'Contemporary' Questions

[In the following blog—and maybe for some in the future as well—‘contemporary’ is my code word for any feature of a performance marking it as something happening in today’s vernacular world, rather than in the heavily protected or subsidized contexts of concert hall, opera, ballet, or jazz festivals sponsored by cities or arts centers.]

Suppose we decide that we want to perform old music or music that references old music—old music could be only a few decades old—but in a ‘contemporary’ fashion. What tends to be regarded as ‘contemporary’ can vary a great deal, depending on culture, country, and so forth. But let’s say that we’re going to do this in a fairly cosmopolitan town in the U.S. What would this mean? How do we recognize contemporary music?

Is it amplified or not? What usage of electronics is ‘contemporary?’ Must it be presented only as brief “songs” or are lengthy “pieces” possibly appropriate? In what venue will the musicians play? What is the actual performing space like within it? Is there a program with program notes? What will the musicians wear?

“Amplification” could mean that the sound of acoustic instruments is enhanced, but it could also signify that the music is played primarily or exclusively on guitars, basses, and keyboards, all electric (with drums), rather than acoustic violins, violas, and cellos, clarinets, oboes, and bassoons. Saxophones, trombones, vibraphones, and even flutes might be instruments that are associated less than oboes and cellos with orchestras playing traditional Western music; are they ‘contemporary’ or do their associations with jazz now make them old-fashioned as well?

Does ‘contemporary’ access to sophisticated electronics result in the use of a variety of sound effects made in part by the musical instruments themselves or will it be more autonomous digital sounds made purely by a computer—possibly recorded ahead of time—as with many avant-garde performances?

Pieces from the standard Western repertory (and I’m not even considering opera or long dance pieces here) can often take a long time to play; is it more ‘contemporary’ to present music in, say, five minute segments, as is more typical for a hit recording played on a radio station? If so, how does one present that repertory, yet in shorter segments of time?   

In order for the event to come off as ‘contemporary,’ should the venue be a theater, an arena or amphitheater, or a club? Is any of these more appropriate than a concert hall, “alternative space,” church, or opera house? Is a big proscenium stage set-up ‘contemporary’ or should it be a flexible, even modular one? Must the people in the audience be in essentially fixed seats or is it contemporary for them to move around?

If it is more “contemporary” not to have programs with program notes in the manner of classical music performances, then the musicians will presumably announce the music from the stage. What will be the manner and substance of these announcements?

Suits, tuxedos, or gowns may not even be considered for a ‘contemporary’ look, but would dress shirts (or blouses) and slacks, elaborate costumes associated with some rock or hip-hop music, or t-shirts and torn jeans be preferred?

Today is for posing the questions; I won’t answer them yet—that is, if I can answer them at all.  

Same Old Same Old

Nothing typifies the 21^st-century “classical music” quandary like the doings in the major opera houses. The desperate quality that characterizes the choice of repertory, with the attempt to balance warhorses, unusual old pieces, and new pieces, is palpable. As a resident of and musician in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s easy to observe this at the SF Opera, as opaque as the actual programming process may be.

What are the real issues and problems with an institution like the San Francisco Opera? Issues of history versus “tradition” come up over and over. The classical music audience has it knocked into our heads. I suggest the curious reader try the following statements with five opera patrons and mark the responses something like the following.

       1)    How about if most of the operas were given in the language of most of the audience—in the case of SF Opera, English?

a)     Opera in translation deprives us of the original colors and sounds of the language, and is therefore inauthentic.

b)     The librettos are so ridiculous, who wants to understand it anyway? I just like the pretty music.

c)     The supertitles tell us what’s going on anyway, so leave the operas in a form in which they can travel anywhere; the English version won’t work in Germany, for example.

d)     I hate opera in English!

       2)    I love many old operas, but I’m so sick of operas like Aïda, La Bohème, and Carmen. Can’t we retire them for at least 10 years?

a)     I don’t think every opera performance should be something that familiar, but these works and the traditions surrounding them are a part of what makes opera.

b)     There’s nothing like those operas for good tunes that we can sing over and over as we leave the theater. That’s why I go.

c)     As long as we keep re-staging these operas for new audiences, their power will captivate audiences of every generation.

d)     You want to get rid of my favorite operas. I hate you!

       3)    Opera is in such a state of stagnation; can we not only update the productions and direction, but also the way they’re presented musically? Do they have to sound exactly as they did 100 years ago?

a)     I don’t like modernizing pieces that are, in fact, not modern. We really appreciate these works when we experience them in their original form.

b)     I like the way those operas as they are. Why upset everyone by changing them?

c)     What are you going to do, cast Beyoncé as Aïda and put electric guitars in the orchestra? That’s not opera!

d)     I hate even the suggestion!

(continued)

       4)    While avant-garde music (in the historical sense of the 50s, 60s, and 70s) may not be a truly contemporary answer to these issues, shouldn’t we be using live productions and impeccable performance standards to sell pieces that have been around for a while like Dallapiccola’s Prigioniero, Nono’s Intolleranza, Ligeti’s Grand Macabre, and Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise?

 

a)     Those operas are presented to torment those of us who really love opera.

b)     Modernist music has never found an audience, and you just can’t sell these pieces at a big opera house.

c)     Don’t try to educate me, for God’s sake! I know what I like.

d)     I hate that ugly music!

       5)    Couldn’t more of the pieces presented that are actually new step outside of the old conventions of opera, especially with people around like Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and younger composers who could give opera a fresh spin? What do you think of them? There are so many ways to go with this; for example, a lot of performance art is very operatic.

a)     All of these new composers hate melody, which is what opera is all about.

b)     These people are diminishing what opera is supposed to be. Grand opera isn’t hip, it’s timeless

c)     I hate Philip Glass!

d)     I hate Philip Glass too!

You’re welcome to accuse me of creating a straw man, but I stand by my assertion that these “voices” on the subject of opera are the ones that people like David Gockley must be listening to every day—not only the actual sentiments, but the assumption that most individual opera fans who don’t speak up can easily circle one of these answers for each question.

And I wouldn’t have been able to write up my questions and answers unless I had heard countless individuals say all of these things. But there’s a faulty reasoning at the center of all of these assumptions. These are indeed typical of the people who resolutely continue to attend opera performances if they can afford to, but there are a lot of curious musical intellectuals out there who don’t go to opera performances very often if ever. What do they think?

Some don’t even consider going, because they actually want something new, even if they’re not interested in serial music.

Some are sick to death of the standard repertoire, or don’t have any interest in it in the first place.

Some love Glass’s music, not to mention Monk’s and many of the others who’ve done something of substance with words and music.

Some might see the operatic potential of soul and especially hip-hop music.

Some in San Francisco went to operas composed by Messiaen and Ligeti and, a bit in spite of themselves, ended up cheering at the end.

Some can’t understand why they should be unnecessarily distanced from the music by hearing it in languages that few in the audience understand.

But Gockley hasn’t been talking to the people with those points of view. It is obvious that people in opera continue to talk to the same other people in opera over and over, and they get a skewed perspective that the same old thing is the only way to bring people in.

The perfect metaphor for opera programming and presentation of the last few decades is “winning the battle, but losing the war.” Many opera companies—and for that matter, symphony orchestras—are suddenly going belly-up. The most horrible thing for these companies is that opera boards, and other support groups are right when they say that Bohème will draw twice the audience of Ligeti’s Grand Macabre, because the audience is still the traditional opera audience. The Bohème audience may even exceed that for Einstein on the Beach. This is the battle they’ve won—with the warhorses, more tickets were sold in 2000 and 2001 and 2002. But, at some point, it becomes clearer that showing the contemporary pieces is an investment in the future, whereas producing the older ones again is desperately clinging to a tried-and-true formula. The audiences for the older pieces have eroded and will continue, bit by bit, to erode. This is the war, and you can see, when you notice the many empty seats even at a standard like Masked Ball, that it’s being gradually lost. And the claim that musical treacle by the likes of Jake Heggie is a serious move toward anything else is part of the same problem.

If some of these old pieces survive, will the opera house be the place that really gives them a shot in the arm? Or would it be more likely in the same alternative spaces in which we might hear Glass and Monk?