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LISTENERS' BOX
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By Charles Barber
A living opera company creates controversy. Only the dead hand of the
musical mausoleum avoids it altogether. In an op-ed piece in last week's SFCV, it was argued that San Francisco runs second to the companies of Los Angeles and Washington, and that this is because of the repertoire and casting choices of the San Francisco Opera's
general director, Pamela Rosenberg. Several good points were made about the success of our sister companies. But better points were omitted.
An opera is not a recital. It is a wonderment of theater, and tells a story
we cannot experience any other way. (Only film comes close.) And opera
lives on the edge of a contradiction. Beautiful singing is an end and a means. If great singing were all, we could save a fortune. One costume, no orchestra, and a glass of water would do it.
At the San Francisco Opera, happily for us, they are not running a
mortuary. World and local premieres have long been the shining currency of
the realm. Almost everyone takes pride in this. Under Lotfi Mansouri's leadership we
were given the astounding Dead Man Walking, a work which is now earning
performances across the country. And we also experienced Arshak II, a
wretched bomb which earned laughter and contempt. Somewhere in the middle
came Streetcar. In the worlds of symphony and opera, most new music never enters the canon, and so it has always been. Who today thinks of Haydn as an opera composer? Fidelio was famously described as "incoherent, shrill, chaotic, and
ear-splitting". New music has always been resisted by lazy ears.
The current general director is not operating from a Chinese menu of two
from column A, one from B, and so on. She asserts overarching themes, and
builds whole seasons around them. This may seem too 'intellectual' for
some. It is not, for most. Rather, it is an effort to elevate the 'menu' from a set of isolated items into a season-long experience of identity and perspective. This is a
passionate exercise of judgment and heart. It takes risks and will not
always work. But when it does, and when all the stars align (and not just the singing
ones), this house is capable of miracle second to none.
One example? Messiaen's only opera, Saint François, was given its North American premiere here. I gather the author was unable to attend. Had he done so, he
would in fairness have mentioned its critical superlatives from around the
world, seen standing ovations every night, and heard singing that was
magical from first to last. For me (and I have a bias; I did the
pre-curtain talks) it was one of my outstanding experiences in 40
years of opera-going. It was an inspired, difficult, and costly decision to bring St Francis to his own city. How lucky we were that he came, and how lucky we are to have
leadership that understands the importance of giving us the music of our
own times.
The great classics will always have a place in opera, and rightly so. But
every classic was once a premiere, and all had their critics too. This is
inevitable. The very experience of opera invites conflicts of taste and hearing. We all
play favorites. There are people who never accepted Callas, who thought
Furtwängler a windmill, and who denounced Peter Grimes for its unrequited
revenge.
Surely all can agree on this: opera is the most ecumenical of musical
experiences. In it, every single person contributes. The electricians, the
ushers, the second violins, and an open-minded audience — all are
part of the experience. I for one appreciate the way Rosenberg is
working to keep the currents buzzing and the house alive with new ideas. It
is her misfortune that she has been called to do so in the middle of the
worst recession in a generation.
In opera, we are entitled to a good deal more than just marvellous singing.
We want great productions, and to have them deal with honest emotion and
great tales of ourselves. To paraphrase Sergiu Celibidache, beauty is not the goal. Truth is the goal. Beauty is the bait.
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