If you want to know why classical music has receded from our culture, just watch some of Captain Blood, the classic (and wonderfully silly) 1935 pirate film, starring Errol Flynn. It might as well be an opera. Its plot, dialogue, and aesthetic are almost operatic, and so is its score, by Erich Korngold.
Which meant that in 1935 you could go to the opera, and go to the movies, and see practically the same thing. So opera was close to everyday life, in a way that it just can’t be now.
Why not? Because the horizons of our culture have expanded. Last year I saw Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette film, and not long after saw Don Carlo at the Met. Coppola shows the French royal court as a dizzy, corrupt place, full of modern references (dance music from our own time, shoes from our own time), and full of individual aristocrats, each with his or her own personality. Verdi might have been a great composer, but through no fault of his own he lived in the 19th century, and in Don Carlo he shows us the Spanish royal court as the 19th century might have imagined it, formal, a little stilted, and full of aristocrats who (apart from the leading characters) sing anonymously as members of a chorus. You really can’t do that any more. Through no fault of its own (to repeat the phrase), the opera looked like an old movie.
Greg, I think you have your causality backwards here. Comparing the contemporary social relevance of the plot and characters of a Verdi against a modern film isn’t a fair comparison, but the reason it’s tempting to do so is that opera has been museumized. The reason for this museumization is that, as you say, “classical music has receded from our culture” — as the middle class expanded and brought popular art to prominence, the “high” arts were museumized in order to preserve their status as “high art.” There are contemporary operas that have the same kind of social relevance as contemporary movies, but they don’t generate popular interest either because classical music isn’t popular. And I suspect most people who don’t like opera and classical concert music wouldn’t be able to tell you that the characters in Verdi aren’t socially relevant, because they’ve never gotten close enough to a Verdi opera to find it out.
This reminds me of something I meant to write in response to your post about Handel opera, but didn’t get around to. People tend to adapt art of the past to the aesthetic of their own time. I suspect that the lack of ornamentation in opera isn’t really an expression of puritanism, but of the aesthetic of our time. We moderns don’t go much for frills. We like simplicity and clarity. Unornamented Handel makes more sense to us.
The entire historically informed performance thing has a lot of this going on. Who knows exactly how they played Bach in the 18th century? Who cares? Of course HIP draws on a lot of scholarship, but the reason it’s caught on is that the results speak to us in the 21st century.
I think you have too myopic a definition of “classical music.” I could use the same analogy to illustrate why Bang on a Can has become so popular, since it captures the same aesthetic qualities as Marie Antoinette.
This is a bit simplistic of an approach especially as far as Verdi is concerned who wasn’t trying to depuct actual life in the 16th century, but based his Don Carlo mainly on Schiller and his political and intellectual ideals. Moreover I sugest you go and see other more vibrant and exciting productions than the one you saw.
Christina
I was interested in your observation as to how certain 1930s-vintage movies have that “operatic” quality. I submit that there exist at least some more-or-less contemporary films that lean quite heavily on opera traditions. Specifically, I’m thinking of Coppola’s Godfather (I and II). Both films seem to me to be quite consciously extending the sensibility — even some techniques — of the later Italian verismo opera. What is Don Corleone if not an exemplar of Rustic Chivalry? And, of course, Nino Rota was operating well within his comfort zone as an opera composer.
Il capitano sangue is a rather stupid observation
Captain Blood is not a silly film, It`s one of the best pirate films ever filmed , I think the Pirates of the Caribbean is a really stupid film , with a kind of gay pirate.
In 1935, the world was mired in a depression. New York City Opera didn’t exist, and neither did Chicago’s Lyric Opera. The Met database lists 161 performances that season. (There were 249 in 2005-2006, which suggests there’s a significantly deeper market than 1935-’36.) It seems specious to suggest that people heading to an escapist Errol Flynn swashbuckler were also buying opera tickets with what was left over after selling the flivver. I’d bet the posh audience that attended the opera in that decade didn’t concern itself overly much with whether the talkies comported with what they saw from the Grand Tier.
Is the problem here the development of a canon of works over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries in the classical music world? I mean, when Verdi was writing his operas, the tradition was that the opera was a place to go to hear/see new dramatic works; to my knowledge, it wasn’t until later that it became common for companies to re-do a small collection of great works. (Likewise in the concert hall, not incidentally). This canon-building process is great for developing symbolic/cultural capital, but seems bad for maintaining a vibrant, relevant culture around the art.
I don’t think I know the causality here, though. That is, did, for instance, film take over for opera because opera stopped being relevant, or did opera develop this other survival mechanism (canonization) because other forms were threatening its cultural centrality?
Also FWIW, Why didn’t film become a medium for opera? When I think about, for instance, what Berlioz says he wanted to do with Les Troyens, or what Wagner seemed to want to do with all the Ring and post-Ring operas, I think, “if film were a viable medium then, they would have made films.” Or, perhaps more credibly, Film is an excellent medium for creating the sort of things they seemd to want to create.
GS
“It’s easy to see how canonization is a useful strategy in those circumstances, though it surely wasn’t a conscious one.”
Yes, this is a salutary point. I’m often failing to point out that things that happen are not always purposeful. Still, what I’m meaning is to say that the canonization process–which I think people carried out semi-consciously and entirely in good faith, may have turned out to have had bad and unintended consequences for classical music.
Perhaps this bothers me and seems worth pointing out because the music I’m most committed to, jazz, is in the process of canonization at least to some degree, using classical music as a model. (note, for instance: the university where I work has had a jazz festival every summer for the past four–and every single one was based on big concerts re-creating one or another classic recording; shudder). I worry about the unintended consequences.
GS
Greg – Any opinions on the example of Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings Symphony (movie music presented in classical music venues)? Maybe a good model for working classical music back into mainstream psyche?
Lord of the Blings
We are pleased to have attended the world premiere of Fifty Cent’s new symphony which premiered last night at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. Mr. Cent, himself, conducted the work fresh from his triumph on prime time television where he conducted an excerpt of his work as well as part of Beethoven’s ninth symphony in a water commercial. Mr. Cent’s latest symphonic piece, entitled “Fifty Cent is the Future of Classical Music”, was markedly different from his usual work, which involves constant repetition of a percussive nature overlaid with a kind of chanting. The new work, ably presented by the New York Philharmonic, was more in the vein of Harold Shore’s “Lord of the Rings Symphony” in that it assumed a more traditional form without burdening the listener with too much complexity or depth. This ensured that the audience was numerous; in fact, people were clamoring to get in long after it was announced that the hall was full.
Although Mr. Cent’s “Future” symphony was well received by the assembled multitude, it became clear that there was some disgruntlement. Unlike the Shore work, which was quite easy to understand, especially by those who dislike such classical behemoths as Bach or Beethoven, the Cent piece had some passages that could only be described as moderately difficult. Some overtaxed listeners were heard to complain that they didn’t pay sixty bucks to have to strain their brains when, for three dollars they could download some really easy music to their iPod. The new touch iPod having just come out, this sentiment was, unfortunately, particularly widespread. This all but dashed the hopes of the concert promoters who had hoped that by dumbing down the repertoire they could attract the kind of people who never go to classical music concerts, which is just about everyone.
On emerging from Fisher Hall the crowd was somewhat amused by the sight of one of the promoters, a Mr. Sandow, who was forced to make a hasty departure pursued by a pack of rappers.
Roger Rudenstein
http://www.rogerrudenstein.com
September 18, 2007
Lamentation of the Senseless
He wasn’t making sense, no sense at all. The very idea that a certain commentator would actually produce a crappy concert featuring the symphonic work of a rapper was either simply insane or a satirical exaggeration based on a statement the commentator had made in which he suggested that orchestras should invent programming that lay somewhere between a film score and, say, Beethoven in order to draw in classical-music haters. Clearly this idea had never been expressed and so a satirical exaggeration based on it was completely unwarranted. And if it was expressed, well it was just an idea and those are a dime a dozen, anyway…just look at the Internet. It’s full of people saying this and saying that and none of it is taken very seriously unless it’s a revelation about a celebrity, in which case it will make its way into prime time in a heartbeat.
Clearly, it made no sense to even suggest that, just because someone was a pop music celebrity, someone’s feeble attempt at classical music production would be debuted in the sacred precincts of Lincoln Center. And that bit about the rappers chasing the producer down Columbus Avenue is a nasty bit of work and makes as much sense as just about anything else in the piece.
But what we need now is not the senseless ravings of fiction writers, but a new theory, one that will unite such disparate elements as the reputed gayness of Captain Blood with the failure of Erich Korngold and many, many other composers to keep their hands off the Hollywood gelt. Done right this theory will allow us to produce music that can stir the classical music lovers who still exist into some kind of pride of ownership. Hopefully, that theory will solve all our problems and return us to the golden age. Hopefully, fiction will play a big role in this lofty plan.
Also, the point about Don Carlo looking stilted today whereas a ditzy costume film with modern references looks contemporary was well taken and more about that anon.
Roger Rudenstein
http://www.rogerrudenstein.com
I used Howard Shore as an example because of the process that was used. Get people to associate the music with something they love and that will bring them in. I don’t think that’s ‘dumbing down’, I think that’s a very smart artistic/marketing move.