I'm glad I'm not the only one

On this blog more than a year ago, I expressed skepticism about the Met's plan for in theater HD telecasts of movies. They had been tried before on other occasions and I didn't think they'd have much impact.

Boy was I wrong.

But I wasn't the only one. It was nice to see that Terry Teachout and I were ofsimilar mind. Both of us are eating crow at the moment.

I became an enthusiast early on and was excited at the prospect of new audiences for the opera. As Terry comments, that hasn't quite panned out. At least at the one's I've attended, it's been the same people that I see at the opera house. With the ability to purchase tickets in advance, all of them were snapped up by our regular subscribers.

That is disappointing. I don't begrudge them the opportunity to buy their tickets in advance, and it certainly helped the Met's success, but it has left little chance for last minute, walk-up sales by younger patrons. I think that this is a non-threatening environment for newbies to dip their toe in the water, at (generally) a lower cost than in an opera house and in a comfortable familiar place.

It's a shame that there are no tickets left for them and that the audiences are the same ones that are in the opera house. It's my hope that the Met and National Cinemedia will expand and present more opportunities. Perhaps more showings of the Encore (taped) telecasts would be a possibility.

Let's not miss an opportunity here.

Huh?

OK, so I just read something fairly silly in BBC Music Magazine. In a list of the 20 Greatest Tenors of All Time (a fairly silly prospect on its own), number 13 was...

Juan Diego Florez?

Now I think Mr. Florez is a fine singer. His Met debut as Almaviva had me pretty excited and I'm going to see him in Daughter of the Regiment in April.

But one of the 20 Greatest tenors of all time? He must have a great publicist. What has he been singing on the international circuit, something like 5 minutes? A few more august names were notably absent from the list: Giovanni Martinelli, Mario Del Monaco, Giuseppe DiStefano, Leo Slezak, Fernando DeLucia, Richard Tauber etc. Presumably a list that includes the words "Of All Time" should admit names like Mario, Rubini, Schnorr, or Manuel Garcia. I would think that even José Carreras would rate a mention before Mr. Florez.

Mr. Florez has great ability and I expect we will rank him as a great tenor. But I just can't imagine that at this point in a career, anyone would rate anyone "Greatest of All Time."

Yes, pretty silly if you ask me (and you didn't).

Pasqua

It's Easter and while my pasqual music choices would fall to Bach, a friend has a ritual of listening to Cavalleria rusticana. One of my favorite operas, but since it is less about redemption that damnation, I think I'll stick to Johann Sebastian.

(This is Roberto Stagno and Gemma Bellicioni. Two singers that I would have been very interested to hear in flesh).

On Tour

I've been giving a lot tours of our Opera House and I've been surprised at some of the questions that I've been getting. People still ask if our singers are miked and I think are shocked when I tell them that no professional company that I know of in the country amplifies their singers (New York State Theater excepted, but that is not as blatant as some contend).

The other question that people ask often is about how much it costs to put on a production and how we pay for it. Too many people are under the impression that their ticket price covers the costs and don't realize how little it does contribute. For most opera companies it's about 40% of their expenses; for ours it is about 60% which is extremely high.

One person dared suggest a tax to help defray costs. It seems to me however that argument was lost long ago and that we in the U.S. have come to accept that fact that significant government funding is not forthcoming. I was recently reading some old (1960's) issues of Opera News and chuckled at how many articles call for increased government funding and looked to the subsidies that European houses received as a model. Of course that effort failed and now Europe is looking more and more how we fund our arts and increased corporate support.

Not that I wouldn't like to see more government funding, but with that likelihood pretty dim, we have to accept other ways to keep operating.

On the other hand it ticks me off a bit when people perceive arts organizations as greedy or "over-funded". None of us are rolling in dough. We all have expenses to meet and limited monies with which to meet them. The perception that just because an organization is successful in fund raising that it is the result of avarice is ludicrous. As a non-profit we CAN'T make money. And most of us who work for them are severely underpaid in relationship to the same jobs in the private sector.

Stepping off my soapbox. For the moment...

Update

We've opened two of the four operas in the Sarasota Opera festival and it has been an amazing rollercoaster ride. The pressures of getting the theater open (just in time) were great and has taken a toll on all of us. The Opening Night was euphoric and the next day I had a massive hangover, despite that fact that I had only two glasses of wine. It was fatigue and the final release of pent up energy and anxiety I suspect.

Now that we're open and in the full light of day there are still many things to deal with. Media, patrons, little things that have to be dealt with, leave little time for rest or relaxation. There are just not enough hours in a day for all that I have to accomplish, but they must be done so I soldier on.

Yet when the curtain goes up, it all seems worth it somehow. My only sanity in this time is to sit in the theater (the renovation of which is spectacular) and watch what is going on onstage. More than any other season, I wish that's were I was, but I am enjoying and feeling more a part of the process.

So two more operas to go. Not out of the woods yet. But if you turn your ear in this direction on April 14, you'll hear a big sigh of relief.

Gone Quiet

For many reason, but mostly due to an insane work-life, I've been quiet for the past few months. It's time to break the silence to pay tribute to a friend who left us.

For 12 years I sang under Richard Westenburg at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. Over that time Dick was a colleague, teacher, mentor, and friend. He founded Musica Sacra, New York City's premier professional chorus and his yearly traversal of Handel's Messiah (usually at Carnegie Hall), was one of the city's great institutions and beloved event.

Dick had one of the finest musical minds that I've ever known. Even when I didn't agree with him, he always had a valid and well thought out musical point of view. And yet his music making never took on a studied air, but came out of the natural talents of his singers. When singing with Dick, I always felt that he was treating the singers as professionals and relying on their innate musicality to make the piece sing.

He had studied organ with Boulanger and Langlais, was on the faculty of Julliard and Rutgers and for years was a fixture at churches in and out of NY City. He was opinionated, but he was always nice about it and quick to turn things to a joke and a smile.

He was a great computer geek (which he would freely admit) and he and I spent a lot of time chatting about every new gadget and technological breakthrough. It seemed that every Sunday at coffee hour we were talking about some new piece of equipment that one of us was planning to buy or some problem we were trying to figure out.

Dick succumbed to cancer on February 20. I will miss him very much. Plans for a memorial service can be found at the Musica Sacra website.