Don't call me dumb!

In the August Opera News, Philip Kennicott writes an article entitled "Is Opera Still Relevant" which has generated a fair amount of discussion on the internet, in the blogosphere, and elsewhere. I'm not going to comment on all of it, because frankly I don't think he says much and I'm not quite sure what his point is. But I will speak to one particular topic. He writes:

This message took many forms: Come as you are; projected titles will open all doors. Yet as we look at what has happened in the larger culture, there’s a more sinister subtext to the message. Essentially, the opera world was one of the first places in our culture that said there’s no shame in ignorance. Again, it seemed like an obvious, populist gambit to soothe the nervous newcomer.

I considered projected titles a tool; not a end but a means to end. It helps break down the barriers for those who are intimdated by the artform and rather than "dumb-down" the performance as Mr. Kennicott suggests, I think it enhances the performance and helps an audience member to better understand the performance. I have tapes of focus groups that show just that. Potential audience members, people who have identified themselves as "arts-attenders" although not of opera, look at the availability of titles as a way to "enter into" the world of opera.

Remember that it was the regular practice in the nineteenth century to have the libretto available and the lights up during a performance, so that the audience could read along. This is not something new, it is just the twentieth and twenty-first century incarnation of that same paradigm. This doesn't preclude an audience from investigating the artform more deeply. Rather I think it encourages them to begin the process that will lead to a deeper understanding of a work. At our opera company the pre-performance lectures are always standing-room only, suggesting that our audiences want not only to experience the performance, but to understand it and thereby enhance their experience.

Sorry, I don't buy the come as you are (another barrier to be broken down), projected translations phenomenon as a dumbing-down. I think it leads to a more intelligent and active audience.