A journalist friend forwarded a press release earlier today that included this:<\/p>\n
XXXX, the feisty mezzo-soprano from Kansas who was born to
play Rossini’s equally feisty comic heroine, Rosina, fell and broke
her right leg early in act one of The Barber of Seville on Saturday,
July 4th, the opening night of an important revival at London’s Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden. She returned to the stage to finish the
evening’s performance, and blogged into the night about her adventure
and its aftermath. She then showed up on every operatic weblog in the
world. <\/b>The Kansas City trouper said “the show must go on”, and she
plans to be back on stage in the sparkling production tonight
(Tuesday, July 7), as well as in subsequent performances on July 10,
13, 15, and 18.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nEvery operatic weblog IN THE WORLD??? In the world? <\/i>The whole wide <\/i>world?
<\/b>
Who counted? <\/p>\nPublicists – myself included – are notoriously over-the-top; I like to think it’s part of our charm. But this kind of melodramatic PR boilerplate really slays me: the best of anything in the world, the greatest anyone of their generation, the most unique performer\/performance (which isn’t even grammatically correct, because something can’t be the most-superlative, but – no matter). <\/p>\n
That’s not to say that this isn’t a fantastic story. (Sister is apparently going to perform in a wheelchair??) But I think in press release-writing and bio-writing we sometimes out-promote ourselves. Where the artist has performed, what he or she has accomplished, what the critics have said about him or her should be enough to “prove” that someone is “one of the greatest artists of their generation” without a publicist having to explicitly say it. <\/p>\n
Of course then I remember writing my college essays: apparently, my first drafts were completely un-self-promotional. (“I’m pretty good at the harp.” “I do some community service.”) My guidance counselor said that everyone else was going to exaggerate their accomplishments in their essays, so I certainly shouldn’t downplay my own for the sake of modesty. So if I never say my clients show up on every blog in the world, does that put them at a disadvantage? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A journalist friend forwarded a press release earlier today that included this: XXXX, the feisty mezzo-soprano from Kansas who was born toplay Rossini’s equally feisty comic heroine, Rosina, fell and brokeher right leg early in act one of The Barber of Seville on Saturday,July 4th, the opening night of an important revival at London’s RoyalOpera […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}