{"id":789,"date":"2010-12-17T16:14:47","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T20:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=789"},"modified":"2011-10-14T14:35:29","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T18:35:29","slug":"the-tears-of-a-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=789","title":{"rendered":"The tears of a queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Jorden<\/strong><\/p>\n

What makes a dedicated opera queen (well, anyway this <\/em>dedicated opera queen) sad? Well, it goes like this: the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera hosts a panel discussion to introduce the company\u2019s upcoming new production of La traviata<\/em>, the first non-Franco Zeffirelli take on Verdi\u2019s tragedy to be seen there in over two decades.\u00a0 No tears yet? Bear with me.<\/p>\n

Distinguished director Willy Decker explains his interpretation, slides are shown of the stark, imposing set, leading lady Marina Poplavskaya even jokes with the audience about her legs\u2014which are on very much on show in her character\u2019s sleek cocktail dress costume.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s the takeway? Well, it’s not about Traviata<\/em>. Instead, what everyone’s talkinga bout is a non-event: the Met will not (repeat not<\/em>) replace its ancient production of La boh\u00e8me<\/em> any time in the foreseeable future. When Gelb announced this \u201cnews,\u201d the audience applauded, and Daniel Wakin, writing in the New York Times<\/em>, seized on it for the lead of his coverage<\/a> of the panel.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s not like people haven\u2019t had a chance to see this production. This season marked its 400th<\/sup> performance, and I can recall that when I arrived in New York in 1988, this Boh\u00e8me <\/em>was the very first opera I saw\u2014and it was already then in its seventh season!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take the more charitable point of view here, and put aside for the moment the idea that the Met audience is blindly and irrationally prejudiced against \u201cEurotrash\u201d productions they\u2019ve never even seen, but only read about in sensationalized “think” pieces<\/a>. For the moment (and this won\u2019t take long) let\u2019s assume the Met audience likes the Zeffirelli Boh\u00e8me <\/em>for a more positive reason, i.e., that it\u2019s familiar and cozy, theatrical comfort food. <\/span>Fine. But now we have to ask ourselves, should it be the Met\u2019s mission to dish out Mom\u2019s meatloaf meal after meal, even if the customers keep asking for second helpings? Isn\u2019t the Met supposed to be doing, you know, art?<\/p>\n

In fact\u2014or I suppose I should say \u201caccording to rumor,\u201d which is probably more reliable than reported truth anyway\u2014a source close to the Met has told me that Gelb did indeed plan to replace their Boh\u00e8me<\/em> with a staging younger than the singers performing it, and directed by someone still mobile enough to show up at rehearsals. The production, it is said, was to have opened the 2013 season with a star-studded cast including Anna Netrebko, and the (very middle of the road, not at all outrageous) director and production team were already sewed up for that time.<\/p>\n

And then something happened: perhaps the Met\u2019s board of directors vetoed the idea, or maybe Gelb himself got cold feet after the strongly negative reaction to Luc Bondy\u2019s Tosca<\/em> last season. Whatever the reason, the situation is the same: here is the world\u2019s greatest opera company, and they\u2019re afraid to do a new production of La boh\u00e8me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Old habits are hard to break, and maybe even more ingrained in the Met\u2019s audience than the idea of opera as comfort food is the sense that \u201cit\u2019s all about the music,\u201d from which is derived the corollary that the stage production should be unobtrusive and, ideally, inexpensive, so we can afford to pay the singers more while keeping orchestra ticket prices in the low three figures. A widespread reaction online to the new production of Don Carlo<\/em> introduced last month was \u201cthere was nothing wrong with the Dexter,\u201d and even that most annoying of catchphrases \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But \u201cbroke,\u201d I propose, is the natural state of art; no matter how excellent a production (or a film, or a painting) may be, it\u2019s imperfect, and tends to move farther away from perfection over time. Cultural referents change (so that, for example, the big hair and shoulder pads of Otto Schenk\u2019s 1980s Valkyries start to look like camp) and, in the case of a recreative art like opera, the tautness and specificity of a production tend to unravel over time, leaving behind only the sets and (reproductions of) the costumes to indicate the director\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n

The end result of the \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke\u201d attitude is to devalue stage direction from an art to a sort of luxurious craft, as if the dramatic values in opera were on par aesthetically with a Martha Stewart Christmas wreath. And at the Met, at least, that same wreath will going to continue to hang on the door season after season after season.<\/p>\n

As an alternative, I’d like to propose a new slogan for the performing arts: “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Sell those old productions, burn them, repurpose them for window displays at Saks.\u00a0 But, please, make way for the new!<\/p>\n