ferment emotion
and thought, throughout the world.  Here in the West, the 19th century
was the great age of populist opera, in Italy and Spain (as zarzuela)
especially; but also in other parts of Europe - so, opera proved the
catalyst for the "Masaniello" revolution in Belgium.

It's not that opera itself has become any less arousing, more that it
is popularly perceived to have become a neutered, status toy of the
establishment - a view which the establishment itself is only too pleased
to encourage.  In this the 20th century had more in common with the 18th,
when whatever the truth of the matter the "Beggars Opera" (like "Threepenny
Opera") was sold on the claim that it provided anti-establishment social
content, at the same time as sending up establishment musical values.

Brecht's put down of opera as 'culinary' bourgeois art is a long-standing
criticism (Dryden said the same) which contemporary composers, writers,
performers and directors work hard to refute - paradoxically enough,
often using so-called 'Brechtian' methods.  What is abundantly clear is
that a work as socially and humanly disruptive as "The Marriage of Figaro"
should never have been allowed to become anodyne: only the minuscule
size of the classic repertory, and its consequent over-familiarity, have
allowed it to dwindle so.

>Bernstein's West Side Story, or Brecht/Weill's efforts had resonance
>because their social message was proportionate to what contemporary
>musical drama can hope to achieve.

They certainly had resonance in their time; but to evoke either in a
debate about contemporary opera seems stretching a point, as the younger
of them was written nearly 50 years and two generations ago.

Why not look instead at Nyman's "Facing Goya" (cloning), Ades's "Powder
Her Face" (sexual decadence), Sallinen's "The Palace" (political corruption)
or Adams's "Death of Klinghoffer" (terrorism), all full-length works
written in the last decade.  We'll find enjoyable, communicative works
which - irrespective of arguments as to musical merit - achieve a great
deal in dramatising questions in which we are all concerned, whether we
like it or not.

It's worth noting that the choruses from the Adams work were thought
sufficiently controversial to get themselves removed from USA concert
programmes in the wake of September 11th, 2001.

In other words, it's clear there is little chance of composers, writers
or directors obeying any Statute of Limitation which the 'culinary' opera
buffs might seek to impose on the art form.

>Let the modern regisseur stay within the boudarry of such reality.

The reality is that we live in a world where even "Tristan und Isolde"
(Israel, 2002) can still cause an international incident. Rather, let
the more culinary-minded consumers stop wasting their energy attempting
to draw boundaries around opera to suit themselves - it's never worked
yet, and never will!

Christopher Webber
"THE ZARZUELA COMPANION" (Scarecrow Press) Foreword by Placido Domingo
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm