but alive
La Cieca’s old, old, old (and yet somehow ageless) friend Anne Midgette isn’t just sitting around for The Season to begin like us lazy bloggers. She’s been listening to new recordings of operas by living composers including Michael Nyman, Scott Wheeler and Douglas J. Cuomo. Mr. Cuomo is best known (as they say) as the composer of the theme for Sex and the City, but La Cieca is not going to hold that against him.
Oh, that didn’t come out quite right, because what La Cieca should say is that it’s hardly Mr. Cuomo’s fault that his music is about the only thing that survived unscathed as that TV series so massively overstayed its welcome. Anyway, Cuomo’s most recent opera, Arjuna’s Dilemma, will show up at BAM in November, and, if the excerpts available online are any indication, the piece might best be described as “Satyagraha Meets Confessions on a Dance Floor.” Which, again, don’t get her wrong, La Cieca thinks is pretty cool.
I despise myself for asking this question, so please forgive me, PBers- but you can settle an argument.
Was that title sequence to SATC supposed to be a dream sequence, or not?
Much depends on your reply.
So, in other words, the desperate, almost maniacal, search continues for pieces to get the The Youth Of Today to spend money at opera companies, a strategy that basically says: “We won’t present pieces that are actually operas, but we’ll get people who are TV music composers, a guy who has written string charts for Icelandic pop divas, gay songwriters with the attention spans of gnats and other people like that to write stuff that’s basically musicals that are through-composed and with bolder harmonies. You’ll be so blown away, you’ll immediately subscribe to our season containing pieces that are a 1,000 light years stylistically from what brought you here in the first place, we’re sure of it! Oh, and composers from Europe who unashamedly write operas, and who have a proven track record of doing so, if you want a commission, get stuffed”.
The best way to get The Youth Of Today into opera is to introduce them to opera. I like Rufus, and would be interested in seeing and hearing what he’d do with an opera, but if people think he’s going to get the fabled 18-24 demographic through the doors of opera houses, they’re living in a dreamworld; the majority of his demographic goes to opera already.
Take a look at the hideous ‘Don Giovanni’ viral that CG has put onto MySpace. ‘So, right, dis girl Anna is todally in bed and Don like comes and stabs her dad up nice, innit’. Cringeworthy.
Teenagers from less priveleged backgrounds can be turned into massive opera fans; all you need to know is to play them some opera. I should know. I was one of them.
That should be ‘all you need to do’ obv.
The way to get ‘the youth of today’ into the opera house, and the youth of tomorrow also, is the way that young people were interested in classical music for many decades — the fundaments were taught in grades and high school. In a very plain small town school I learned notes, musicology, had ‘music appreciation’ classes twice a week (In the Hall of the Mountain King, wowowowowow!!!!), and we went on field trips to opera prfs. at a nearby university — and it all worked. I grew up with an adequte degree of musicaly literacy so that I could build on it later.
Throughout the USA the teaching of music in public schools has virtually disappred. That is by far the main reason you see a poverty of interest today. So what will President Obama and the Democratic Congress do about it? NOTHING. It has to start at the grass roots. Get to work!
He looks kinda cute. Is he?
Speaking of new(ish) opera, does anyone like The Handmaid’s Tale by Poul Ruders?
I found it one of Atwood’s better books. Didn’t it get decent reviews? I guess it has reached it’s post mortem stage in terms of peformance.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Poul Ruders is a very strong opera and has everything but good solo vocal writing. The orchestral writing is superb and the choral writing is quite effective. The drama is very well shaped, with a nice arc. It’s made up of many short scenes but it all hangs together really well.
However, the solo vocal writing is quite unappealing and at times just clumsy. Ruders has some good moments, like a duet between the younger and older versions of Offred — nice subtle work. And the character of Aunt Lyida — a hystercial evangelical type — is effectively written for a high soprano. At one point, she’s describing women being raped and on the word “penetrated” sings a series of high Cs. It works terrfically well. But overall, the solo vocal writing is typical of many new operas — awkward, ugly and unable to engage the audience on an emotional level. The opera’s success is due to all the elements surrounding the solo vocal writing.
As for the novel itself, it is a major, seminal work and well worth reading.
As for the never-ending young-audience debate, I agree with those who say that one has to simply present regular operas in good productions, with good musical performances and good stagings. Take a young person to a solid La boheme. If the opera bug is going to bite, it will. Having Rufus Wainright compose the music is not going to do the trick.