# Opera: All dead?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From The Economist: "According to Operabase, an opera-statistics website, the world's 40 most-performed opera composers last season were all dead. The most-performed living composer, Philip Glass, only saw his operas performed 66 times, compared with 2,586 performances for the top-ranked Verdi. Contemporary theatre, in contrast, is not only performed regularly, but attracts large crowds."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/07/opera-modern-world


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This is _news?_ ............


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's the _whys _(posited) that may be of interest...


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

:guitar: ...........................


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Ashlawn Opera*



KenOC said:


> From The Economist: "According to Operabase, an opera-statistics website, the world's 40 most-performed opera composers last season were all dead. The most-performed living composer, Philip Glass, only saw his operas performed 66 times, compared with 2,586 performances for the top-ranked Verdi. Contemporary theatre, in contrast, is not only performed regularly, but attracts large crowds."
> 
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/07/opera-modern-world


And that is why whenever you insist on bringing up one of your classical music is dying articles I will respond that it does not jive with my experiences. Last weekend my wife and I attended a production of Carlisle Floyd's opera _Susannah_ with the Ashlawn Opera which is a summer opera festival held in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was well received by a large appreciative audience. Of course if I took your articles seriously, this opera festival would not exist. I guess my wife and I were imagining it.

Link to Festival site: http://www.ashlawnopera.com/

Maybe classical music is dying in your world. It is not in mine.

Just because an article appears in the _Economist_ does it mean it is true.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> Just because an article appears in the _Economist_ does it mean it is true.


It will be helpful if you will point out the errors, factual or otherwise. Thanks!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> It's the _whys _(posited) that may be of interest...


"Popular operas are like pop music, he adds: listeners can hum the melodies."
That is no news, either. Once again, we are at this stasis between your view and mine: that it is not just up to the composers or the fault of the composers, but it is up to the audiences and their shortcomings as well.

I would say the above should say the _most_ popular operas -- La Traviata is basically one hit tune followed by another, with only a few arias that the average Joe 'n' Jane could _not_ remember after one exposure, and demanded both ear and voice outside Joe 'n' Jane's native equipment.

_And GOOD ON MR. GLASS!_ -- his works performed over one season, the number totaling more than there are weeks in a year.

American Mark Adamo seems to have wedged the new opera gets performed door open for himself; Carlyle Ffloyd is now 88, but at least his work is being performed and he is still alive.

Renee Fleming is in place with the Chicago Lyric opera as their creative consultant, and there is much promise and hope that she will be instrumental in finding, commissioning, and getting new works premiered and presented. I doubt if she has an ear for music and shows which would repel current audiences, lol.

But it may just require the older generation who only support La Traviata, Carmen, La vie Boheme, etc and who don't go for much of anything else to actually die off before we see a noticeable change, and if any of us are of that same generation, we may not be the ones to see it, or p1ss 'n' moan about the state of modern music, opera, etc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> ...Once again, we are at this stasis between your view and mine:


Are you addressing me? I have stated no views, just posted an article I thought people here might find interesting, given the source. Notice the question mark in the thread title? Should I not have posted it?

I have no dog in this race, being pretty much uninterested in opera, either old or new.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Opera Is Dying???*



KenOC said:


> It will be helpful if you will point out the errors, factual or otherwise. Thanks!


Ken,

In all of the years I have known you I do not recall that you have ever produced an article that says anything positive concerning the state of classical music. Many of us here have serious problems with your classical music is dying hypothesis.

I had a discussion about this Mr. Ara Guzelimian, one of the directors of the Ojai Music Festival. He stated that in Europe and Asia, classical music is still a thriving art form. It is struggling in parts of the United States because of our economic model. It seems that the those who have negative feelings concerning the state of classical music are Americans and or people who think classical music died in 1913.

Ojai had record sales this summer and all of the big evening concerts were sold out.

I attended a lecture with Steven Stucky. He blew apart one of your issues concerning how Webernish composers dominated academia in the sixties. He attended college during this period and he stated that this was a myth that is exaggerated. This is a point I have tried to make with you on several occasions.

If you think classical music is dying that is your problem not ours. Musicians who are much smarter than I am have spent years trying to convince you otherwise to no avail. I have better uses of my time than trying to prove to you that you may be mistaken.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Are you addressing me? I have stated no views, just posted an article I thought people here might interesting, given the source. Notice the question mark in the thread title? Should I not have posted it?
> 
> I have no dog in this race, being pretty much uninterested in opera, either old or new.







No, sir I was addressing the content of your post, and the point of "the why of it" in the article which you directed me to look at -- in which you claim to now, and even prior creating the post, to be pretty much uninterested. (go figure.)

Edit Add: The Stuckey opera, dead composer characters bemoaning that classical music is dead, sounds hysterical. I wonder how many Ojai audience members will be squirming in their seats, essentially seeing themselves lampooned onstage!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> ...in which you claim to now, and even prior creating the post, to be pretty much uninterested.


If I though the article was uninteresting, I wouldn't have posted it. Please! It's opera that I'm not much interested in...as I said.

Obviously you're interested as well, since it seems to have raised your hackles a bit.

So far only arpeggio has responded to the article, if only via anecdote...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

PetrB said:


> "Popular operas are like pop music, he adds: listeners can hum the melodies."


Mozart piano concertos are like Iron Maiden songs: they consist of chords.

And anyway, there are more dead composers than living composers. It's logical that majority is more frequently staged than minority and it has nothing to do with demise of new music being performed.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Opera does not hold as central a place in today's world as it did in the past. Neither do classical music in general, painting, live theatre, vinyl records, hard-copy books, or radio. All these things have become somewhat marginalized, but they all still survive. The same for opera.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Part of the problem lies in the artificial divisions of musical theatre into genres such as opera, operetta, and musical comedy. The boundaries among these forms are so flexible that the terms are generally meaningless. For example, why is _Orpheus in Hades_ designated as an opera while _Die Fledermaus_ is shoved into the operetta group? Why are three dark works of musical theatre such as _Lulu_, _Die Dreigroschenopfer_, and _Sweeney Todd_ classified respectively as definitely an opera, not quite sure where it fits, and almost definitely a musical comedy - despite it being through-composed and having about as much comedy in it as _Tosca_?

In my opinion, if an audience goes to see an event where a drama is performed, in which more time is spent listening to music than to dialogue, and in which a reasonably-sized band is used to accompany the performers, they've seen an opera, whether they wanted to or not. It doesn't matter whether the performance is ghettoized into a second-rate theatre - after all, that's where _Die Zauberflote_ and _Carmen_ were first performed.

If you added Lloyd Webber and Sondheim and Schoenberg (not Arnold, but the guy who wrote Les Miz) to the mix, I wonder how the ratio of dead to living composers would change. I know, I know, those guys aren't writing operas! They're in English and have talking in them and simple music that you can remember when you leave the theatre... kind of the same experience that Italians had when they first went to see _La Traviata_...


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

waldvogel said:


> If you added Lloyd Webber and Sondheim and Schoenberg (not Arnold, but the guy who wrote Les Miz) to the mix, I wonder how the ratio of dead to living composers would change. I know, I know, those guys aren't writing operas! They're in English and have talking in them and simple music that you can remember when you leave the theatre... kind of the same experience that Italians had when they first went to see _La Traviata_...


Good Point!!!!!!!!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

KenOC said:


> If I though the article was uninteresting, I wouldn't have posted it. Please! It's opera that I'm not much interested in...as I said.


So, you're not interested in opera, but you are interested in articles about opera? Sounds unusual at the very least.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Opera: All Dead? Really?*

The more I read the OP and the article the more irritated I become. It is really insulting to the intelligence of most of the members of TC.

The vast majority of operas that are staged are composed by dead composers? I had no idea. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Is there anyone here who is unaware of this revelation?

I have learned that the vast majority of us have an excellent grasp concerning the state of classical music. We really understand the pros and cons of it. We do not need anyone treating us as if were are bewildered college freshmen in a music appreciation class.

There are those who think that old music is better than new. Well for the umpteenth time I will state, we know this. Generally speaking most old music is better than new. So what? We understand that for every Mozart there are a hundred Salieri's. Look at all of the contemporaries of Beethoven who have been forgotten. We understand that only a handful of the current composers will be remembered a hundred years from now. Most composers understand this as well. I recall an interview with John Adams when he admitted that his legacy may be like Myerbeer's. None of us can guess which of the thousand's of new works that are being composed today will be tomorrow's masterpiece. In spite of the constraints there are those of us here who refuse to write off classical music as a dead art form. We still want to explore and try to understand it in spite of the articles we may see in the _New York Times_ about the demise of whatever.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Pretty obvious. Most classical music performed is by dead people. Most recordings sold were probably made by people now dead. Even in the pop music sphere there is a healthy trade in Elvis et al who have passed on.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

one week someone complains classical/opera is a dead art form, the next someone else complains there is too much money funneled into it...


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Two things stand out for me about this article. First, it's uninsightful to say the least - as you'd expect from a quicky in a general interest publications. Second, how hard is Mark Elder working to make everyone's umpteenth performance of Trav sound like its an exciting opportunity? Poor guy


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Glad I saw that article. I just threw out some George Harrison stuff. I just realized he's dead! Yuck!!! What the heck was I thinking?

If my good friends ever found out I was listening to dead music, I would surely be shunned.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

KenOC said:


> From The Economist: "According to Operabase, an opera-statistics website, the world's 40 most-performed opera composers last season were all dead. The most-performed living composer, Philip Glass, only saw his operas performed 66 times, compared with 2,586 performances for the top-ranked Verdi. Contemporary theatre, in contrast, is not only performed regularly, but attracts large crowds."
> 
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/07/opera-modern-world


Yes we all now nearly all operas performed are by composers that are dead since long still it is nothing wrong with pointing it out.
I would like to know how many operas by Verdi were performed around the world in 1889 to have something to compare with.
It should also be said that operas from earlier eras have been the most performed for a long time.
And 2586 performances of Verdis operas is not that much if every scene it is performed on have an average of 1000 seats it would still mean that a very small part of the worlds population was able to see a Verdi opera during that season. Then I should say operabase is not complete.


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