There’s a long and interesting review by Philip Hensher in today’s Guardian of A History of Opera by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker. There are more than a few stock clichés but he does have useful things to say about the reason opera might, but shouldn’t, be relegated to a museum piece. In any event, it’s good to see a major daily giving space to a thought piece about opera.
There’s also a related piece by Leslie Barcza over at barczablog. He looks at why we owe it to ourselves to engage with the director’s vision of an opera and should avoid useless and pejorative epithets likes “Eurotrash” and even “Regie”. It’s the best contribution to that endless debate that I’ve seen in a while.
operaramblings 
Thanks for the kind words, John..!
Thanks for sharing this today!
No worries! Leslie is always good value. I was pretty sure you would find him of interest. He and Lydia form the other two vertices of Toronto’s notorious opera blogging trio!
Two very worthwhile reads – thanks.
I was a bit sad to see in the Guardian article that Boheme and Traviata are the two most popular operas out there – and that Aida is more popular than Don Carlos! (WTF?)
Check out http://operabase.com/index.cgi?lang=en for all manner of depressing statistics plus interesting info on where new and rare works are scheduled.
Some of those statistics are a bit depressing. Also, apparently we all ought to be living in Germany for maximum opera exposure.
It’s amazing isn’t it? Every city of any size has opera at the Stadtstheater. I think I could happily live in Berlin or Hannover or Dresden but I think I’d struggle in the south.
Which is why Germany has traditionally been Gig Land for young American singers.
Young Canadians too. Marta Herman recently joined the Opernstudio in Frankfurt.
Anecdotal evidence collected over a couple of decades or three suggests that Don Carlo is favored by serious Verdi fiends only. (I suspect because there are so many iterations that it’s almost like watching it being composed in front of our eyes.)
RE: Germany I am ready to move! I just need to find a job. I doubt they have many jobs for American church choir directors and organists.
But I’d settle for Austria
Vienna would hardly be settling!
If you were of a sufficiently loony evangelical tendency you might be able to get a job with the USAF
Pingback: Reward for effort | operaramblings