Renée footnote

Happy new year, everyone. Next week I'll start my systematic look at classical music's problems, with the first post coming a week from today, Monday, January 12. This week I'll gather up some odds and ends, things I've been thinking about for a while, but haven't posted.

I'll start with a Renée Fleming footnote. Just before Christmas I said she should have given the profits from her holiday promotion to charity (see my last post). But here's some clarification. Of course she doesn't have to do it. That's her choice. But wouldn't it have been a classy move -- and (to be both cynical and realistic) wonderful publicity? Sometimes I think people in classical music don't understand how to promote themselves.

Pop music, of course, understands charity (and its PR value) far better than classical music does. But here's the interesting part. Many people in the business don't see why classical music ought to be involved in charity work -- or at least not on any large scale -- because classical music itself is a charity!

And of course that's factually true. Classical music organizations need to raise money in order to exist. But even so, many of them (the big ones, obviously) look opulent, especially to that elusive new audience we're all trying to attract. Opulence, in fact, is often one of classical music's selling points. The Metropolitan Opera attracts people in part by offering a lavish evening out, in what are supposed to be gorgeous surroundings. Renée Fleming and Placido Domingo, with their Rolex ads, don't exactly present herself as members of the working middle class.

So with this image in full effect-- classical music as upscale and lavish -- our field needs to do some charity work. One survey I've heard about reported that people in their 20s actually complained that classical music didn't do enough charity. Their expectations, naturally, had been formed by pop music, where charity (for whatever purpose) is almost a way of life.

One last point. Many years ago, I got a call from a New York city agency, which was looking for advice. This agency had to decide who qualified to live in lofts reserved for artists. A rock star wanted to buy one. Did I think he qualified?

My answer was that he ought to qualify. And if he didn't, how could they justify making these lofts available to top-rank opera singers, who make plenty of money, even if they're not as rich as rock stars?