Heresy -- Shostakovich, Handel, High Art, Peter Grimes

Greg,

Very interesting comments on Peter Grimes. Having seen it in the theater on the original live broadcast, my impression was probably more favorable than yours - I thought it was a very exciting performance. And in general I think the English subtitles are very helpful even when a work is in English - I can hardly make out the lyrics to a Gilbert & Sullivan piece without them - but I think that Britten and Menotti, for example, are examples of composers who did a superior job of fitting the English into their orchestration in such a way that it was easier for the listener to follow along.

But I think you make a very good point on the problem with the close-up in televised opera (although, again, I didn't notice it so much in Grimes). In her book on Television Opera, Jennifer Barnes points out TV directors such as Kirk Browning early on discovered that using close-ups in a telecast could be dicey. The close-up magnified the singer's technique, which could be distracting to the viewer; the camera could pick up the initial nervousness of a performer, which would largely be invisible to someone sitting in the audience; and it often provided enough detail to shatter the illusion that the singer/actor was trying to create. Barnes felt that the close-up probably worked best with children, as in Menotti's Amahl, where the technique could elicit the audience's empahty with the character. Her account of how Browning and Menotti staged the telecast of Amahl with infrequent close-ups shows how the medium has to make allowances for the kinds of things you point out. Interesting that this has been identified as a concern for over 50 years, and yet it still continues to challenge.

With all due respect,aren't you just setting up a strawman and comparing apples and
oranges? Nobody who loves classical music is
"worshipping at a temple".They just love classical music.Fans of Mariah Carey and other
famous pop singers have every right to be
fans of those stars;those who love classical
music should never look down on them for
their tastes.But people should not assume that
classical fans are just a bunch of elitist
snobs,either.
I saw the Peter Grimes telecast and could not
not disagree more.I thought it was superbly acted utterly believable as drama,as well
as being musically of the highest quality.

Robert, if you don't know people who think that going to a classical concert is like worshipping at a temple, then you're lucky.I've heard quite a number of people say things like that, and not criticallyl. This is one of the things they like about classical music. I've read similar things, too, and maybe worst of all, I've heard classical musicians talk in that way about their performances. At one conference I attended recently, involving a number of orchestras, many people kept referring to "our great art form," in reverent voices. To judge from their tone, you might have thought they were devout Christians talking about the Holy Trinity.

Of course pop stars have adoring fans, but the tone of the adoration in that part of the cultural world is quite a lot lighter. Nobody thinks Mariah Carey is doing something of great spiritual significance. Her fans, much more simply, just love her, without any grand cultural or ethical theories about it. I've worked in both classical music and pop, and I can assure you that the tone of voice among fans is very different on the two sides of the fence.

You compare great singers such as Sinatra
singing English comprehensibly to opera
singers.But those singers never had to sing
without microphones in large opera house
over a large orchestra, and Britten's vocal
writing is much more difficult than Jazz or
Pop music.The writing is not so straight-
forwardly melodic;it is often much more
angular.

Thanks for raising this point, Robert. It's something I didn't explain as clearly as I might have. Of course it's easier to convey words when you have a microphone. My point, though, was that Italian singers, singing Italian oepra, are often clearly understandable. Remember all that fuss in the '60s over Joan Sutherland's mushy diction? One reason for complaining about it was that other sopranos really could be understood.

I've heard two arguments made to support the need (or alleged need) for titles even when a work is sung in English. The first argument is about sopranos, who for reasons rooted in physics have to change vowels on their high notes. So, yes, their words might not be clear, for the duration of the high note. But the same applies in other languages, so if Italian sopranos can be understandable, despite momentary distortions on high notes, why not American sopranos singing in English? (It's usually easy, in any case, to fill in the distorted sounds from their context.)

The second argument, which Patricia Racette really did make during an intermission feature in the broadcast, was that English has dipthongs that are tricky to sing. Which is true! But this is where the Sinatra comparison comes into force. Sinatra sings the same dipthongs, but he's easy to understand. It's very hard to see why opera singers should have so much trouble with them.

As for angular singing, there's a lot of that in jazz. Listen to Sarah Vaughn, swooping and sliding over a gigantic range. You can hear every word. And, you know, if Britten really did set English words to music in a ways that no singer could make clear (which I don't for a moment believe), then he wouldn't -- at least in this aspect of his work -- be all that good a composer.

Looks like a great class -- I enjoyed looking at the syllabus. What were the most intersting student responses?

Thanks, David. I could type for hours, answering your questions. And it changes every year! Each new group of students responds in its own way. This year, some of the most wonderful thoughts came from a student with more conservative views than mine, who kept coming up with vivid ideas about why classical music matters. Students also can be very interesting when they talk about limits in their musical education -- how, for instance, they feel they're restricted in the ways they can express themselves (though not every student thinks that).

I'm also impressed by the ideas they come up with for new kinds of concerts. But the highlight of the course is always the presentations the students give at the end, when i ask them to describe a piece that they themselves play (or sing, or have composed), in very personal ways that would reach people who don't know anything about classical music. The conviction and originality of what the students say -- just about every one of them -- is impressive in ways that go far beyond music. It's a great tribute to the power of being human, to the originality all of us have inside us.

"Nobody thinks Mariah Carey is doing something of great spiritual significance. Her fans, much more simply, just love her, without any grand cultural or ethical theories about it."

I think this might be a bit reductive.
Here is an anecdote [from wikipedia (so sue me)] that is kind of ironic in this context:

"[Carey] began singing at around the age of three, when her mother began to teach her after Carey imitated her mother practicing Verdi's opera Rigoletto in Italian."

Or to put your comment differently -- we should all beware of simple generalizations. Though I'm not sure what Rigoletto has to do with spiritual significance.

And, you know, Celine Dion's fans do think she's saying something important. Maybe Carey's fans think the same of Carey, but there can be truth even in a too-quick summary.