BY STELLA JOSEPH-JARECKI
We would like to welcome Stella in her first blog published with CutCommon!
Many people believe opera is a ‘dead’ artform – a dusty old relic only meant for the ears of affluent senior citizens.
I disagree.
However, I completely understand why people view it that way. Many people my age have never seen an opera. This is probably due to the expensive ticket prices and the consistently fancy-schmansy way opera is marketed. (Diamonds and ball gowns are non-negotiable, apparently.)
As someone who considers themselves a feminist and a musicologist (a more pretentious introduction has never existed), I am the first to admit the plots of popular operas are often deeply problematic. After all, the vast majority of them were written by privileged European men during a time when racism and sexism were accepted as normal. In this way, many operas are like 1960s James Bond films: entertaining, but casually (or explicitly) sexist and racist. Vintage Ferraris! Weapons cunningly disguised in household appliances! African servants and sexualised women – all packed into a short running time!
During the 19th Century, European composers set their operas in far-flung locations to give them an exotic, sexy edge. They usually did this without any meaningful research into the countries or cultures of these places and the people who lived there: after all, Bizet wrote Carmen without ever setting foot in Spain. (And that country was comparatively close to his home of France.)
Despite this ridiculousness, Carmen is actually one of my favourite operas and one which fares well compared to some of the others written in the ‘exotic’ style (to name a few, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, Delibes’ Lakmé, Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah, and Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail). This is probably because the libretto of Carmen was adapted from a novella written by a Prosper Mérimée, a French historian who actually did spend time in Spain and took inspiration from a story told to him by a Spanish aristocrat. The genuine interest in Spanish culture forms the foundation of the story and sets Carmen apart – though as we know, Bizet’s final product is still deeply problematic when it comes to sex and race.
The ‘noble savage’ was also an inherently problematic trope appearing in operas at the time. Eastern cultures were patronisingly viewed by Western cultures as seductive, wild, and savage – an example of a baser form of humanity.
Another obvious issue sprinkled throughout the operatic canon is the treatment of women. It is a running gag among female opera singers that if they successfully forge a soloist career, they will be dying on stage every second night. However, this issue is no longer being treated as a light-hearted joke. To quote Deborah Cheetham AO in her 2019 Peggy-Glanville-Hicks address: “The death of a female character on stage must be an absolute tragedy, not merely an inevitable and strangely fulfilling experience.”
Why is opera so absurdly flippant with the matter of human life, populated with leading women throwing themselves into firepits (La Juive) or off buildings (Tosca) or coming to a number of other graphically unpleasant ends?
It comes back to the age-old concern of show business: to put bums on seats. Composers had to make sure their piece became a hit so they would be commissioned to write another one. The head of an opera house wanted to program shows that were heart-wrenching, uproariously funny, scandalous, or shocking (or a number of other adjectives). This led to the tropes we see so often: murdered women, ‘whores’ who are punished, couples going to extreme and illogical lengths for love, and really silly depictions of cultures that the composer and librettist knew nothing about.
Despite this, many of these traditional operas offer a magical, soul-shaking music experience, alongside a tone-deaf dramatic one. When we stage one of these shows today, there are many ways we can frame its plot. After all, operas used to be presented in a far more fluid way, often in collaboration with the living composers. We can respect the intentions of composers while exercising an interpretive voice with what is on the page. We can also simply use accompanying material, such as pre-concert talks and program notes, to frame the issues and highlight the themes and their contexts in these works of fiction. There is no need to blindly sensor any challenging material, but we must confront it openly.
If you think your favourite symphony or choral piece has transcended the passage of time, it’s probably because the composer didn’t find a then-popular story and set it to music. You can let the sonic waves of a Beethoven symphony or Bach concerto wash over you without witnessing sobering reminders – visual or verbal – of how humans used to treat each other. (Not that things are perfect now, of course.)
So what would I do differently if I had the chance to make change?
Implementing industry-wide student priced tickets would be a start.
Victorian Opera tackles this with its lower-cost tickets for Under 30s. Opera Australia also discounts tickets for students up to year 12, and offers an access program with subsidised $20 tickets. If opera companies don’t provide such incentives, young music lovers may not dare to try something new. Instead, they’re going to spend their hard-earned $50 on a $20 ticket to a gig at a rock venue and a couple of drinks at the bar. And I don’t blame them.
Secondly, I’d advocate for shorter operas.
Most operas are roughly the length of a stage musical but they are much denser. For an audience member who is a first-timer, this can be overwhelming. I’d suggest we adopt an average running time of one hour for newly composed operas, performed straight through.
Thirdly, I’d expand plotlines to more than just doomed love stories.
After seeing Madame Butterfly 10 times, it begins to lose its impact. We can look to music theatre for inspiration on how a musical artform can be adapted to a wide range of human stories. There are already many encouraging signs of what is possible. In 2011, my high school singing teacher Angus Grant wrote a one-act opera called Contact! about the trials and tribulations of a suburban league women’s netball team. I saw it performed at the Arts Centre Melbourne when I was 16 (and a complete newcomer to opera). I wasn’t used to hearing an operatic voice sing in English, but I thought it was very funny and full of zingy one-liners.
Last year, I attended Gertrude Opera’s production of chamber opera As One. Through a series of fragmented scenes, As One charts the gradual transformation of protagonist Hannah as she navigates a male-to-female transition. As One is written for a string ensemble and two voices: a baritone (Hannah Before) and a mezzo-soprano (Hannah After). As One was refreshing in a number of ways: the worthy and underrepresented story, the interest and simplicity of two voices interacting, and a tailor-made video projection which functioned as an immersive set design.
Opera gives composers and librettists the chance to juxtapose of kinds of human stories, with the technical mastery and power of the classical voice. So let’s write some new operas! Write early, and write often. We need works about interesting women, supernatural themes, zombies, pirates, or LGBTQI+ story arcs. The future of opera can be bright if we make it.
This story was first published on Stella Joseph-Jarecki’s blog.
Featured image: Opera Australia’s 2016 production of Carmen captured by Keith Saunders. Stella captured by Rachel Brown Photography.
