Opera Casting

Mrs. Buce offers a constrained maximization problem: you have a limited budget and you have to present both Gotterdamerung and Traviata. How do you allocate your money?

Her point: for Verdi, you've got to have singers, so in Traviata, you can skimp on the orchestra. But for Götterdämmerung, people don't expect to enjoy the singing anyway, as long (I would rephrase) as the orchestra is loud enough.

I see her point. On the other hand, there may also be a substitution problem. If your Violetta catches a cold, there probably a couple of dozen other Verdian sopranos who can make a plausible claim on the role. But for any Wagner role, is there ever any more than one person--anywhere in the world--who is right for the part?

You can surmise my preference here. I'm one of those who believe that a Wagner opera is one where you go at six o'clock and sit for three hours and check your watch and it's 6:20.

Terry Teachout and Buce: Together Again

When I was first living on my own and earning the princely sum of $37 a week, I decided to tone up my squalid existence with a bit of classical music. I bought three LP records: Schubert's "Trout" Quintet; Mozart's Horn Concertos, and somebody's (Toscanini's?) rendering of "Wagner's Greatest Hits." I can't imagine what prompted me (pretty much untutored) to make such an auspicious beginning. Is there anything more affable than the "Trout"? I wonder what I would have though had I known that I was about the same age as Schubert was when he wrote it. My only real regret is that (particularly with the Mozart) I had started with pretty much the best there was--all downhill from there.

And the Wagner: I loved the tune-y parts. I can still hum duh-DAH, duh-DA, duhduhduh DA DA DA DA DAAAA Dyum, if you get my meaning. But somehow in the turmoil between that time and the time I started paying serious attention, I lost my taste for the Big W. Not that I haven't tried: I've listened to Tristan--in a castle, at that--and I've even read Brian Magee's estimable and instructive book about it. I sat through Meistersingers and Flying Dutchman--the latter of which appears to have at least the virtue of being Not Too Long. But for the most part, this Wagner stuff pretty much makes me puke.

Imagine my delight, then to have my taste validated by a distinguished critic. That would be Terry Teachout, and while I don't suppose I can say he is a partner maybe, still I'd certainly say that he is a soulmate:

... Time was when I pretended to keep an open mind about Richard Wagner--but no more. He is not now and never has been my cup of tea, and I plan, insofar as possible, to go through the remainder of my life without ever attending another public performance of his music. Nor do I see any reason to explain why. You've heard it all before, from others if not from me: countless distinguished critics and composers have been staunch anti-Wagnerians, publishing reams of articulate prose about his aesthetic demerits. ...

Source: "I Don't Do Wagner," originally published in 1997, republished lately. In fairness I should add that he apparently does enjoy stuff like this:

Off to Tannhäuser

Off to San Diego to see relatives and to see Tannhäuser. I admit it: I'm not a big Wagner fan, though I am a big opera fan, merely not regarding Wagner as opera. I did see a weird and wonderful Tristan a couple of years back in an old castle in Finland (are there any new castles in Finland?). So I'm willing to give it a try, but mostly I vote with those who say a Wagner opera is one where you go at six o'clock and sit for three hours and look at your watch and it is six twenty. Ka voom.

Don't feel like lugging the laptop through AP security, though, so this site probably stays dark until Sun night or Mon morning.

The Cultural Function of Opera

Yep, I confess I’m an opera fan, but I have to admit, it’s a pretty weird art form—the only one that I know of with a specific date of birth and a narrative history, all grounded on a historical mistake (link). And it has come to be rooted—okay, stuck—in the 19^th Century (don’t let them kid you, nobody goes to a “new” opera more than once, except as a condition of probation).

Arno J. Mayer throws some instructive light on the matter:

[B]etween 1848 and 1914 the opera became the queen of Dionysian art forms and cults. Of Baroque origin, like the museum it moved out of its courtly environment into the public sphere, bringing along most of its architectural and reportorial endowment. In fact, the opera never ceased to be courtly, and after 1840, by moving into new houses and acquiring a new repertoire, it became increasingly stately. Behind grandiose historical façades, the grand staircases, tiered loges, and mannered foyers were ideally suited for the rites of imitation that promoted and reflected the aristocratization of the bourgeoisie. Steeped in historical lore and received musical constructs, the operatic librettos, scores, and productions were no less conducive to this lasting remobilization of Europe’s ruling classes. Quite fittingly, the crowned heads of Germany, Austria and Russia took a special interest in the opera houses of their capitals, and all governments, including those of the Third Republic, allocated a disproportionately large share of their meager budgets for the arts to this exclusive and sacramental cultural activity.

—Arno J. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime 210-11 (1981)

Aside from the crowned heads, it is amazing how much of this persists today. Mayer goes on to lay responsibility for this framework at the feet of Richard Wagner:

Less and less interested in entertaining or achieving some ideal of stylistic purity, he turned to celebrating and reconstructing the social order of the German empire. Like his close friend Gottfried Semper, the preeminent architect of Baroque monumentalism in Central Europe, Wagner constructed music dramas of colossal pomp and self-possession calculated to mystify and spiritualize life inside and beyond the operatic temple.

—Id. 211

Be interesting to know (but I don’t suppose I will know) how some future cultural historian will understand the place of opera in our own time. I’d be interested in particular to know what he makes of video simulcasts (but that is way ahead of the story).