till we meet again
La Cieca is going to bid farewell to Prima Donna and Rufus Wainwright, for the moment anyway. But before you doyenne actually, you know, goes (i.e., “ma tu ben mio, meco ritorna in pace”) she’s just going to say this:
A piece like Prima Donna is exactly the sort of thing (or at least one sort of thing) that the New York City Opera ought to be offering. It would sell like crazy, foster the most intense debate both online and in the meat universe, and just generally be scandalous.
That the leading role seems to have “Lauren Flanigan” written on it in letters of fire doesn’t hurt either. Lauren as an insane camp opera singer? That’s what Ethan Mordden calls “Gable as Rhett casting.”
I have to say, I am really amazed at all the furor about Wainwright’s attempt at an opera. It seems to revolve around the idea that “amateur” composers aren’t allowed to touch opera. And yet, if amateurs, people sensationalist lives and those lacking in serious/professional music training were banned from opera, we wouldn’t have:
– Jean Baptiste Lully (entered the service of a household as a SCULLERY BOY, where his employer noticed he had some talent and begin helping him educate himself — then spent the rest of his life as a tabloid-style playboy going from scandal to scandal!)
– John Gay (a silk mercer’s apprentice)
– Daniel Auber (a print-seller/expected to take over the family business)
– Gioachino Rossini (apprenticed to a BLACKSMITH)
– Hector Berlioz (sent to Paris to train as a doctor — and believe me, his lack of formal training is incredibly evident in his early works, some of which are almost unsingable)
– Mikhail Glinka (Assistant Secretary of the Department of Public Highways)
– Alexander Borodin (A chemist who was highly noted for research work throughout his life)
– Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Forced by his family to enter the Navy)
And the list could go on and on. How much poorer our musical history would be if these people had been turned away from ever trying their hand at composition…
So you want NYCO to present MET rejects, huh.
Big help.
@11 Anonymous Soprano…
I’m not sure how Rufus fits into your list since he was the coddled heir apparent born into a musical family, albeit of the “folk” persuasion. I would at least think that it gave him a “leg up” and a certain feeling of entitlement which makes his pretentions more of a target here.
Anonymous Soprano: Training or not, all the composers you listed eventually did acquire the skill needed for composition and only found fame once they had acquired those skills. Not having heard Wainright’s opera, I’m not going to pronounce judgement one way or another. However, if his opera shows a lack of compositional skill, then that’s the bottom line. If and when he should acquire that skill and display it in a work of art, he’ll receive due praise, I’m sure.
None of the composers listed became famous despite a lack of skill. They eventually acquired it.
@Kashania And yet, how does one get skill at something without doing it? Quite frankly, most opera composers’ first works are crap. Even Mozart. Good lord, his first handful of things were, for the most part, tedious despite even some lovely melodies.
If all composers quit because their first work sucked, we’d have pretty much zero opera.
When we decide ahead of time who is allowed to try to make art, we get very little art, at all.
And one other things, almost none of the operas we hear frequently were complete and polished by their very first performance.
Many of them were flops at their first performances, or even if they were successful, were edited, polished, tweaked and rearranged. Again, even Mozart’s works were tweaked here and there.
The advent of the internet has made it nearly impossible for the art of composition and performance to evolve as it should, because everyone makes an immediate judgment at the very first presentation, and god help you if you don’t impress immediately…
All of this silliness pales into insignificance with the news this morning that Sir Ted Downes and his wife Joan were assisted in the suicides at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. A wonderful man and a fine, fine musician. He had been near blind for some time and was beginning to lose his hearing..
Anonymous Soprano: Wainright could have easily studied composition before writing his first opera. I’m sure he would have been given access to some fine teachers. And as I said before, one cannot expect to receive praise for unskilled work. If, indeed, he acquires the necessary skill through practise, then he can look forward to lots of praise down the road. The book on Wainright is not finished yet. He became famous after proving his skills as a song-writer. He didn’t shoot to stardom after the first song he ever wrote.
haven’t we seen this pop-star-does-opera movie before? waaay back in 1989, stewart copeland, formerly of the rock band the police, saw his opera “holy blood and crescent moon” premiered at cleveland opera amid the expected torrent of publicity. has anyone seen or heard of it since then? even paul mccartney’s fame and undeniable musical gifts couldn’t win an enduring place for his “requiem” in classical concert halls.
yes, presenting operas composed by pop-music newbies would indeed get nyco talked about — as in: what the hell were they thinking? and it’s not as if there were no other operas out there waiting for someone to take them to the prom — golijov’s “ainadamar,” rautavaara’s “rasputin” and “thomas,” and saariaho’s “l’amour de loin” would be high on my list.
Rautavaara’s Thomas is gorgeous to listen to and seems to have extremely grateful vocal parts. There was a flood of new Finnish opera a while ago and several of them were well worth reviving. Now we have Ms. Saariaho, whose music has a strong profile and is very theatrical. It would be good to hear more from Finland–something seems to be very valid in the tradition and musical training there.