I just saw a new English opera the critics raved about that was a complete bore. If this was an indie movie we would bomb it as a banal, boring and non-relevant story, but since the culture vulture critics need to justify their existence they put modern opera on a pedestal and look at it like some ink blot test trying to find some hidden meaning the rest of us cannot. The great operas entertain, engage, and enrich us and that is why they have stuck around for centuries and will continue to do so.
On another note, where are the great American operas that the American opera houses created and put into the repertoire? They simply gives us more old European works to cater to an older elite wealthy audiences. Take a handful away and the entire opera world disappears. The fact is opera is a DEAD 18th century art form supplanted by the art form of today, FILM. It has no relevance and connection to modern America. The next generation of Silicon Valley venture capitalists will not support it, and it will die unless the classical world as a collective can create works that speak to a younger audience. And I don't mean the downtown scene that lowers the bar to be hip and pander to pseudo-intellectual rockers, but to find new works that reflect our current society and its concerns while still being able to entertain and engage the patrons.....then new opera will speak to a new generation....
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