A Night at the Opera
When you think of a night at the opera, what images flash through your mind? Stunning sets and costumes? Brilliant singing? Melodramatic stories transformed into staged magic? The thrill of a lifetime to witness such ambitious performances? Or do you imagine fur coats and diamonds, limousines, $200 orchestra seats, standing room lines, no late seating?
I have friends in the Boston area who make special trips to attend performances at the Met. This means traveling to New York ($100 each for the train), staying in a hotel ($300), restaurant meals (say $200), and expensive tickets ($150 each for moderate-priced seats)—a thousand dollars! How accessible is that?
The future audience for opera is today’s children, but how many families can consider such an expensive outing? And how many children can manage a three-hour commitment to sit in a seat and pay attention? What is the future of the art form if it’s not really available to young people? We who are serious about the performance of serious music are used to strict rules of etiquette at concerts. We never applaud between movements. We scorn those who arrive late or leave early; we’re openly derisive of those who leave early and then return to their seats. We focus on authentic performances of complete pieces; we take all of the repeats. We expect our listeners to accept the music on our terms, insisting that we are speaking for the composers. These are all important rules. We should stick to them. But I think we need to admit that these rules apply more to those who are already appreciators of serious music, and that they are not great tools for audience development.
In August of 2006, Peter Gelb succeeded Joseph Volpe as general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mr. Gelb began his working life as an office boy for the great impresario Sol Hurok, presenter of more than 4,000 artists including Marian Anderson, Pavlova, and Andrés Segovia. You can find his biography on the Met’s website
On Monday, January 1, 2007, the New York Times printed two articles about this revolutionary presentation. Times music critic Anthony Tommasini’s article, “An Opera at the Met That’s Real and ‘Loud’,” reports that “the overture and several ensembles and arias were cut. Other arias were abridged through some very deft trims.” Poet J. D. McClatchy, a lecturer in English at Yale University, created a new free English translation of the libretto. And as perhaps the most important vote of support, James Levine conducted. The matinee performance on Saturday, December 30, was sold out, and Tommasini reported, “Actually the matinee clocked in at close to two hours, but few of the children seemed to mind. The audience was remarkably attentive and well behaved. Of course one strict Met protocol—if you leave the auditorium you are not allowed re-entry until intermission—was wisely ditched for the day, so children could take restroom breaks.”
When Tommasini interviewed some children in the audience, they told him that the singing was too loud. He challenged them, “when children hear amplified music everywhere, even channeled right into their ears through headphones, how could un-amplified singing seem too loud?” They responded that it wasn’t too loud to listen to, but that they “never thought voices could do that.” Tommasini went on, “So their reaction was not a complaint about excessive volume, but rather an attempt to explain the awesome impression” made on them by the Met’s singers.
The other article about this extravaganza was written by Campbell Robertson under the title, “Mozart, Now Singing at a Theater Near You.” As if the abridged edition weren’t radical enough, the Metropolitan Opera went a step further and arranged for the performance to be simulcast live to 100 movie theaters across America, in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, and Norway. The numbers were not all in at press time, but Robertson reported that the average attendance was at 90% of capacity—of the 60 American theaters presenting the simulcast, 48 were sold out. Tickets were priced at $18. The article was full of enthusiastic responses from parents and children. I imagine Mr. Gelb was pleased.
What a radical approach to a seemingly inaccessible art form. If there were 200 seats in each of those 100 theaters and an average of 90% attendance, that’s 18,000 tickets. Add 3,800 seats and 195 standing-room places in the Metropolitan Opera House* and you get 21,995. Now that’s an audience!
This kind of radical programming is not for everyone. We have to admit that the diamonds-and-fur crowd is essential to the Met. Take a look at the program book of any major musical ensemble and you can see who gives what. I have the program from a recent concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in my hands in which is published the list of contributors to the orchestra’s recent Capital and Endowment Campaign. There are three names in the $2,000,000 and up category, eight in $1,000,000–$1,999,999, and seven in $500,000–$999,999. Elsewhere in the same book is the list of supporters of the Higginson Society, which “embodies the deep commitment to supporting musical excellence continuing the legacy of the orchestra’s founder and first benefactor, Henry Lee Higginson.” This list is a little closer to earth with the highest gifts at around $100,000; there are 107 sponsors ($5000–$9999) and 281 members ($2500–$4999). These lists fill eight full pages.
While I’d like to imagine that many of these $2500 to $2,000,000 supporters would approve of such innovative programming as I describe from the Met, I bet that many would prefer to attend a “real” performance of Die Zauberflöte. So of course the Met continues to offer their familiar fare. Go to
What does all this have to do with the organ? When’s the last time you saw a family with young children in the audience at an organ recital? What’s your attitude about audience etiquette at recitals presented at your church? How welcoming are the concerts presented in your community? And who will be listening to organ music in your town 50 years from now?
We could promote the simulcast trick for special recitals—something flashy from Walt Disney Hall might fill a few theaters—but there are exciting organs in many (hundreds, thousands?) locales that could attract big crowds of young people if handled right. What would you play if you were guaranteed a full audience of teenagers? Chorale preludes of Johann Gottfried Walther? Elevations by Frescobaldi? Don’t get me wrong—I love that music, I’ve played it and many other things like it. But with respect to Johann and Girolamo, it’s just not the thrall of a 21st-century kid.
Do we have to degrade the organ to make it enticing? I don’t think so, but we have to be creative. Do we cheapen our musicianship by “catering” to the masses? On the other hand, what good are we without the masses? I’ve heard colleagues refer to the lay public as “the great unwashed.” I object to this characterization. Does that make us the “great washed?” (If so, that precludes us from getting “down and dirty” with our music-making.) My objection comes from the feeling that while we certainly expect the respect of our audiences (in both sacred and secular settings), we often fail to offer reciprocal respect. And in that failing, we are shooting ourselves in the collective foot. Just as a wife might compliment her husband for his good taste in women, the organist might applaud the audience for its good taste in choosing their afternoon’s entertainment. And what better way to applaud the audience than to reward it with a thrilling, enlightening, accessible program?
I participate as a member of the board of the Friends of the DaPonte String Quartet, a non-profit organization that supports, promotes, and presents the quartet in regular concerts in mid-coast Maine. In addition to some 30 concerts a year in the home region, they frequently play in distant cities, acting as musical ambassadors from the small towns in which they live. It’s a wonderful organization with a strong audience, and it’s impossible to measure the advantages of having such an institution in a small town. But there’s an inherent struggle. How do we balance the artistic ideals and aspirations of the quartet with the pressures of meeting the budget? The fact is the choice is never that clear. Of course the audience wants to hear the classic string quartet repertory. Of course the quartet wants to explore new music, new concepts, and new challenges. Of course, everyone wants to play and attend concerts of music that is beautiful, uplifting, and stimulating. And of course all of us would like to see more children attending the concerts. It’s a matter of balance.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra rewards its generous donors with “Pre-Concert Talks” presented by leading musicologists before every concert and with museum-quality displays about the composers’ life and work. An educated audience will be more receptive to the unfamiliar.
I was struck by what I read in the New York Times about the Metropolitan Opera. For such a venerable institution to undertake such a radical program should be an example to all who care about the future of the arts. Imagine the expense. A special translation, editing all those scores and parts, recasting the production to allow for a new pace of set and costume changes and lighting cues, relearning and re-rehearsing that most familiar of operas so singers were familiar with the cuts. And don’t forget the paperwork to arrange for all those theaters and organizing the simulcasts. The whole adventure must have cost a fortune, no doubt supplied by well-briefed donors. It’s fun to picture all those children running up and down the grand staircases, covering their ears at the high notes from the Queen of the Night, and going home looking forward to the next time they get to go to the Met. Or the symphony. Or a string quartet concert. Or an organ recital—now playing at a theater (or a church) near you. Make it happen.
* http://www.metoperafamily.org/met opera/about/whoweare/faq/house.aspx
