The Cultural Extinction of Opera

This is a big subject and this is a rather long blog. Apologies. I didn't want to treat this lightly.

"The cultural extinction of opera" Did that get your attention?

I watched a short clip of a cinema enthusiast talking about how the Hollywood movie industry killed the culture of cinema by focusing on blockbusters. If a movie is deemed not to be able to make hundreds of millions in profit, then it isn't produced easily. He talked about how this forced the movie audience over the years to see only the films that are marketed as blockbusters; thus killing art films, but more importantly, killing the culture of movie lovers going to see cinema on a regular basis. He quoted one of Brando's many famous lines in The Godfather and then said, "can anyone say a quote from Aquaman?" He made a big point about how the film industry didn't invest in the broad base audience. There are lots of holes in his argument, but...

That got me thinking.

I think the same thing happened to opera, or at least is happening. Is it too late?

Opera still focuses on the blockbuster movies: our "war horses" (the Butterflys, Bohemes, and Barbers). Yes, we have companies regularly performing new operas by Heggie, Kaminsky, Ching, and Adamo. But a lot of those operas are being performed in smaller theatres or with shorter performance runs. Many happen at academic programs for very local audiences. There's no Heggie opera making its way into the top ten most performed quite yet. But we are in a Renaissance of new opera. So on one hand, we are doing better.

But there's always another side...

The Broad Base

Opera doesn't invest in the broad base from the ground up. By broad base, I mean both our audiences and those pursuing voice degrees. We've created this grand idea that "making it" means singing at The Met or La Scala. We've created this very old and outdated training that focuses on standing still in a recital of dead white male composers' works while dressed like it's the first episode of "Downton Abbey". We feed our audiences bios about our casts, building them up as special artists who've sung with <insert name of conductors> in performances of <insert names of operas> at <insert names of various opera companies>. Yet do these generic bio listings sell opera tickets? Does the average opera audience know - or care - where a singer may have triumphed if it's not The Met or in some major city? We have no Leonard Bernsteins that cross into the general public's awareness. We have no Bubbles appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The relevance of opera no longer stretches onto the late night talk-show circuits. We've disappeared, culturally speaking, from the mainstream media.

The age of the celebrity opera singer is over, so I don't think marketing singers with bios that make everyone kinda sound like B celebrities is helpful. Perhaps we should try to take cues from influencers? Maybe audiences might like to know that someone specializes in marathons, or trains support dogs, or has perfected a mouth-watering Chicken Tikka Masala? Maybe we need to humanize not just the repertoire, but the people singing it? If you look at the more recent marketing campaigns out of some opera companies (like Atlanta Opera), you can see the shift in tone. TriCities Opera is doing an adult-themed party night at our rehearsal venue filled with karaoke, specialty cocktails, and other fun activities. No opera, but hoping to get people in the door where opera is created and let them scream "Sweet Caroline" with others.

Opera Idols

In the professional sector, opera companies still seek out new talent like they're judges on "America's Got Talent". Most with the best of intentions, yet so many are out there auditioning in the hopes that they can find the next big potential operatic celebrity so they can hit the golden button so mylar confetti will explode for all to see. (There are no confetti explosions for opera singers auditioning, but maybe we should think about that...) However, we should not be thinking that the best way to pick next season's young artists is to put them into some sad pageant - we call them galas or competitions or finals - dressed up in gowns and tuxes (why are we so fixated on that stereotype?) while they sing one or two arias hand-picked by the administration in order to see who is the next Operatic Idol.

Yes, some of the big programs spend days in coachings and interviews to get to really "know them". But why parade the singers out onto a stage and pretend this is how the best of the best get moved on into the next arena of operatic gladiator?

Money - that's why. These galas raise money, lots and lots of money. Sometimes, the singers win money. But it's nothing compared to the six figure hauls some companies raise at the post-gala dinner where tables are sold and the participants are sat with strangers (usually the richest donors) to be wined and dined while they, as young singers untrained in how to schmooze (some giggle nervously, others engage like a pro) think that they're seeing how their future might be if they are lucky enough to be chosen.

The 1%

As reported recently by Opera America, only 1% of the singers out there make their living by singing 100% of the time for their income. Yes: One Percent.

Yet so many academic programs still pretend that the pursuit of singing should be the majority of the focus on the training. Yes theory, yes history, yes musicianship, yes diction. But little to no focus on what the other 99% of the singers might need: multi-hyphenate artistry, business and entrepreneurship skills, how to build online teaching studios, how to market themselves in the 2nd quarter of the 21st century, or how to identify their other talents and skillsets to help support and network themselves into opera companies that may not be hiring them just yet.

Instead, we look for EXCELLENCE! We pretend that we are out there seeking that elusive young singer who will join the other 1%, when in fact we really are out there looking for potential talents who need nurturing, skills, technique, and opportunities to perform. And so we compare all of them as a group - rating them from top to bottom, instead of focusing on the individuals. We need new modes, new ways to audition and interview singers who want to study music. I believe that at the bachelor's level everyone - literally ANYONE - should be accepted into a music program if they have declared they want to pursue the study of music. But that's another blog...

So why is seeking 'excellence' a problem? For many reasons. The biggest one being that not all voices become excellent right at the time they're looking for entrance into degree programs, scholarships, or young artist programs. Even the word "young" is a problem, especially when said in front of the word "artist". I've known many great artists who started in their late 20s or 30s but were aged out of "young" artist programs before they could competitively audition for them. Another reason looking for 'the best talent' is a problem? Often classical training is expensive and this excludes so many singers out there who can't afford voice lessons in high school, or can't afford extra coachings to prepare for graduate school auditions, or can't afford to pay thousands of dollars to experience a summer program that might extend their networks and skillsets.

Exclusion vs Inclusion

Yes - seeking 'excellence' at the get go - the initial moment talent walks into an undergraduate audition space - is a problem for me and others when we talk about DEI. The last part of that is Inclusion. How to include those who might want to pursue singing, but don't have the privilege to do so? I believe wanting to pursue the arts should be as valued as any level of talent when we're discussing high school students looking to get into a bachelor's degree in voice.

So what's getting rewarded here? Or more succinctly, what type of person or voice type is getting the upper hand?

Certainly not bass voices. Just one example. I believe that basses are disappearing because they can't compete with entry level sopranos for big scholarships, or win competitions like other voice types because the bass voice doesn't fully evolve until the late 20s. And by then, many YA and RA programs aren't available to them as they're too old for the - let me be clear here - stupid and pointless age restrictions.

Opera shouldn't always have to be a destination event

There's more at work here. Another element is something I'd describe as the exclusivity and pretentiousness that is marketed to the opera-going public who attend our special event blockbusters. Many of the marketing campaigns for our major opera companies show audiences in high fashion, on dates, making the opera experience a 'special' experience. They're not looking for subscribers, they're trying to get ticket buyers to experience a once in a lifetime performance experience in the hopes that, once hooked, they might return. (Here's the COC's latest campaign saying opera is for everyone, yet with video saying something slightly different: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DQ9ylTbkVTJ/) I wonder if this sort of campaign brings in regular ticket buyers? It's so different in Europe where the public is just in the practice of attending opera quite regularly.

With blockbuster movie marketing, audiences seem to be getting out of the habit of attending cinema regularly. Broadway is headed in this direction with their high ticket prices. Musicals cost millions to produce and many never make a profit. "Hamilton" can cost between $500 and $700 per ticket on Broadway. Many regular New Yorkers don’t go anymore - tourists or theatre aficionados go. It's a once-a-year destination event. Only the ultra rich can afford regular Broadway shows.

But compounding the problem for opera is the fact that our opera companies and programs can only afford to create a show once or twice a year because the product has been forced into the blockbuster model - big sets, big concepts, expensive union scales for crew and musicians. People think it's the singers who are expensive. That's not really the case.

It's not that expensive to hire singers, but it is expensive for singers to try to make a living - they pay business costs of preparing and auditioning for roles, housing costs while rehearsing for no money, plus their manager fees. While in school they can have high tuition and lesson fees, they pay for expensive summer programs. If they’re lucky to start their careers and get contracts, often those don't pay enough to cover costs. And because the market is scarce for regular gigs, they can’t make a living unless they get into the big leagues where the 1% like Thomas Hampson and Joyce DiDonato live in their beautifully filtered (yet strangely-accented) lives that get blasted onto social media perpetuating the myth of glamour, hard work, humility, and talent. (While no one talks about what is just as important for a career: a lucky break. But that's another blog...)

An alternative: More is More, but for Less

So how and why should anyone go about studying opera if the career is so difficult? Are there programs out there that might be Outliers?

Opera McGill is an outlier program. And I'd like to describe what we've been doing and why I think it might be a model to combat some of the issues I've discussed above. For the last six years, my program has expanded with no additional funds to produce a LOT more opera than normal. How have we done it?

During the Covid shutdown of 2020-2021 when our school was basically closed, Opera McGill produced 16 opera titles online during social distancing. Five years later, we were down to producing 9 shows. This year 11, next year (26-27) we’re slowing down to probably 6 or 7 shows. That's still a lot. But one needs to define what a "show" means. Some of those in 2020 were mini-operas, many of them were one-acts, some scenes programs, some special concerts, and usually at least 4 big productions in the traditional sense. Usually only 2 to 3 a year have been with orchestra.

Is it because we have some huge budget? Is it because we have a huge full-time staff? Is it because we have tons of students paying high tuitions and going into the type of debt Renee Fleming spoke of recently? Nope.

Just the Music Director and me; plus a small array of very gifted, part-time faculty and staff of coaches, designers, guests, and stage managers. Most academic programs as big as ours have many more full-time and part-time staff.

Quebec (in-province) tuition is about 3K per semester, international tuition is about 12K. A masters at McGill (we have a 3 semester MMus available) costs about 36-40K in tuition which, in USD exchange rate this week, is less than 28k in US dollars. To contrast that, some American schools can cost upwards of 80K a year. Our students don’t go into six figure debt. We’ve got about 40 students enrolled in Opera McGill, 25% UG 75% grad. Only 1 doctoral voice student per year. Our scholarships are endowed, they do not come from lots of sopranos paying tuition to underwrite tenors or baritones (an idea widely discussed on IG accounts about US programs.)

Our pedagogical philosophy is much akin to Indie Opera: low or NO budget operas. Of the 11 shows this year, one was a pop opera lobby event, two were scenes programs (contemporary arias by living composers and a more traditional "Essential Rossini"), 6 were one-acts (by Bernstein, Mozart, Weill, RV Williams, Menotti, and Donizetti), with only two being big productions: "The Rape of Lucretia" and "Alcina" (both with orchestra). Of the 11 shows, 6 were directed by students.

The philosophy is 'less is more' where budgets and production values are concerned, but more is more where performance opportunities are concerned. We also have a system for students to learn to ASM, AD, design, work lights, manage social media, create schedules, and cast some of the operas themselves.

Holistic Approach

This philosophy maintains a more broad-based holistic training for young singers. It creates opera singers who have more diverse sets of skills. It also allows our audiences to have more opportunities to experience a much more diverse array of repertoire. If we were to just do one or two shows a year, they might miss it and go a full year and not see any opera at all. Same for the students…

The one-off ”I got a lead role so I learned how to be an opera singer” mode of training is just not good enough. And what about the students who aren’t cast at all? What about all those sopranos at big programs in the states who don't even get into the chorus during their masters?

Young singers need multiple experiential learning opportunities that give them a wide range of experiences thru inclusive rep - baroque to 21st century to musical theatre and the core rep. But the important element is that these performances need to be everyday experiences, not hyped up events beyond what their purpose is. At an academic level, performing opera is about learning the process of putting one on - from learning a role to coaching it to rehearsing it. This is especially important for the more advanced singers in the programs, the ones who get the leads and go on to a Santa Fe apprenticeship. Often, they don't know how to cover, or even be a chorister who can create a character autonomously because they either only had a few experiences or they were put in a lead role when they were "ready for it."

Horizons

Over a decade ago, I created the Opera McGill Experience (OME) - which we now describe as 'portfolio career artistry' (or the sexier 'multi-hyphenate career'.) We train stage managers and directors while they are getting their voice degrees. We have student social media managers for each production. We have students shadowing our designers. We open up opportunities for students to learn how to produce a show, how to light a show, how to conduct a show. We workshop new operas by living composers, some of whom are our students. We created a new initiative called "Horizons Projects": student directed and produced one-acts. These are given no budgets, but they have access to our props and set pieces. The students get a few weeks to create opera, Indie Opera style. Our Horizons Projects are so well-attended now we turn people away at the door. A number of our alumni started their own opera companies, some are heading up important administration positions in Canada and the states.

We don’t need Scorsese-level guest directors, we don’t need theatres or budgets, and most importantly we don’t need pretentious expertise to give students a life-changing learning experience. Opera teaches opera by doing opera. It's not brain surgery. Said another way: You learn to do opera by doing opera.

To go the distance with this idea – We need to let go of the notion that opera must always be grand. We don’t need to judge training programs based on whether their productions look like low-end versions of an old New York City Opera tour of Faust.

What do we need?

We need to diversify the rep thru the inclusion of ALL rep. Anything that tells a story thru the voice - all 400+ years of it up to the last month, including musical theatre, oratorio, and song cycles.

We need to make sure that our students are learning backstage and offstage skills like admin, marketing, PR, ASMing, ADing, MDing, stage combat, intimacy direction, or designing.

We need to throw the various precious classical music training babies out with the bathwater. Our ancient curriculum needs not just a renovation, but a demolition. We must deconstruct musicianship, theory, solfege, and many of the other holy relics to create a new future curriculum better suited for the 21st century and its demands. This will be DIFFICULT to make happen as the academic world's curriculum is pretty much entrenched.

A Change in Values and New Collaborations

One of the things that needs to change across the board is how these students get graded and credited for their work. Currently, curriculums don’t value portfolio or multi-hyphenate artistry. Instead, academia and YAPs value singers who sing mostly in tune, with the correct notes, rhythms, and diction, and some nod to dramatic context. Many seem to value the loudest singer (check out my "Loud Wins" blog: https://coachcraft.ghost.io/loud-wins/). We too often value the singers with solid, big high notes.

Instead, we need to value the singers who sing well but also have the most diverse sets of skills. They usually are our most successful alumni: singers with a wide range of repertoire abilities including MT and early music; singers who also can AD or stage manage; singers who can workshop new operas with exceptional musicianship skills; singers who start their own companies (like sopranos Rachel Krehm of Opera5 in Toronto or Sawyer Craig of Good Mess Opera Theatre out in western Canada).

We need to value the entrepreneurial student. And we need to value courses that teach entrepreneurship, business, and arts management.

We need to create collaborations outside of our own programs and companies. Three years ago, a collaboration with Opera5 resulted in an excellent paid internship for Opera McGill students. The Opera5 internship went from 6 to 13 singers in just three years, each getting a 5-week equity minimum professional contract to sing and learn a secondary skill for their portfolios. (Check out Opera5 and be amazed at what an industrious group of young people can do! https://www.opera5.ca/) Now I'm hoping to add another internship with TriCities Opera in Binghamton, NY.

Hope for the future, or at least some ideas...

You learn to do opera by doing opera. And doing it often. Audiences learn to do opera by going to opera more than once a year. So maybe one big blockbuster surrounded by many other smaller "art" operas that explore new and old repertoire in new ways. Make the old new again. That's our model at TriCities Opera and other opera companies now realizing that not every production need be grand.

Let's just make OPERA an all-inclusive word: anything that tells a story with the human voice lifted in song can be an opera of some sort. Let’s stop qualifying and classifying and excluding what is and what is not opera. Audiences don't know the difference between The Phantom of the Opera and La Boheme. They don't care that Sweeney Todd is a musical but The Magic Flute is a Singspiel. They don't care.

And neither should we if we want Opera to continue to live. Otherwise we are in a truly extinction-level endgame. (My next blog is titled "Opera: A New Hope", so I am cognizant that all is not lost.)

A few concluding thoughts

We need to attempt something - anything - out of our comfort zone. Perform mini-operas by students. Perform unknown Donizetti one-acts in English. Create a new pastiche opera from Handel arias based on what types of voices are available to you. Market the operas as shows with titles translated into your audience's vernacular. Mozart is dead and won't care if you market Cosi fan tutte as Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! Use emojis in your surtitles (credit goes to Aria Umezawa for that amazing idea she used in an Adler concert in San Fran!) Stop talking about opera in ways that only opera-lovers and those with classical music backgrounds can understand. Let people bring popcorn and wine into the opera houses. (Oh but the crunching noises... seriously we need to survive here and some crunching noises are the least of our problems!)

More to the point, we need to do MORE opera in as many ways as possible and diffuse the looming doom on all of our horizons: audiences just not caring to show up at all.

This means giving up some of our control over what is opera. It might mean giving up being seen as the expert professor or the local cultural leader. Let the marketing campaigns reach non-opera folk. A broader approach.

I believe, and have believed for many years now, that unless changes are made from the top down and the bottom up, opera will become an extinct art form. Or if it survives, it will only be in large cities for a small group of elites. And then the singers to perform it will also disappear. Finally, the schools will close their vocal programs. Caput.

What is there to fear? A lot. But we can't become trapped in fear. We must attempt to save our art form by attempting to evolve into new forms, perhaps into a whole new species even.

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
        ⁃       Shakespeare's Claudio in Measure for Measure