Move Over Mr. Boris Goldovsky

You Are Being Up-Staged!

There has been a lot of discussion lately about Acting and the Opera
Stage.  It is my understanding, after years of copious Opera Classes,
that Opera used to be a Song Medium.  Singers went to the front of the
stage and sang their hearts out.  At one point in history, if they had
a better aria, a specialite' that had nothing to do with the Opera, they
sang that.  Sometimes they even sang it again.  I think the record was
seven repeats.  I think the expression: 'Sing it again, Sing it again,
Sing it until you learn It.' came about, because of this tradition.
Acting, just not important.

Probably Boris Goldovsky, that man you used to hear on the Saturday
Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts, author of Bringing Opera to Life, put
the acting back in the multi-media event.  Have you forgotten about the
Olglebee Park Opera Institute, Wheeling West Virginia; The Goldovsky
Opera Company that toured the United States with Opera in English.  (I
remember 94 nights of Opera on tour with The Goldovsky Opera Company.
Boy!  Did those costumes smell?  I know Don Giovanni backwards and
forwards in English.); and The Cleveland Institute of Music Opera
Department, where Goldovsky got his start.  Before, he was a pianist.
Then, there was Mr.  Goldovsky's first generation of students: Robert
Gay, Northwestern University School of Music; Anthony Addison, The
Cleveland Institute of Music; Richard Collins, Millikin University School
of Music; Frank Corsaro also fits somewhere in this picture.  These men
put the acting into America Opera.  Remember, we, Americans, have that
language problem.

I remember the disciplines of the Opera Department, 'when' there were
disciplines.  Turns, Counters, parries.  Things they don't teach you at
'The Harvard Business School' anymore.  What we are seeing on the Opera
Stage is the joy of the modern era.  You don't need to study those
disciplines.  They don't matter.  So, let me put this all together for
you: You don't need a Voice Teacher, you're a natural singer; You don't
need to be accurate with the music, the composer is dead and music on
paper has limitations; You don't need to act, because we are only
interested in the voice and the sound; everyone is a critic or has the
ability to be a expert; the score and the libretto does not matter, move
the opera scenario to any location you, the director wants; put every
one in little black dresses, so we have relate to 'Sex in the City';
there is no need to go to music school; and certainly don't discuss the
problem in Books, Newsletters, Lists, or on the Web, or you will be
dropped like a hot potato and criticized by an untalented, peasant clod,
who thinks he is an expert on everything, even though you are the one
with all the degrees hanging on the wall.

So, move over Mr.  Goldovsky, your career and life does not matter.  You
are being upstaged by the next generation.

"Marc Innes" <[log in to unmask]>