Social influence of opera
Mon, May 24 2010, 6:56PM
Much to highlight my esteem for the genre, I must stress that opera indubitably achieves the apex of aural beauty. However, discussion of its influence on society I must bring to the table with haste. While it is an excellent form of entertainment, indeed better than film and sport, it has somehow circumvented the established systems of alerting consumers of its content. In film and television, for example, there are ways to rate the content for the purpose of informing others. Why, then, must not opera abide by these same standards?
I propose, therefore, that a rating system be established for the production of opera, and that children under a certain age not be allowed to see opera of a bawdy or violent nature. Perhaps some examples of such gruesome or otherwise inappropriate operatic behavior would be most elucidating:
- Verdi, Il Trovatore: infant immolation
- Puccini, Turandot and Tosca: public execution, and for most capricious or unjust of reasons
- Shostakovich, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk: rape, and lewdness in general
- Gounoud, Faust: imagery of and cooperation with devil, fornication, and abandonment of impregnated partner
- Wagner, Tristan und Isolde: attempted murder (twice!), drug/potion use, hunting
- Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro: general air of stupidity, foolish whimsy, forgery
- Mozart, The Abduction from the Seraglio: abduction
- Britten, Peter Grimes: questionable relations with youngsters, environmental problems (over-fishing), needless banter
These are just a few examples of the many.
Mon, May 24 2010, 10:49PM
#2
RE: Social influence of opera
Well, I think the problem here is that you took me seriously. I guess I was not all that clear, but this was meant satirically.
In this ridiculous proposition, I attempted to bring up a major point about opera: that being, chiefly, that in a majority of operas, the vital characters are almost wholly devoid of reason or good sense of any kind. For this reason, many people dislike the genre because they find it over the top, unrealistic, or too dramatic. However, through careful observation one can see how opera is very much a product of the social context, as a reflection, rather than an influence upon, or projection of, common deeds and sentiments.
Thus, another point on wanted to make is that it is absurd to hide these themes (which seem to be omnipresent in our culture) from children. The only way to do that is to heroically pummel them with a mace until they are blind and deaf. Thus, I take a jab at the idea of a rating system in film, and am grateful that opera has no such thing. It is perhaps why it is the highest art.
An issue I wanted to raise is to understand why opera is becoming less popular in recent years. Perhaps because it is the most seemingly absurd and dramatic form of art, but yet the most truthful?
Tue, May 25 2010, 4:39PM
#3
RE: Social influence of opera
I take everything about music, and the education of children incredibly seriously. Even more so in this age of dumbing down, when culture is consistently under attack from all angles in the spheres of education, media, and politics. For this reason, I consider it my duty as a human being, and a father to wage war against these pernicious forces wherever, and whenever I can.
I must admit that I find a lack of seriousness in this forum, from some contributors, lamentable. We are talking about art here. If you think that Beethoven, Sibelius, Messiaen, Xenakis, Elliott Carter, or John Coltrane, and others too many to mention, considered themselves entertainers, I'm afraid we shall have to disagree. Therefore, I feel bound as a matter of respect, to bring the same level of seriousness to all my listening, and writing about music.
I think the rating system for films is absolutely imperative. How else are parents to know if the content of these films is suitable or not for their children? Everything your children watch in your home, and when with you is at your discretion. The difference with opera is that it is an alternative medium, and how it presents its themes is not the same as film or television. If you familiarise yourself with the work in question, you can know more or less what to expect on the stage. It does not possess the unpredicability, editing and special effects capabilities of film, by it's very nature of being performed live on a stage, and not as a piece of recorded celluloid.
As for "heroically pummel", or "indubitably achieves the apex of aural beauty", I have no idea what this linguistic jibberish means.
Tue, May 25 2010, 5:48PM
#4
RE: Social influence of opera
Well, we lost Belgium because of an opera...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution#Night_at_the_opera
Rolf
Tue, May 25 2010, 6:33PM
#5
RE: Social influence of opera
Oh dear, I hope we don't have to start strewing our posts with smiley faces to ensure people realize we're being tongue-in-cheek.
As for X-rated operas, the recent Copenhagen Ring is a great example, Rheingold in particular. Very Tarantino-ish.
Regardless of what the librettist intended, some producers seem hell-bent on sensationalism. Risque/gory scenes can be designed and executed with taste, and in accordance with the story. Or they can be thrown in gratuitously, with the obvious intention of creating controversy. Where that dividing line lies may be a matter of personal taste. Handel especially seems to divide camps, between those who love the interpretations and designs presented by recent productions, and those who prefer him straight. I'm all for a bit of imagination.
Tue, May 25 2010, 8:39PM
#6
RE: Social influence of opera
Please don't get me wrong, I think there's always a place for humour. For example, I remember George Steiner, in a lecture ten years or so ago, refering to the opera Rolf mentioned, saying that the riot was not caused by revolutionary fervour, but because Auber's music was so bloody awful.
The issue I have is that a lot of what purports to be humour in these pages, is just not funny. Too much of it is, to me anyway, just plain facetiousness and inanity. People trying to show off, or claiming that their subjective opinions, are objective facts. The consistent use of superlatives in areas like cultural value judgements, where they just don't apply. I get the feeling that some contributors have been listening to the sound of their own voices too long. I don't find any of this entertaining or edifying. Of course you could say, well don't read the contributons, but I love a good conversation about music, spoken or written, and I feel the Gramophone Forum is the best place where I will find it outside my personal world. Which brings me to my last gripe, I am honestly flabbergasted at the way the English language is vandalised, in many of these posts. As readers of Gramophone I hope you will agree that writing about music, is a skill in itself, and although none of us are supposed to be music journalists, I don't see why, just because this is the Internet, people don't try to write well. Some of the metaphors in particular are just totally absurd and meaningless.
Tue, May 25 2010, 10:26PM
#7
RE: Social influence of opera
I must admit that I find a lack of seriousness in this forum, from some contributors, lamentable.
We are talking about art here. If you think that Beethoven, Sibelius, Messiaen, Xenakis, Elliott Carter, or John Coltrane, and others too many to mention, considered themselves entertainers, I'm afraid we shall have to disagree.
Do you not think Mozart had his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek, and thought of himself entirely as an entertainer, when he wrote Ein musikalischer Spaß?
Shostakovich certainly aimed to entertain, and knew the value of humour in his work (most people in Communist states needed to, to stay sane).
Plenty of composers may well be driven to express themselves through their music, and have an essentially serious intent.
But just because something is, or aspires to be, 'art' (whatever that may actually mean) doesn't mean it can't also be funny, or entertaining, nor that the composer didn't intend that to be the case.
Tue, May 25 2010, 11:06PM
#8
RE: Social influence of opera
Mozart was a comic genius, and I agree completely that there must always be a central place for comedy in all art, as it is one of the most central and universal of all human emotions. It sounds paradoxical, but comedy is a serious business for me, and it has always infuriated me, that comedy in literature, drama, music and painting is somehow viewed as less deserving of respect than material of a serious nature. For example that Shakespeare's comedies are worth less than his tragedies
Comedy, particularly under conditions of censorship, is an incredible weapon. I love composers like Kagel, and Ligeti for their sense of fun. Debussy's paraphrasing of Tristan und Isolde in Golliwog's Cakewalk for me is worth more than the whole of Wagner's opera. Doubtless a lot of composers try to entertain, Elliott Carter seems like an immensely jovial fellow, but I don't think he, Shostakovich, or Mozart doubt or doubted what they want or wanted their legacy to be, if they care or cared about such things. I find a lot of great artists have absolutely no interest in how the future will perceive them. As funny, and entertaining as Cosi Fan Tutte is I feel its beauty, and plea for understanding in human action, is very serious, and I hope I'm right in believing Mozart felt the same.
Many artists are killed, imprisoned, tortured, exiled or silenced, because of their music, comic or otherwise, this is a serious matter. Whilst I hope that great artists will always give full vent to their comic instincts, the need for seriousness I was addressing is not from composers, but from people who give their opinions out of a facetious, thoughtless and dispespectful manner.
Tue, May 25 2010, 11:23PM
#9
RE: Social influence of opera
Which brings me to my last gripe, I am honestly flabbergasted at the way the English language is vandalised, in many of these posts. As readers of Gramophone I hope you will agree that writing about music, is a skill in itself,
Well, dubrob, I'd say there was some seriously debatable punctuation in that last sentence alone!
Please bear in mind that many of the contributors to this forum cannot claim English as their first language. As for me, I'll take passion over grammar any day, and if contributors (probably including myself) resort to a careless cliche or the occasional rococo metaphor to express their passion for music, what's it to you?
Wed, May 26 2010, 7:18AM
#10
RE: Social influence of opera
I don't know about other countries, but in my country...
Incidentally, I meant to ask before (since people's profile pages on this forum are more than somewhat less than useful or informative!) - which is your country?
(Fwiw, I am in the UK.)
Wed, May 26 2010, 7:36AM
#11
RE: Social influence of opera
An issue I wanted to raise is to understand why opera is becoming less popular in recent years. Perhaps because it is the most seemingly absurd and dramatic form of art, but yet the most truthful?
I'm curious as to why you think opera might be more 'truthful' than other genres of music, let alone other art forms - eg, novels, poetry, paintings, theatre, photography.
In any case, your post begs the question - is opera becoming less popular?
Not in the US, according to former sop/mzo-sop Juliana Gondek, now Professor of Voice and Chair of the Vocal Studies Department at the University of California, Los Angeles in a 2007 interview entitled Why Opera is Growing More Popular in the USA.
And interest in opera was growing rapidly in the UK at least as recently as 2001, according to a report by the Opera and Music Theatre Forum.
Wed, May 26 2010, 1:47PM
#12
RE: Social influence of opera
I'm fully aware that some contributors here are not native English speakers, I'm one of them. I also know that my English punctuation leaves a lot to be desired for which I apologise and can only promise to try to improve. I'm an Irishman, and although I have conducted the majority of my adult life through English, I was raised and schooled in a completely non-English speaking environment, and for this reason I could never in all good conscience consider English my first language. I like to think of myself as bilingual, but it's for native speakers, and not me to judge if this is the case. It's also for this reason that I can't believe that the people who engage in the nonsense I'm talking about are not mother tongue English speakers. I couldn't do it, because I just don't have the vocabulary, and I regularly have to use my dictionary to understand some of the things they say. If I am wrong about this I apologise wholheartedly.
I don't know about other contributors, but for example I know Rolf is a Dutchman, and I find his contributions always succinct, informative and helpful. So I can't understand why someone would write that "opera indubitably ahieves the apex of aural beauty" when they could say, opera is my favourite form of music. Having said this everyone is completely free to write what they want, and I hope they continue to do so, and as a non native speaker, I have less right to judge than most, sorry.
It's just that I love the English language, and greatly admire plain speaking and good writing. You said that you prefer passion to grammar, I completely agree. I am as guilty as anyone of bad punctuation or spelling through careless typing, maybe more than most, but why can't they go together?, and in all the things that make me scratch my head or cringe, I don't see passion, I just see a lack of humility, and openness to other possible viewpoints, and very cofused thinking and contorted language.
All of this is only my opinion, and therefore worth no more or less than anyone else's, for that reason from hereon I will (dun mo bheal agus nil me ag caint aris) shut up.
Wed, May 26 2010, 3:23PM
#13
RE: Social influence of opera
So I can't understand why someone would write that "opera indubitably ahieves the apex of aural beauty" when they could say, opera is my favourite form of music
...I don't see passion, I just see a lack of humility, and openness to other possible viewpoints, and very cofused thinking and contorted language.
I speak as such because there are thousands of perfectly good words in the English language that have fallen out of use merely because the common john baptists of the hinterlands do not care to learn them. I therefore, requiring no one to read it, try to reserve my writing for those of us who have been to school. It is not "cofused thinking" just because it gives you the absurdly taxing chore of breaking out the dictionary. The words I used here really are not that uncommon, moreover, save for in the states just south of my home in Ohio, or in the fringe of the right-wing tea-partyers who probably also have never once heard the names Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, or Mahler.
And to say that one cannot be passionate about a subject and still find humour in it is absolute buncombe.
Wed, May 26 2010, 3:36PM
#14
RE: Social influence of opera
So I can't understand why someone would write that "opera indubitably ahieves the apex of aural beauty" when they could say, opera is my favourite form of music.
Well, it might be because it doesn't mean the same thing :-)
But it might also be that the writer just felt it sounded nice when he wrote it.
After all, why would someone write
"... I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with the opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste..."
when they could have put something much simpler and far more comprehensible?
Ok, Ulysses is possibly not a fair example, but the principle is much the same - people try to write what they think best expresses their feelings on a given matter at a given point in time. They won't always succeed, of course, but that's how it goes.
Wed, May 26 2010, 4:33PM
#15
RE: Social influence of opera
I never said that one can not be passionate about something and still find humour in it.
If you put something in this forum obviously you expect and know others are going to read it.
Spiderjon says people may write things because they sound nice in their minds, I can accept that, but the above sentence just doesn't make any sense to me.
"opera indubitably achieves the apex of aural beauty'. Firstly, this an opinion, not an objective statement grounded in fact, therefore at best its truth is open to the large possibility of doubt. Something indubitable that is full of doubt is a perfect contradiction.
Secondly, opera doesn't or can't achieve anything. A composer may try to achieve something in a particular composition, or a performer may try to achieve an accurate or interesting interpretation, but opera, or any artform for that matter, in itself achieves nothing. It is composed, played and listened to, or not, no more and no less.
Lastl, Apex of aural beauty. An apex is the climax or highest point, something which is totally incongruous to the idea of beauty. A triangle has an apex, beauty or any similarly abstract concept doesn't.
For these reasons I just don't understand what you want to say. I have an idea, but because of the things I've just pointed out, I don't know if I'm right.
I am like Spiderjon also honestly curious to know why you think opera is the most truthful, and why it's better than film or sport.
I don't know about other countries, but in my country, all children, through the songs, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, mythology, poems and short stories that they learn at school are familiar with all of these themes. All of this in no way damages them which goes to show that none of these themes need be, nor in my opinion ever should be hidden from children. The important thing is how they are presented, and if there is a moral framework. While I do thing certain operas should carry warnings for younger spectators, ultimately all this comes down to parenting, and what parents allow, and more importantly don't disallow there children to watch.