Friday, April 22
Speaking of Irrelevant!
Opera. Blogging. Being a homosexual.
Bye! LOL.
Just kidding, sorta. Obviously I hate opera. Obviously I don't have time for blogging, x-specially when so many other people are doing it with so much more frequency and dependability. And obviously faggots should have their feeding tubes removed.
Come on folks. Time to move on. The other day Speight Jenkins, General Manager of the Seattle Opera, said that he thought it unfortunate that today's young singers are taught to sing correctly and accurately. He said that he casts shows only with interesting voices—"3 AM voices." That is, if one is awakened by the voice at 3 AM, one should be able to tell right away exactly whose voice it is. Cute, huh?
Tell me, does anyone want to be awakened at 3 AM by the voices of Andrea Gruber or Jane Eaglen?
You see, opera must die. It's a mockery of nearly every value it purports to uphold. Now, I'm not a traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination, but gimme a break. No standards or benchmarks of acheivement for a singer trying to make it in the business? Being completely at the whim of the nebulous tastes of artistic directors and general managers whose experience in opera is confined to carpentry and writing news articles? What's the point? Audiences are shrinking, ticket sales are dwindling, and opera houses are groping for more and more outlandish ways to draw people in.
Oh, here's a good idea: when all else fails, build an expensive new opera house that you can't pay for.
Bye! LOL.
Just kidding, sorta. Obviously I hate opera. Obviously I don't have time for blogging, x-specially when so many other people are doing it with so much more frequency and dependability. And obviously faggots should have their feeding tubes removed.
Come on folks. Time to move on. The other day Speight Jenkins, General Manager of the Seattle Opera, said that he thought it unfortunate that today's young singers are taught to sing correctly and accurately. He said that he casts shows only with interesting voices—"3 AM voices." That is, if one is awakened by the voice at 3 AM, one should be able to tell right away exactly whose voice it is. Cute, huh?
Tell me, does anyone want to be awakened at 3 AM by the voices of Andrea Gruber or Jane Eaglen?
You see, opera must die. It's a mockery of nearly every value it purports to uphold. Now, I'm not a traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination, but gimme a break. No standards or benchmarks of acheivement for a singer trying to make it in the business? Being completely at the whim of the nebulous tastes of artistic directors and general managers whose experience in opera is confined to carpentry and writing news articles? What's the point? Audiences are shrinking, ticket sales are dwindling, and opera houses are groping for more and more outlandish ways to draw people in.
Oh, here's a good idea: when all else fails, build an expensive new opera house that you can't pay for.
Comments
What's going on?
Are you leaving? First I do one of my four daily trrill visits and see this nasty notice about how you are compelled to move on, and I swear to god, I almost went to meet Jesus. So I went immediately to the standingroom, just to see if you'd communicated with Mark. Nothing there. Sieglinde hasn't written in a week or so. So I found myself in a sudden tizzy. And jot off a quick blog entry about it.
Just to be safe, I retype the address, and the most recent post is up. All is as normal. I'm terribly confused. I beg of you. Please reconsider. trrill--in its operatic incarnation is a great site. I hate opera too. It's terrible. It's in its decadence, perhaps. But its ours. Yes, there are many more important issues in the world. Your vision is noble. However, must you be exclusive? Whatever your decision, Nick, I want to thank you for everything.
Hojoto,
Gregory
I appreciate your frustration. People go into opera to "be opera singers" instead of to create lyric theater, and they succeed -- they buy the scarves and go to the parties and bitch about illnesses, and as an afterthought or by-product they create lyric theater. Some people decide to be opera administrators, but I know first hand how they don't know shows or composers or the specific demands of major roles, and only know the stable of mediocre singers who they hire on recommendation and political spin, without having heard them. Failed mediocre singers become our most esteemed voice teachers, and singers will never become the performers we hope for if they have to expend so much energy keeping their voices from falling apart. Directors and reviewers evaluate performers on how "suitable" they are for a role, or how they "manage" a role, instead of what they do with a role.
Things can change. They are changing, it's just not apparent yet. Do what you need to do to save your sanity, but there will be a day when all of this turns around. It's a mammoth problem, but it's not so great that the course can't be changed. In 1905, Einstein radically changed the world in unimaginable, far-reaching contexts. No one saw it coming. He barely saw it coming. So, in 2005, it gives me hope to think anything could be on the horizon, a mamoth change in how we operate, in science, in politics, or in the relatively minor case of opera. And that's just blind hope, without the benefit of the things I see happening, the changes I see stewing.
It's worth it, and all is not lost. We are brainwashed into thinking the process progresses very slowly, but this is not the truth. Incompetent voice teachers have a motivation to explain progress as slow, because if we knew otherwise, they'd lose their jobs. Corrupt and incompetent administrators can reward those who make them feel good about themselves and stall those who threaten to outshine them. Motivated young people merely need catch a new kind of motivation to become healthy-minded administrators and directors. It takes a core group of people who want to make opera, instead of play the game of being opera professionals. People whose want to move each other, instead of please mummy and daddy. The old ladies who do the funding can be won over either way, and actually, they'd probably enjoy themselves more in the "good" way.
It will spread like wildfire, someday soon, and it's not a pipe dream.
Carina Mme Pasta:
I've had a half-finished e-mail to you in my "waiting to be sent" box for some time now - agreeing with you on the need for quality, but also offering my opinion that at least Gruber offers a kind of visceral excitement that, dare I say it, reigning darlings like Mmes Fleming and Voigt do not (admittedly, this is coming from somone who did not have to suffer through all Gruber's bad years in Seattle). But I agree that many singers who "do it well" go unrecognized, partly through a widespread lack of understanding in the field about what "doing it well" means.
But now I see that your website is no more? What a shame - I have really enjoyed it. Any chance of a revival in some other form? ("Phoenix.com," perhaps?)
All best,
Anne Midgette
As completely justified as your rant about opera and Seattle and Andrea Gruber and the pope undoubtedly was, it still made me miss your regular commentary. I really value your good taste and humor and wouldn't want you to give up those things and be consumed by bitter frustration.
Your fan,
Jacob Greenberg (a lowly pianist)
Get back on Trrill. Yes, a blog is a blog is a blog. People say the damndest things for attention. Not you, but Speight Jenkins. Once he gets his head out of his ass he'll realize he didn't mean this "3 AM voice" crap at all. That was just a strange and failed metaphorical attack on the non-existing style of post-post-post-modernity. Don't get too offended by it. Trrill is one hell of a good blog. Blog till the fall of God.
I really enjoy your writing.
I would not want to be awakened at 3 AM by the voice of me, frankly. Even though I like my voice.
Keep writing - please.