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ASH KHANDEKAR'S EDITORIAL
from the current issue of OPERA NOW
It's time to shake things up a little. Opera is no stranger to radical ideas, and one of the messages that came out of a series of round-table discussions at the National Convention for the Performing Arts that took place in Denver during June, was that the next decade will be one of wide-ranging changes and challenges for opera. The debate around the future of the art form is embodied in the 'Clash of the Titans' that is about to unfold in New York, where cultural iconoclast, self-confessed egomaniac and unashamed 'Euro-intellectualist' Gerard Mortier is about to take up his position at the head of an ailing American operatic institution, the New York City Opera. His opening season at City Opera throws down the gauntlet to his rival down the road at the Met, Peter Gelb, who is courting the popular vote to keep his company afloat in difficult times, with his focus on big celebrities and evangelising by way of taking opera into cinemas.
Mortier is introducing New York to a European-style 'stagione' season filled with modern works that received wisdom says will be commercial suicide in a non-subsidised artistic environment: Glass's Einstein on the Beach, Janácek's Makropulos Case, Messiaen's St François d'Assise and Britten's Death in Venice. (The latter, interestingly, is the celebrated production from English National Opera, which Peter Gelb originally rejected for the Met, apparently to his subsequent regret.)
Mortier's challenge is clear: innovate or die. Leave the big stars and the repertoire favourites to the grand old institutions, and create a new appetite for opera among audiences who are curious and wish to expand their horizons. Not that Peter Gelb is shrinking away from Mortier's provocation. Peter Grimes and Glass's Satyagraha (another ENO import) are just two recent examples of works that Met audiences might once have shied away from, but these days are prepared to embrace.
It is the City Opera's beleaguered Board, seeing the writing on the wall, that has brought in Mortier to create a new identity for opera in New York in the hope of offering a real alternative to the Met. This is a hopeful trend for opera - too often it is board members, and not audiences, who remain stubbornly out of touch with cultural trends and ideas. It is boards that exercise artistic caution, stultifying opera when a little innovation would actually prepare the ground for future growth.
Art is no place for complacency. As English National Opera has proved in its recent shows at London's progressive Young Vic Theatre, an alternative approach to programming and repertoire can reap rewards. Recent productions of Harrison Birtwistle's Punch and Judy and Olga Neuwirth's Lost Highway were sell-out successes with younger audiences hungry for new experiences. This was opera staged by a new generation of performers and directors, re-inventing the art form vividly for their peers. It's the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has re-invigorated the opera scene in the UK in recent years, in marked contrast to the institutional conservatism across the Atlantic. Gerard Mortier should take heart.
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