There’s a lot of talk out there about opera’s crisis. Most of it centers on the difficulties opera seems to have attracting new–particularly younger–audiences. With two new Directors coming to the helms of NY’s major houses, the speculations abound.

The NY Times runs this piece today about NYCO’s imminent director, Gerard Mortier, who makes his way to NY from The Paris Opera.

Mortier’s answer to opera’s present difficulties seems like a pretty good start. In addition to cutting down the number of productions and boosting performers’ salaries, he plans to program more operas from the 20th century. While this will appease many who believe that NY opera’s resistance to modern works has been appauling–and has arguably contributed to the atrophy of opera as a living art–it still begs the question: What about opera in the 21st Century?

The City Opera appears to have been better about promoting new composers than its accross-the-plaza counterpart (NYCO’s VOX program is a testament to their efforts to showcase new American work), but there is no mention of an effort to boost the visibility and viability of new opera works. Even Peter Gelb has announced plans to make commissioning new works a part of the Met’s vision for the future. Perhaps Mortier will address this more specifically in the series of three lectures he plans on giving during the fall season.

But opera remains the only classical art form that has not undergone a quintessential, paradigmatic reformation into modernism. There is no “downtown” opera. I imagine there are few independent opera companies out there creating original operatic works (other than the young startup, Collective Opera Company). Some alternative companies like Gotham Chamber Opera and Brooklyn’s Vertical Player Repertory are still repertory companies.

To update opera, we need not only to address who is writing them, but also how they are being written, which includes a scrutiny of the commissioning process. What thematic and creative restrictions are implicit in the commissioning processes of the major opera houses? What actions are acceptable to be seen on the stages of The Met or the State Theater? What sounds and artistic processes do these houses inhibit? What do the directors of these companies believe opera is? Or more importantly, what do they think it can be? The answers to these questions will shape the future of opera more than the mortal status of the composers they select– dead or alive.

May 7, 2007
Categories: Editorial, NY Times, Opera . . Author: countercritic

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