The tour is going really well. Fifty teenage fans were crushed in a free Justin Bieber sing-through in the Oslo opera house and the singer himself passed out after contact with a glass wall in Paris.
Why should this concern us? Because the events are being hyped up by his record company, Universal, and indirectly underwriting its continued loss-making investment in classical music. And because you have to wonder what any opera house in its right mind was doing letting in hordes of screaming teens to mob the most vapid performer we have seen in decades. Oslo, are you hearing me?
“And because you have to wonder what any opera house in its right mind was doing..”
Probably some misplaced idea about “relevance” or “access”, as if the teenagers are likely to return the following week for Don Giovanni.
The sad thing is, some of them would probably enjoy it.
Yeah, dude! Don Giovanni! All that sex and violins!
They weren’t IN the opera house, they were outside on the roof. And in the parking lot. And blocking the surrounding streets.
@Barry: I doubt the opera house programmed Justin Bieber – it was used as a venue for hire. Just because it has the word “opera” in its name doesn’t mean that it needs to be its only use. To be facetious, it also has the word “house” but presumably nobody sleeps there.
Robbie Ellis
I was commenting on the situation as reported by NL.
I was also commenting on the futility of patronising teenagers. They can spot it a mile off. Also, less than ideal use for a building equipped at great expense for opera. If they were in fact on the roof, obviously that’s different.
“MOST vapid performer we have seen in decades”? I don’t know. I think it’s more like JB in a 10,500 person tie for last place.
Companies seem to be trying everything to increase their audience these days. Everything except, of course, hiring lesser-known singers that are no less talented than the famous ones, installing board members that know things about music, relaxing the incredibly strict (alienating, insiders-only) codes of audience behavior, making black-box theater part of the national operatic menu, and hiring older seasoned professionals not currently in the public eye as consultants (Leontyne Price, Carol Vaness, Nicolai Gedda, Jessye Norman etc).