# Opera Fans/Fanatics... a Unique Brand of Madness?



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

While pondering today's challenge at uncovering the greatest "mad scene" in opera, I found myself pondering the "madness" that can be found among the fans of this unique and marvelous art form.

Several years back I joined a couple of online opera forums. These forums would forward the the daily postings to your e-mail in the form of a "journal" containing 25 separate postings. I quickly found myself overwhelmed as these sites easily turned out several hundred postings each day. If I didn't check the e-mail every day... or if I went out of town, I returned to find my e-mail cluttered with hundreds of "journals" and thousands of comments.

Reading through some of the comments I was struck not only by the vehement arguments over which _La Traviata_ or which _Ring_ cycle was the best, but also knock-down-drag-out fights over this or that singer from the 1920s or 1910s... or earlier whose work existed in such a form (on the rather primitive recording technology of the day) that any honest assessment was a near impossibility. Yet some of these fanatics would argue to the end that Luisa Tetrazzinni or Lilli Lehmann or even Maria Malibran far outperformed Renée Fleming, Joan Sutherland, or Maria Callas.

Even worse, however, was the partisanship exhibited that stooped to the sort of behavior worthy of a British football fan. Champions of this of that singer are not content to sing the praises of their idol/heroine... but rather they must insult her "competition"... and in the most crude and vulgar manner. Just a brief perusal through YouTube or other such sites and you find someone calling Anna Netrebko a "*****" or a "talentless ****" or a "great ***/bad voice" (Now Alma... remember your blood pressure... and put the gun down...:lol and Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Magdalena Kozena, Diana Damrau, Natalie Dessay, Susan Graham, Vesselina Kasarova, Kathleen Battle, Kiri Te Kanawa ,Angela Gheorghiu, Sandrine Piau... nearly any singer who has garnered any real attentions seems to be subjected with such...

And we won't even go into the crude comments directed at Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky.

Now I can't seriously say that I've ever come upon a debate about favorite pianists in which I found the fans of Glen Gould dismiss Sviatoslav Richter, Murray Perahia, Emil Gilels, Marthe Argerich, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, or Wilhelm Kempff as "talentless hacks", "useless whores", or anything else to that extent.

So what is with the fanaticism behind opera and those who love opera?


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Only excuse I can think of is that either 1) all opera singers _are_ talentless hacks or 2) no opera singers are talentless hacks. So we go about trying to make differences between them that don't exist, and so to back these random excuses up we have to tear all the other singers down.

Okay, taking the existential hat off.

Opera is a fundamentally dramatic and emotional art form. So are movies. And how many times have I seen people tear into Nicholas Cage or Jennifer Aniston or Viggo Mortensen or whoever? I feel like I can rest my case here, and I probably should since it's after midnight and I have to get up at 7 this morning...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Hey! I get an hour more than you! But I need to be well rested. I'm going to see a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion tomorrow evening. Bach! That bit**!!!:lol:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...Now I can't seriously say that I've ever come upon a debate about favorite pianists in which I found the fans of Glen Gould dismiss Sviatoslav Richter, Murray Perahia, Emil Gilels, Marthe Argerich, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, or Wilhelm Kempff as "talentless hacks", "useless whores", or anything else to that extent.


& the other thing is, you're unlikely to find the musicians themselves criticising eachother's work in this primitive way. Of course, they do criticise (that's why music is an art, with all it's subtleties), but probably not - on a regular basis at least - stooping to this crude level of the swamp. In any case, that kind of attitude would reflect very badly on your professionalism as an elite musician. It's a big NO-NO.

As for "fans" and "groupies," they're another story. In the comfort of their seperate spaces, detached from the "coal face" of the music industry, they can get away with saying virtually anything they like. I mean, they're not a Netrebko, Dessay, or Gheorghiu, far from it. These people can hide behind the anonymity of the net, and just talk crap. Whatever artistic decisions they make, whether they're "by the book" or from "left field" I have far more respect for our great musicians than these bottom-feeders who just dish out stuff on the net - granted, some of it can be pure gold, but a lot of it is just dross (& I'm not really referring to the members here on TC, who on the main seem to be more balanced than those on other forums I've frequented (& given up entirely, it's a waste of time, these people drag me down to their level of the primeival swamps)...


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Several years back I joined a couple of online opera forums. These forums would forward the the daily postings to your e-mail in the form of a "journal" containing 25 separate postings. I quickly found myself overwhelmed as these sites easily turned out several hundred postings each day. If I didn't check the e-mail every day... or if I went out of town, I returned to find my e-mail cluttered with hundreds of "journals" and thousands of comments.


Wow! Sounds wonderful! What's the URL?



> Reading through some of the comments I was struck not only by the vehement arguments over which _La Traviata_ or which _Ring_ cycle was the best, but also knock-down-drag-out fights over this or that singer from the 1920s or 1910s... or earlier whose work existed in such a form (on the rather primitive recording technology of the day) that any honest assessment was a near impossibility. Yet some of these fanatics would argue to the end that Luisa Tetrazzinni or Lilli Lehmann or even Maria Malibran far outperformed Renée Fleming, Joan Sutherland, or Maria Callas.


Of course Anna's _La Traviata _is far superior to Draculette's.



> Even worse, however, was the partisanship exhibited that stooped to the sort of behavior worthy of a British football fan. Champions of this of that singer are not content to sing the praises of their idol/heroine... but rather they must insult her "competition"... and in the most crude and vulgar manner. Just a brief perusal through YouTube or other such sites and you find someone calling Anna Netrebko a "*****" or a "talentless ****" or a "great ***/bad voice" (Now Alma... remember your blood pressure... and put the gun down...:lol


The gun is down. As for the small nuclear device...



> And we won't even go into the crude comments directed at Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky.


This is wrong, you're right! I mean, these guys are innocent, it's not as justified as bashing Erwin Schrott which is fair game; after all, who wouldn't be mad at the guy who removed Anna from "available" status?


> So what is with the fanaticism behind opera and those who love opera?


Now, seriously. Opera is about passion, therefore, fans are passionate. The comparison with football is apt - another human activity that triggers passions. I believe that everything that you referred to is a tribute to how great opera is.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Almaviva said:


> Now, seriously. Opera is about passion, therefore, fans are passionate. The comparison with football is apt - another human activity that triggers passions. I believe that everything that you referred to is a tribute to how great opera is.


No I don't agree. I think name-calling artists is unnecessary. Sure you can have your favourites, and dislike others, but not to the extent of the insults Stlukes has quoted. And without being unduly naive about the difficulty of making it as an opera singer, opera is not per se a competitive sport like football, so you don't have to have "your" team.

Personally I like too many singers to be completely partisan about any one in particular, although of course I have my favourites.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

There used to be pretty unsavoury opera and theatre factions back in the 18th century but I assume that was more about allegiance to particular genres rather than individuals. From what I've read of St. Luke's post some of these latter-day people are presumably very knowledgeable about their subject as a whole but have serious prejudices concerning the artistes in particular. Perhaps they need to get out far more judging by the cheap-shot nastiness of the insult-trading - once they descend to that it ceases to be debate and simply becomes a tiresome case of talking loud but saying nothing.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

I once commented on youtube about a video of the countertenor Dominique Visse singing Schubert's Ave Maria on a TV show. I think he can be a good comedic actor and his voice may suit such roles but I didn't like the Ave Maria thing and I said as much, in what I felt to be straight to the point but not crude terms. A few hours later I got a PM from a Dominique Visse fan, possibly the one who uploaded the video, it was a long rant about my lack of taste and so forth and it just escalated. I think it ended with something like "you wouldn't know a talented singer when you hear one, you who just live up in the woods in the middle of nowhere". (I assume she/he meant Norway....the English was by no means fluent, which didn't really help.) I wasn't insulted, I got a giggle out of it if anything, but it just goes to show how things apparently work out there...

I've also taken part in a lightly heated discussion in the comment section on one of the videos I uploaded myself, of Matthew White singing Bach. Somehow it turned into a Philippe Jaroussky vs Andreas Scholl "fight", although I try to keep things from getting out of hand...We have, at the moment at least, agreed to disagree I think.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I've also taken part in a lightly heated discussion in the comment section on one of the videos I uploaded myself, of Matthew White singing Bach. Somehow it turned into a Philippe Jaroussky vs Andreas Scholl "fight"

I love both Scholl and Jaroussky... and the two of them seem to be on the best of terms if not close friends. At least such was the impression I got from an interview involving both of them. Scholl was asked if there was a particular role he'd never done that he'd love to do, and he responded "Carmen". Jaroussky laughingly responded that he could play Micaëla. The whole image of Carmen in drag certainly cracked me up... and I'd probably love it.:lol:


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

The other key aspect of opera is of course the visuals - the staging. Many of us are equally passionate not just of the musical performance but also what artistic merits, or lack of, goes on the stage. The more "modern" we march forward in time, it seems the more often we see ridiculous stagings especially with pre-Romantic operas. It seems the stage directors can have assertions of their own to make with little regard to the dramatic pace and relevance of the characters' role in the unfolding drama.

Here we have our hero Rinaldo from Handel's opera of the same title dressed up in blue-purple suit and coat holding a golden high heel shoe, supposedly getting fired up. Who could possibly take the visuals of this scene seriously? The music was as glorious as any other Handel's but utterly let down by the spastic blend of visual nonsense.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I'm not fully a purist when it comes to staging. I think that a good art director can lead you to experience the opera in a new light... but obviously there are limits. Some of the so-called Eurotrash production leave me cringing or laughing (when such was not the intention) and obviously this is not the "new light" I am speaking of. Wagner, for whatever reason, seems to be a favorite for horrible stage sets and costumes.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Most of us will never know what it's like to get up on stage & give your all. I've been surprised to hear some snide remarks about the florezidos and the Villazónistas, but these comments were directed at the fans rather than the artists.

To be a singer it takes years of hard work & dedication & courage by the bucket-load & I have nothing but total admiration for what they do.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

karenpat said:


> I once commented on youtube about a video of the countertenor Dominique Visse singing Schubert's Ave Maria on a TV show. I think he can be a good comedic actor and his voice may suit such roles but I didn't like the Ave Maria thing and I said as much, in what I felt to be straight to the point but not crude terms. A few hours later I got a PM from a Dominique Visse fan, possibly the one who uploaded the video, it was a long rant about my lack of taste and so forth and it just escalated. I think it ended with something like "you wouldn't know a talented singer when you hear one, you who just live up in the woods in the middle of nowhere". (I assume she/he meant Norway....the English was by no means fluent, which didn't really help.) I wasn't insulted, I got a giggle out of it if anything, but it just goes to show how things apparently work out there...


Like you I got into trouble when I once said that I thought that Scholl, while quite a wonderful singer, was not menacing enough in "Va Tacito et Nascosto". Oh dear, no more comments on YouTube.

PS Visse does have a very ODD voice, doesn't he! I saw him as Nireno in the Paris Giulio and even though he's meant to be comedic I couldn't listen all the way through his big aria.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I'm not the partisan type of opera fan. I admire many,many opera singers,past and present, and to admire one soprano,mezzo,tenor,baritone or bass doesn't necessarily mean you have to despise another in the same vocal fach..
I might prefer one singer in a particular role over another, but then again, I might prefer 
the other singer in another role over the other. They're not at all mutually exclusive.
The whole Callas/Tebaldi feud is very silly. Apples and oranges .
For tenderness and radiance, you want Tebaldi ; for dramatic fire you want Callas. 
Another thing that bugs me is the knee-jerk tendency to assume that famous singers of the past ,retired or dead, must automatically be superior to those of today. That's ridiculous.
To quote Porgy and Bess, "It ain't necessarily so ". 
Calas is not the ONLY Tosca . Price , Tebaldi , Scotto, Nilsson, and other great sopranos are their own women and also have a lot to offer in that iconic role. 
It always annoys me the way so many snooty opera fans are always belittling and dismissing today's great opera singers and sneering at them, while uncritically worshipping those of the past . This is the knee-jerk response. In fact, some of these 
snooty "experts" have even told me that the only reason I admire any of today's opera stars is because I "obviously haven't heard any of the greats of the past " !!!!!
That's a pretty fatuous assumption. On the contrary , I am most certainly VERY familiar with the voices of so many legendary singers of the past from recordings. 
Certainly there were many great ones, no question about it , and there's a lot to admire on old recordings. But that doesn't mean I can't have great admiration for such greats as Fleming , Voigt, Mattila, Borodina, Graham, Dessay, Netrebko,
Domingo, Heppner , Hampson, Terfel, Pape and others . 
They're great in their own way. And you can bet your bottom dollar that decades frm now , when all of today's top opera stars are gone or very,very old, opera fans will be longing for the "golden age " of these people !


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

While I generally agree with you, Superhorn, I'm not entirely sure. See, for instance, our 30 day Opera Challenge. We were asked for the best male singer. I listed Bjorling first, Di Stefano second, and Gedda third, and said that I don't think the current ones are as good. This is not blind worshipping, it's rather just an opinion, issued from direct comparison. I do think that Bjorling sang more beautifully then the current singers. I'm not saying it out of any snobbish knee-jerk response, but rather, out of my own observation. 

I believe that the talent pool is smaller now, given that opera is less popular than it once was, and suffers more competition from pop music. Also, looks are very important now, which discourages some potentially good singers from trying their voice at this career. Another issue is that we look at a longer period when we think of past singers. While the present is just a snapshot, the past since the recording age has been going on for longer. If each generation has a few super talented singers, we may be looking at a handful in the current generation, and comparing them to several generations of singers in the past, which then seem more numerous.

The combination of these three factors does make it more likely, in my opinion, that the current singers indeed, as a group, are less talented than their past counterparts.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

_It's sad to look at the younger people going to the opera, they listen to Caruso, De Luca, Martinelli, Ponselle... and then think this is a time of great singers, when they have never known the true Golden Age of opera in New York._

James G. Huneker, New York Times, 1920.

Or something in this line, I'm quoting from memory.

There has always been this kind of thinking in opera, that singers of the past were just better than the singers of the present. Well, we will never know if Caruso, De Luca, Martinelli or Ponselle were worse or better than Pasta, Malibran or Rubini but we can compare them with Domingo, Nucci, Florez or Fleming thanks to recordings.

In my view, there is today a dearth of voices for some repertoire, and in some vocality: just think on baritones for a traditional Verdi or Puccini opera... On the other hand, there are fascinating singers for Baroque opera, contemporary opera,...

We are indeed fortunate, that we can listen to the great singers of the past, and enjoy the good singers of our own time.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

schigolch said:


> _It's sad to look at the younger people going to the opera, they listen to Caruso, De Luca, Martinelli, Ponselle... and then think this is a time of great singers, when they have never known the true Golden Age of opera in New York._
> 
> James G. Huneker, New York Times, 1920.
> 
> ...


When I went to see _Simon Boccanegra_ with Domingo as SB, there was a typical opera bore behind me who kept droning on & on about how he remembered Domingo singing Adorno & it really annoyed me.



schigolch said:


> In my view, there is today a dearth of voices for some repertoire, and in some vocality: just think on baritones for a traditional Verdi or Puccini operas...


Dima was an awesome Rigoletto. I'm still recovering :lol:



schigolch said:


> On the other hand, there are fascinating singers for Baroque opera, contemporary opera,...
> 
> We are indeed fortunate, that we can listen to the great singers of the past, and enjoy the good singers of our own time.


I'm quite old but enjoy listening to young singers.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

mamascarlatti said:


> Like you I got into trouble when I once said that I thought that Scholl, while quite a wonderful singer, was not menacing enough in "Va Tacito et Nascosto". Oh dear, no more comments on YouTube.
> 
> PS Visse does have a very ODD voice, doesn't he! I saw him as Nireno in the Paris Giulio and even though he's meant to be comedic I couldn't listen all the way through his big aria.


Yes it has a very..um.. unique sound. When I first heard it I was struck by how nasal it sounded. Not my cup of tea.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

There must be something wrong with me. I listen to old recordings (eg on the "female singers of the past" thread) and I often find myself not enjoying them much. I PREFER today's singers.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

I prefer today's singers too... I don't think it's so strange.

Slightly OT but on the topic of youtube comments, I found an interview with violinist Joshua Bell where he really hits the nail on the head (bolding mine):



> I find it really disturbing the lack of respect that people have on the internet for anybody. I've gone on to YouTube and they'll have a Fritz Kreisler record and there will be people slamming him for being disgustingly oldfashioned and slurpy - and totally not getting the beauty, that he was one of the great violinists that ever lived. You can see that across the board. And the idea of comparing - people will go online and say, 'This sucks; I like this version' - and not realizing that first of all, *you can appreciate both versions for different reasons*. It becomes a contest: 'This person sucks because I like this person.'


http://www.listenmusicmag.com/feature/the-woeful-romantic.php?page=1


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

karenpat said:


> I prefer today's singers too... I don't think it's so strange.
> 
> Slightly OT but on the topic of youtube comments, I found an interview with violinist Joshua Bell where he really hits the nail on the head:
> 
> http://www.listenmusicmag.com/feature/the-woeful-romantic.php?page=1


Some of the comments on YouTube are really unpleasant & I've stopped posting


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

sospiro said:


> Some of the comments on YouTube are really unpleasant & I've stopped posting


It seems to me that many of the people who post comments on YouTube have no clue what they are talking about and try to be as nasty and often vulgar as they can. They do not harm the artists but only do harm to themselves. If you have nothing to say, it is better not to say it.

Rob

Rob


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Almaviva, opera is "less popular than it used to be?" On the contrary. The number of opera companies in America has increased astronomicaly from the past. In the first half of the 20th century up to about the 60s, there were only a tiny fraction of all the opera companies which exist today. The only major cities for opera were New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
And Chicago and San francisco had very short seasons. In the past forty year sor so, opera companies have proliferated and are in all 50 states. We now have important opera companies in Seattle, Dallas,Houston, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Minneapolis,
Los Angeles, etc. Of curse, most of the regional opera companies do only about three or four productions a year, but there is still abigger audience for opera than ever before.
More and more younger people, young adults in their 20s and 30s have been turned on to opera and have been hoked for life.
Yes, Bjorling had one of the most beautiful tenor voices of all time, no question about it. But from all reports he wasn't much of an actor . He basically just stood there poring out a generalized stram of beautiful sound . Roberto Alagna may not quite be his equal on purely vocal terms, but in terms of acting and creating a character, which is the important thing. , he is a much more interesting artist. 
I judge a singer by the whole package; voice ,expressivity, acting ability. A beautiful voice, no matter how gorgeous ,without the ability to brng a character to life and interact with the other singers, gets boring after a while. 
Of course, I ever got a chance to see such legendary names as Flagstad,Melchior, 
Callas, Tebaldi, Lotte Lehmann, Chaliapin, Caruso, and others live, so I can't be sure how I would have reacrted to them from a dramatic viewpoint. 
But acting IS very important, both with the voice and the body.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Almaviva, opera is "less popular than it used to be?" On the contrary. The number of opera companies in America has increased astronomicaly from the past. In the first half of the 20th century up to about the 60s, there were only a tiny fraction of all the opera companies which exist today. The only major cities for opera were New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
> And Chicago and San francisco had very short seasons. In the past forty year sor so, opera companies have proliferated and are in all 50 states. We now have important opera companies in Seattle, Dallas,Houston, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Minneapolis,
> Los Angeles, etc. Of curse, most of the regional opera companies do only about three or four productions a year, but there is still abigger audience for opera than ever before.
> More and more younger people, young adults in their 20s and 30s have been turned on to opera and have been hoked for life.
> ...


Oh, I totally agree with you in the matter of acting, it's just that I was only thinking about the voice when I made those comments. Like I said, since acting and looks are more important now than they were in the past (and there is nothing wrong with this, much the opposite) my take is that people with great voices and poor acting and/or looks like Björling and Caballé have these days a much less significant chance at making it big. You know my extreme fan-ship of Anna Netrebko, and I wouldn't pretend that her voice and technique - especially in the kind of repertory that is not well suited for her - can compare with those of, say, Beverly Sills. But I enjoy watching Anna a lot more than watching Beverly Sills because Anna sings well enough (and is getting better and better) and is such a gifted actress and such a beautiful woman. So, in this regard, you're preaching to the choir.

About opera being more popular now, I beg to differ. True, the number of opera companies and attendance may be higher (although I'm actually not sure that attendance is higher, last time I checked it through Opera America, it was declining, but there was the economic crisis to blame as well so I don't know), but in my opinion this is more in function of population growth, and your examples are in the United States only.

There was a time when the ultimate singing artist with strong following and popularity, able to draw crowds, was an opera singer. If someone wanted a big career in singing with lots of fame and recognition, one would want to be an opera singer. Maria Callas had crowds waiting for her at a port of destiny. And composers... Verdi's funeral had 4 million people out on the streets in Italy. At a certain point in time, the common men on the streets knew names like Callas and Caruso. Now, if you ask someone on the streets even for the most popular opera singers - such as Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann - most people will say - who???

These days, it's pop singers like Lady Gaga and rock bands that are able to draw similar crowds... A gifted soprano like Sissel said that she gave up on an opera career to sing crossover and pop because that's where the money is.

Look, if you are right and I'm wrong, I'll be glad! I want opera to be popular. Maybe my take is wrong, I hope it is. But to be convinced, I'll need more than just the multiplication of regional opera companies in the United States. My local opera company has some 3 productions per year, one of them staged, the other two in concert form; the performances are given in one or two nights only, and there are plenty of empty seats. But when the aging Rolling Stones came to town for a concert a couple of years ago, they had to do it in the largest football stadium available, and the performance was sold out.

Are there more people interested in opera, in absolute numbers? Maybe. But also the population of the world has increased exponentially. What about percentage of interested people? I think it's shrinking.

PS - and about young people: according to Opera America, the average age of the opera fan is increasing. This means that as fans age and die, they are not being replaced by youngsters in equivalent numbers.


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