Opera's Troubles

There's an interesting article in today's Wall St. Journal, an opinion piece really, "The Slow Death of Grand Opera." The author, Robert W. Wilson, is a former chairman of the New York City Opera. He says that the big opera companies are losing money, and that a lot of the problem is the lack of new melodic operas. He believes that audiences would flock to new melodic operas, if we could just keep critics from trashing the pieces.

Here is his second-to-last sentence:

"If the new cannot be brought in and accepted, opera will probably go the way of poetry: an art that continues but is no longer at the heart of our cultural life."

Puts me in mind of the way I once opened a lecture:

Poetry today is dead.
All that's written, goes unread.

That's hyperbole, of course. Poetry does get read today. Just, not by most people.

Here is his last sentence:

"I am heartbroken by this possibility, because opera, with its blend of spectacle, drama, voice and orchestra, is the greatest art form ever devised by man."

I suppose the idea is that opera packs a mighty big wallop because it combines the verbal, visual, and musical arts. It strikes me that a movie with a good score delivers a similar combination punch.

Would the critics be mean
If another Joe Green*
Appeared on the scene?


*Giuseppe Verdi