The Way We Were
UPDATE: The New York Times has published a followup story, with some select sheepish comments from Peter Gelb.
EARLIER TODAY: Well, slap my face and call me Vox Populi, but “[i]n view of the outpouring of reaction from opera fans about the recent decision to discontinue Met performance reviews in Opera News, the Met has decided to reverse this new editorial policy. From their postings on the internet, it is abundantly clear that opera fans would miss reading reviews about the Met in Opera News. Ultimately, the Met is here to serve the opera-loving public and has changed its decision because of the passionate response of the fans.”
This in a press release from the Met less than 18 hours after the New York Times reported that ”Opera News, 76 years old and one of the leading classical music magazines in the country, said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy prompted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative critiques.”
Or is this a sort of double-reverse version of the Streisand Effect?
MONDAY NIGHT: The situation at Opera News recalls similar friction in San Francisco in 1975 when critic Stephanie von Buchau “was ‘banned’ from the War Memorial by San Francisco Opera General Manager Kurt Herbert Adler. Adler, at least as prickly a personality as Buchau, took offense at one of her reviews, and ordered the publicity department not to make press tickets available to her.”
This latest move of suppression of healthy discussion of events at the Met is extremely discouraging; in fact, I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to call the situation “horrifying.” As parterre.com doesn’t enjoy press credentials at the Met, your doyenne doesn’t see herself in any immediate danger; and, at the other end of the scale, first-tier media like the New York Times, the New Yorker and the Associated Press are unlikely to be shut out.
In between, though, there are dozens of more vulnerable small magazine and web reviewers who are right now feeling the chilling effect of this very high-profile move to quash dissent. The threat is now implicit: publish negative criticism of the Met, and the Met will silence you.
What action journalists and the opera public in general should take is hard to define precisely at the moment, but one thing is clear: this is not just about Opera News.
Bloggers weigh in:
Well, a bit extreme Mr Gelb.
But maybe this latest outrage will precipitate
‘something.’ Care to guess what?
What, mrmyster?
Well of course it’s the next Emilia Marty at the Met after KM ruined her chances by speaking out. Looks passable for 300
This reinforces my decision not to resubscribe for next season. Folks, stop supporting this organization until he’s ousted. Vote with your wallet…and make a few calls to some board members.
Gelb: really…bad…press.
Guess what: had you done nothing, thousands of people who give a $hit about opera would never know a thing about your tyrannical ways, much less about some opera review that you didn’t like. Now that you opened your big trap, thousands who know NOTHING about opera know what a complete D-bag you are.
Good work, man. Really good work.
There been nothing but praise worldwide of the Ring production, except for those nay-sayers at Opera News; now we will all think the Ring production a great success when it comes back again, since it will be spared that nasty, lonely critical voice!
“There been nothing but praise worldwide of the Ring production, except for those nay-sayers at Opera News; now we will all think the Ring production a great success when it comes back again, since it will be spared that nasty, lonely critical voice!”
This is either an attempt at irony or a brazen falsehood.
I think you may have missed the use of the sarcasm font.
This is so sad. When I was in college, I read many old Opera News articles from the 1950′s as research for an English assignment. Back then, Opera News would give a fairly detailed assessment of the strengths and flaws of each new production and then assign it a ranking as a hit or a miss (or some similar terminology). The review would close with a recap of the hits or misses to date for the season. I don’t recall that this practice inspired the imposition of any restrictions against Opera News at that time.
And the Opera News reviews of recent Met productions, especially of the LePage Ring, aren’t any worse than the NY Times, the New Yorker, or many other publications that are out of the sphere of influence of Mr. Gelb.
I think donors to the Met should withhold any future donations till Mr. Gelb apologizes to Opera News. Fucking genius or not, he has crossed an unforgivable boundary.
or many other publications that are out of the sphere of influence of Mr. Gelb
I totally agree with your general gist, but even Gelb at his most ego-maniacal doesn’t see the New Yorker or the NYT as an inhouse marketing tool for the Met. It seems to me that he’s finally tired of the arm’s length policy that use to govern the activities of the Guild.
I was astonished to read in the NYT link that Opera Snooze is the most widely read classical music publication in the US. I’m surprised that the US-largest-performing-arts-company also ‘sponsoring’ the US-largest-distributed-music-magazine conflict has taken this long to rear its ugly head.
Too excited! s.b. “There has been”
P.S. Kurt Adler at SFO tried to do this to Stephanie von Buchau, and lost.
P.P.S. The reason Kurt Adler lost was that the other journalists closed ranks and refused to review any SF Opera productions until Adler backed down.
Are you listening NY Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, et. al.?
Um, can you just IMAGINE TT closing rank on Gelb.
I just cannot beleive this is happening.
The Ring that broke the camel’s back.
I just cannot BELIEVE it.
I had little enough inclination to see anything next season and now my interest has dwindled down to almost nothing at all and we will never ever spend another dime on Gelb’s Albatross.
I can see Gelb’s point that its a bit counter-productive to have the most widely distributed product of the Met’s fundraising arm to be simultaneously fundraising and trashing the Met.
But, and its a pretty huge but, considering that Opera Snooze wasn’t writing anything that wasn’t already being said in the NYT, the New Yorker and on these pages, it seems churlish as hell to suddenly pull the plug now.
And, just like with WQXR, if this is a reaction to one of Kellow’s semi-regular whinges, the reaction is only going to eclipse the original complaint anyway.
Running honest reviews isn’t “trashing” the Met.
I’m starting to go in circles. The issue doesn’t appear to be the reviews, but Kellow (and others, ahem, Guinther, ahem) trashing the Gelb era in print in their opinion pieces.
Opera I Can’t Believe This Is News is a fundraising tool of the Met. Surely it’s not beyond the realms of imagination to acknowledge that the Met may have a problem with an editor of their fundraising magazine writing about the dark days of the Gelb era?
And, again, I find Gelb’s decision to be so incredibly, odiously stupid, but I can sort of see where it came from.
It’s incredibly, odiously stupid because the Met just can’t be seen meddling in this way with ON, and because ON loses all credibility because of it.
Ianw2:
Sometimes the whole devil’s advocate thing gets tired. Like or not, Opera News -- if it is to have ANY value at all -- must be relatively independent of the Met. Otherwise, it is simply a brochure. And since it sells itself has a arts information magazine (hello!! Opera NEWS), your claim about it being simply a fundraising tool is a red herring.
Truth is Gelb is throwing his weight around in a very distasteful and counterproductive manner. He also just ruined one of the few viable -- if somewhat lame -- arts magazines in the country.
This is a complete embarrassment. I cannot imagine that no one on his staff or the board drew a line in the sand on this one.
Crazy.
Devil’s advocate? Really?
Which bit of
I find Gelb’s decision to be so incredibly, odiously stupid
was unclear?
The part that suggests that this is no big deal because Opera News sucks.
So we should be okay with censorship and bullying when they effect news organizations or arts organizations that we don’t think much of?
DO you have any idea how dangerous that notion is in a world where most major news outlets are owned by multi-national conglomerates.
Damn.
The only person in this situation who is a bigger douchebag than Gelb is Brian Kellow. Does he get paid to write that drivel each month? It boggles the mind.
Choosing among douchebags like Kellow and Driscoll and Gelb is difficult. At least Gelb has some accomplishments (although they are starting to be obscured by his bunker mentality). I can’t think of a single thing that kellow and driscoll have done for opera.