From: km34@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Keith Moulton)
Subject: Re: Opera&Hollywood
Reply-To: km34@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Keith Moulton)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:22:08 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.034428.16524@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>In article <1993Jan21.233237.18487@news.columbia.edu> km34@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Keith Moulton) writes:
>
>>	It has occured to me that if contemporary opera wants to succeed as
>>an art form for everyone, and vitally connected to modern culture, it should
>>follow the lead of, and even imitate Hollywood.
>
>The way Andrew Lloyd Webber does?  (Now I've done it...)

	I guess you're right.  Not only does ALW do it, but most of the other
Broadway big boys follow Hollywood's lead, although it used to be the other
way around.

>>	I am so disappointed that the New York City Opera could not work out
>>a deal with the Star Trek folks to put out 'Star Trek-the Opera.'  I forget
>>the composer's name, but it's completely finished.  My understanding is there
>>was a disagreement over rights/royalties, etc.  Here is an opera that could be>>done in Swahili, and everyone would _still_ know what was going on.
>
>Would they care, though?  Seems to me, part of a Star Trek episode is 
>seeing how the plot comes out; the rest is watching the shticks of the 
>characters and the actors who portray them.  You'd get neither one in
>an opera, which would have new singer/actors (Hampson as Kirk?) and
>a libretto (pronounced: spoiler).

	I think there are a lot of us Trek fans who are just as interested
in the moral dilemmas the characters face, ie. breaking the Prime Directive,
or having sex with an alien:)  This _is_ operatic material. Juan Pons as
Riker?
>>	Now here's an idea:  How about "The Graduate" done as an opera?  (you
>>can take my idea if you give me credit:).  No special effects are needed,
>>and the characters and situations are immediately discernible to anyone who
>>is aware of the significance of the cultural devlopments of the 60s.
>
>Is it operatic material, though?  That is, is it a story worth *re*telling?

	Was Beaumarchais' retelling (and Mozart's and Rossini's) of a class-
belligerent barber worth retelling?  I think that the story of an extremely
successful young man who gives up everything for the sake of an identity is
good operatic material.  Malfitano as Mrs. Robinson?
>>	Of course, there is no need to copy the movies outright; but, at least
>>some attempt should be made by librettists to mould their characters and
>>situations from contemporary culture.  
>
>We've had that.  Ever see Tippett's _The Ice Break_?  
	Not yet.
>Besides, B'way does a lot of this.  Again, ALW and Claude-Michel Schoenberg
>(I shudder to type it) and so on.  (Of course, the musical version of 
>_The Return of Martin Guerre_ is in Hartford right now, hoping to hit
>B'way, which just shows to go you.)

	But B'way doesn't know how to take itself seriously.  Opera does.

>>Consider the hit, "Ghosts of
>>Versailles" which takes all its material from before 1800!  I liked it very
>>much, however, most of my generation doesn't know who Marie Antoinette was
>>let alone Beaumarchais.
>
>Well, opera isn't written for most of your generation, and was never written 
>for most of *any* generation.  Besides, basing an opera on contemporary 
>characters was pretty radical when Mozart did it, and he used Beaumarchais'
>play, which is set in a fantasyland Spain.  Very few operas are set in the 
>present day of the composer, or anything like it.

	Neither is Star Trek--but it is certainly of my generation.

>>	Opera was not intended to be an "intellectual" art, and the art of
>
>Which is why it was invented by a bunch of intellectuals for the 
>delectation of royalty and nobility, with the purpose of reviving the
>ancient Greek theatre?
	OK, I give:)

>>It is only because of our distance from
>>those opera-producing cultures in time that we have to "do a little homework"
>>to enjoy opera to the same extent that those in, say, Mozart's time did.  Of
>
>Or more -- most people who went to the opera in Mozart's day found his
>music annoyingly complicated for their purposes, which involved seeing,
>being seen, socializing, and hearing their favorite singers.  Sure, they
>admired Mozart and all, but the idea of sitting in a darkened hall with
>2000 others, and *not talking or eating* for an entire act (or two, as
>they often do Figaro) was unthinkable. 

	My point is that there must have been quite a dramatic impact, for
example, on that class-aware audience watching a barber match wits with an
aristocrat who wanted to sleep with his maid!  The class juxtaposition must
have been startling, perhaps not unlike the drama involving a black/white
couple ala "Jungle Fever" (_another_ good idea for an opera).
>>course, I may be wrong.  Librettos concerning recent historical figures seems
>>to me to be in the right direction (Malcolm X, Nixon, etc.), but still a
>>cop out.
>
>Well, the world is waiting.  Start writing!
	I'd rather write a dissertation than write something as difficult
as an opera libretto (so few words)(-:

Keith Moulton.



From: patm@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Pat Murphy)
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 23:02:28 GMT
Subject: Re: dates?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA