This is our time!
Since announcing my candidacy for the directorship of New York City Opera, my team has worked hard and tirelessly to flesh out a not-so-short list of nominees for the proposed para-advisory board that will help me reshape the future of New York City Opera.
We have cast a wide net in order to ensure that every facet of opera is well represented, and that the fiercest thinkers and practitioners in each field are given voice and freedom to develop ideas within their areas of expertise.
PLEASE REVIEW AND MAKE COMMENTS. Feedback is totally necessary here. Add awesome people we may have overlooked. Critique those we’ve suggested if you don’t think they’re up to snuff. Nominate yourself.
I plan on re-establishing New York City Opera as an opera organization that is connected to the culture it represents. New York City is an enterprising, studied, creative and wildly imaginative collective of free-thinkers and fearless individuals who want the world to be as awesome as they know it can be. You’re ideas are important. And your participation is vital to ensuring that the New York City Opera is as awesome as we all know it could be.
We haven’t much time, as the search for a new director is well under way. So jump in, and join me in fighting for a New York City Opera that will truly embody the spirit of “The People’s Opera.”
To paraphrase one of the most inspirational movies from the 1980s:
City Opera? What City Opera? In a couple more hours, it ain’t gonna be the City Opera anymore. Come on, guys, this is our time. Our last chance to see if there really is a future for the New York City Opera.
Yes we can.
Here is the list, in no meaningful order (and sorry if the “category” format is a little uncomfortable)…
Critics/thinkers (oxymoron?):
Claudia LaRocco, natch. Or, L.Ro as she goes by around these parts.
Alex Ross, but only if he takes back what he said about the tritone.
A.O. Scott: We cannot neglect film. If projections etc are to remain a part of contemporary theater, then let’s make sure we’re using the flat screen to its full capacity.
Ros, you’re in.
T-Bone, Steve Smith and Daniel Wakin from The Times. All good writers. All care about classical music.
Roselee Goldberg, again, if she gets her act together.
Maynard Solomon, for allowing us to believe that Schubert was a fairy!
Directors/Producers:
Andy Horowitz, now that he’s got some free time on his hands.
Earl Dax, mastermind of Weimar New York, who curates everything from new opera to Glenn Marla.
Yuval Sharon, already involved with NYCO’s VOX program, let’s give him some more resources and really develop a young crop of new composers.
Ivo Van Hove. He’s already worked in opera, and there probably isn’t anything he can’t do on a stage. I’ve met him. And he’s super sweet.
Olivier Tambosi and Frank Philipp Schlossmann, who came together to make Jenufa at The Met, which remains the best production I have seen from that company.
Beth Morrison. She likes the young’ns, and she’s willing to put money behind new composers. Bring it on!
Musical Types:
Nick Hallett, song hero and advocate for avant garde music via his series, Darmstadt.
Kiki and Herb, cuz they’ve been around the block, the theater, the bar, and the sex club, and they still come back from more.
Zena Parkins. She’s worked with the likes of Bjork and John Jasperse. She’s hip but trained. Love that combo.
Steve Reich, cuz The Cave was hot.
Peter Tantsits. Friend, tenor, all around smart guy who knows his opera like he knows his sweater vests.
My composition professor.
Chris Lancaster. Current musical director for Bill T. And I’ve worked with him before!
Tori Amos. Rumor has it that she’s writing a musical. She’s also trained classically. Maybe we can convince her to try her hand at the big show.
Pierre Boulez. He’s not dead, after all. And he’s still a hero. Oh, what the hell, let’s throw in Elliot Carter too! (“What Next?” wasn’t bad, but it was completely misdirected…Sorry George.)
This section needs some more contemporary composers, so tear your hair out trying to come up with some.
Visual/Performance Artists:
Matthew Barney. Cremaster 5 is really one of the greatest operas of the past fifty years. Why hasn’t someone tapped his ass to make a stage production?
Jeffrey Deitch. Cool, cool, cool. There has to be a way to bring in this kind of cool to the world of opera.
Kehinde Willey. Why not?
Eduardo Sarabia, who’s “The Gift” got my Best In Show at this year’s Whitney Biennial.
Kara Walker, if she’ll have me.
My roommate, Jim!
Who else? We need some unknowns.
Theater Peeps:
The Wooster Group. Confounding. Brilliant. (And I know their General Manager!)
Speaking of postdramatic theater, let’s bring in Hans-Thies Lehmann, who wrote the book.
I would give all comic opera to Superamas or Nature Theater of Oklahoma.
Hello, Edward Albee! He wanted to be a composer when he was young. And he has some solid opinions about the genre.
Umm, Richard Foreman. Why hasn’t he done an opera yet?
Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes. They hilariously tackled the history of the castrati. Now let’s see them work their anarchy on some classics of the repertoire.
Umm, Peter Brook has some seriously sober news for opera. Y’all know he’s vowed never to work with opera again. My guess is that it’s opera’s issue. Maybe Brook can help us work it out.
Dancemakers:
Mark Morris, obv.
Jerome Bel. He makes hot shit, and he’s just the kind of mind who can take a scalpel to all things tired and rusty. Imagine what he could do with some hot singers!
John Jasperse. He’s working it out, pushing boundaries, and he’s got an acute musical sensibility.
Adrienne Truscott. She knows what makes theater tick, which means she can take it apart, and put it back together, way hotter and much more funner.
Miguel Gutierrez for his humanity, and his earnest pursuit of the truth.
Ivy Baldwin. This bitch is like WAY under-appreciated. She knows how to make theater, and “Could be nice…” was the most purely vulgar thing I saw on stage last year. And I saw a lot of vulgar things.
Jonah Bokaer, former Merce Dancer, one of the founders of Chez Bushwick, co-conspirator with John Jasperse for the new Center for Performance Research. He’s young, he’s bright, he knows his shit, and, hey, he’s already doing choreography for Robert Wilson’s operas.
Moving Theater. Again, they’re young and savvy. They produced an opera for the Greenwich Music Festival, to much success, and they’re not afraid to take on the likes of Cage and Xenkis.
Ann Liv Young. If only to play Salome. (btw, girl got a new website)
And Joe Levasseure, the lighting genius who is virtually responsible for how we see downtown dance. In belt-tightening times, working with light is a great way to reduce cost and maximize effect.
Filmmakers:
I’m partial to Catherine Breillat, but I don’t know if she’s done any stage works yet.
Let’s see what Woody Allen has to say.
Wes Anderson. I’m not saying we should adapt his movies, but I think his aesthetic could really lend itself well to the stage.
Ang Lee! He already did Brokeback Mountain the movie. Maybe we can wrestle back the idea from Mortier and keep gay bareback opera a reality at NYCO!
David Lynch. Cuz.
John Cameron Mitchell. From Hedwig to Shortbus, fierce, queer lyricism (mixed with humor, of course!) could be a lifeline for the art of opera.
Barbara Kopple. God bless the Dixie Chicks!
Lars von Trier. YES!
Writers:
We need the most help in this area. I’m still catching up on my classics, so it will be a few decades before I get to the contemporary lit. Although, I have some writer friends who would be good candidates and have been interested in opera.
Indispensibles:
La Cieca, the doyen of opera queens, and always with the inside scoop.
Meryl Streep. I’m sure we can put her to some use.
Michael Hart.
Again, these are off the top of my head suggestions! I’m sure there are about a billion more awesome candidates in all the areas, so it’s your job now to let me know who I left out, and who would seriously be talented, fierce, amazing creators that could help save New York City Opera.
Get to it!
Updates:
I already realized I left off a few important folks. First, Chris Schiavo, a fiercely independent film artist with whom I have collaborated previously. Second, Lief Krinkle, a hot-ass video/interactive media artist who work with Eric Singer over at Lemurplex, building musical robots and being generally awesome. And third, James C. Taylor out in L.A. Opera connoisseur. He knows his shit, and he’s not afraid to say it.
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Dear Counter Critic,
Might I humbly nominate myself for the critics/thinkers/gadfly committee, if only for my ability to dish it as needed?
http://www.feastofmusic.com/feast_of_music/2008/11/rip-city-opera.html
Warm Regards,
Pete Matthews
http://www.feastofmusic.com
Hello, Pete~
Yes, dish! Dishing is an art one must acquire to stay afloat in this world of tigers. Be fierce. Be vocal. And for god’s sake, don’t let them see you cry…
Consider thee nominated.
I second Claudia, Kenny Mellman, Adrienne and Andy!!
Great list generally, this’d change the (three-hour, epic, all singing) world!
Weeeee!
NM
Wait a sec, what about Bob Ashley? Oh, and how about “Improv Everywhere” under the categories of Critics/Thinkers, Producers/Directors, and Visual/Performance artists….
Joseph Keckler sent in these comments:
OK first, how about some opera singers? i can brainstorm specifics but you need some expert, no-nonsense practitioners of the form.
i also think you’ve listed some people whose knowledge and interests are far away from opera.(& perhaps are dismissive or disdainful even of it. ) That’s fine, they can express & connect to the allergies and suspicions of the general public toward the form– but i think you need a couple more who actually straddle classical and downtown worlds. some outside/inside. some double dippers.
how about Meredith Monk– her work is experimental but is also is really about the voice. she employs extended vocal technique. (not classical, not no-technique, but “extended”! which creates an interesting conversation about what vocal technique can be…)
also how about Laurie Anderson– her work is also about the voice, in obviously different ways, and she offers a technological aspect. she has art world cred
how about that fellow, David Schweizer, who directs at Glimmerglass and also Marga Gomez’s & Carmelita Tropicana’s solo theatrical pieces. (And hey, the solo form knows about economy, both literal and theatrical. While enlisting big spenders from other forms– Matthew Barney– why not balance it out with folks who know how to strip art down. Gesamkunstwerk don’t hafta break the bank.) But, hey, if were going with these sort-of maximalists, how about some who have more fun, like John Waters (or Charles Busch or something…) someone with a ridiculous aesthetic. opera has long been high-camp.
maybe my friend John Kelly, who has done concerts at carnegie hall, sang at nan goldin’s retrospective in vienna, and just choreographed something at BAM. he’s obvsiously artistically promiscuous and has a relationship to the form
these are my current thoughts.
Hey Pamela-
Great suggestions. I think Ashley would be a good person to bring in.
And thanks for the Improv Everywhere recommendation. I hadn’t hear of them, and am now really enjoying their website.
CC
OK- so perhaps I’m just feeling cranky due to the gloom and my scrooge like outlook for the grim un-fairy [grendel?] tale of fractured holiday woes; butt, with my minimal knowledge of opera and your all over the map list, however wonderfully charted, I don’t see how it purposefully relates to ‘opera’ as I know it. Granted, I presume that is the intended reaction to an extent, but then we perhaps need to go back and redefine everything art related for that matter. Why even label it? Our brand obsessed culture? What you are proposing could likely just a theatrical extravaganza without a justifiable categorization of opera. And maybe that is the real bigger society quandary. In this whitewashed, rehashing of a rehashing of something my grandma did in Radio City Ballet, what are we really creating that is relevant to audiences? Who is our audience? Are we thinking about this or are we all just stroking it and tucking; then dawning a wig and lip syncing to our beloved aggrandizing critics?
—DM: agent provocateur (cuz MH twisted my arm)
Joseph!
Hot comments.
I think this list, as a kind of brainstorm, began to encompass a broad group of people and to broad purposes. In part, it is a list of people I think could really bring some fresh ideas to the form of opera (whether or not they will be interested we will find out once we approach them!), and also some people who I may have suggested should actually be enlisted to make new opera. As this project moves forward, this will definitely need to be clarified from my end; and it will.
YES, bring in singers. I know there are some singers who would really be great to have weigh in on NYCO. Afterall, they will be performing the roles, they will be creating the memories, the moments; they will embody the direction NYCO heads. Please send in recommendations. Your friend; anyone you think matters. (I know also some singers have already participated by leaving comments on this site!)
I agree that we don’t need to break the bank. As far as I know, NYCO doesn’t have much bank left anyhow.
I also don’t believe in hitting up popular artists and dragging them in to make an opera when they may have no interest in doing so. I think this can lead to ambivalent work, and that is NOT hot.
Monk is an awesome suggestion. I loved “Impermanence”.
Not sure about Laurie Anderson. I don’t think she has enough of a traditionally theatrical sensibility. Not sure she understand the essential needs of opera; the urgency; the need to move forward.
Schweitzer, Busch and Waters are all good calls. If we could highlight the humor in opera, that would probably be a coup. The material (especially in the buffa area) is there. It’s probably being seriously underutilized.
Thanks for being fierce!
xoxoC.C.
Charles Busch rocks my world and is a doll! Die Mommie Die – Why not me! is anthem along with Let’s Be Co-dependent I’ll wail in the subway wells any day!
Dana Marie!
You’re amazing, and thanks for the nod to “Codependency”!
My candidacy to direct the New York City Opera is predicated on POSSIBILITY. It is possible for me to become the director of New York City Opera. It may be a long-shot, or it may not happen now, but it is possible.
Likewise, the suggestions on the short list are really meant to blow our minds open–or blow open the minds of those who run the people’s opera–in terms of what we imagine opera to be, and what we imagine opera could be.
My definition of opera comes down to this: Opera is a theater embodied primarily through acoustic classical singing.
Everything else can be fucked with.
There need not be an orchestra, although, that is generally the case.
There need not be a traditional narrative, although that can still be hot.
There need not be a composer, although composers can make amazing music (sometimes).
There need not be a ginormous set. I think we could stage the entire ring cycle with a little lighting and some intelligent staging choices.
Basically, this list was meant to make us think of what we are not including in opera. Why isn’t opera raunchy like a John Waters film? Why can’t opera have the vast erotic coldness evident in Matthew Barney’s work? Why isn’t opera sexually explicit like the work of Ann Liv Young or Adrienne Truscott?
Why can’t opera learn from the zany, in-the-moment, rigorous and spontaneously entertaining work of “downtown” performance; in particular, opera used to have a much closer relationship with cabaret culture. In contrast, could you imagine any cabaret performer launching into a stretch of Satyagraha, or The Cave, or Wozzeck? I’m not saying these pieces aren’t great, but couldn’t opera still be artful AND find a connection to a more casual performance culture?
I’m a fan of definitions. But I’m all for bending the rules once they’re set. As long as we have classically trained singers on a stage (or anywhere), using their voices to create theater (whatever kind of theater that may be), we have license to tweak pretty much everything else.
That’s my vision.
xoxoC.C.
An anonymous amigo wrote:
You know, the glaring omission from your list is anyone with business sense. Artists are not the best administrators (witness the recent drama surrounding the National Academy on Museum Mile).
Since when is John Jasperse a dance maker? You must really be in the holiday spirit.
Hey Anonymous-
Great point. This is business after all. I’m not blind to that. And it’s bad business sense, as much as lack of artistic direction, that is hobbling the City Opera right now.
I have at least one pick for an economic advisor, but it wouldn’t be prudent to release that name at this time.
Some artists have great business sense (Andy Worhol, Mark Morris, some friends of mine), but not all are comfortable filling that role.
In terms of JJ, I group him with dance, since those are the waters he wades in. You could just as easily place him in theater. Or, in a black spandex full-body unitard!
Ryan! Will you please do a spoof of Eddie Izzard’s spoof in the beginning of Glorious where he says “my name isn’t Tracy!” it would HILARIOUS/posh brit acct.
I always bring up definitions because the sheep society of social security numbers we live in really needs to have things broken down so we are communicating as best we can with our [?] feeble attempts still use and uphold what’s left of the english language.
I think what you say is all good, I just will be the first to criticize and question my own work or anything I think could be good :)
You mentioned grotesque above I think–edit ::raunchy—did you happen to see Hansel and Gretel? a MET tv production? My god – that was horrifying – I could barely watch except for my morbid curiosity….
[...] not because he wants to name me to his advisory board – though that doesn’t [...]