Modern opera doesn't sell?

In exploring one myth, Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur has quashed another.

According to Kasper Holten, its recently-ended five show run played to an average 95.4% capacity, comfortably above the ROH's last season's average of 92%. Of course that still means 100 or so seats were empty each night, but it's still one in the eye for those who claim modern opera is an unsustainable minority interest. Not to mention those who plead that taking risks leads ineluctably to poor box office.

Ticket pricing played an unquestionable part in its success. Prices were initially set at a maximum of £65 (compared to £225 for some productions), and even then there was a spot of strategic discounting later.

But cheap seats can't be the whole answer. Judith Weir's dreadful Miss Fortune failed to sell even when the discount offers were crowned with free kebabs.

The difference is one of quality. Miss Fortune was well cast, entertainingly staged and keenly priced. But it lacks The Minotaur's trump card - a great score.  It explains too why Anna Nicole and The Tempest filled the house - and why The Passenger and Caligula couldn't do the same job for ENO.

Initial reaction to The Minotaur was positive, and when there's a buzz about a show - any show, not just opera - word quickly gets around London. Combine that with accessible pricing and people will come. There's a sizeable public out there who are turned off by what they see as the kitsch trimmings of traditional opera - the pretty tunes, the silly plots, the puffy shorts. That's the potential audience ENO have spotted, but failed to capture - and the audience The Minotaur has grabbed.

Fingers crossed that the ROH will have the guts to chuck out any Missfortunate duds on their recently announced new opera programme before they get anywhere near the stage. And that ENO will either find a way to sort the operatic wheat from the chaff - or just stick to the Jonathan Miller-style bel canto fluff which, much as it pains me to say it, has hit the artistic mark better than anything else they've done recently.

Comments

[vaneev]

I find it amazing that a mediocre opera like "The Minotaur" sells more seats than, say, "Palestrina"

[SJT]

Weak as Miss Fortune's score was, that was not the primary reason for the work's generally agreed failure. The staging, though strikingly decorative enough in a Tate Turbine Hall sort of way, at no point connected with the drama. And the substance of the drama itself was not so much thin as malnourished, heaving with the sort of naff, faux modern clichés of both speech and conduct that have alas long since seen poor old Tippett's operas vanish from the lyric scene. Ooh look, a kebab van! Roller-bladers! A laundrette! Deathless lines of precious operatic sentiment such as "This is a really well-starched shirt"

Whereas The Minotaur has claims on our attention as a work of high poetic quality in itself (text by David Harsent, insufficiently-applauded and a major factor in the work's success: "Between womb and tomb/between help and harm/between most and least/between man and beast. Next to nothing"): and comes supplied with a staging that confines itself to the matter at hand, simply stylised but effectively realised.

Moral of tale: quality tells.

The one question I've always had about Miss Fortune is, given that it was a co-pro with Bregenz and had been seen there first, the year before, who thought it was still a good idea to bring it to Bow Street in the light of experience? (Or, for that matter, to bring the Salzburg stagings of Pelléas and Rusalka in, years after the event, desperate crap the pair?) Somebody at the ROH has poor taste; it would be good to know who. (Whereas everybody knows exactly who at ENO has no taste at all, and is responsible for the current mess.)
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Intermezzo replies - A poor staging (and I don't think Miss Fortune falls into that category) is never enough to sink a show commercially. If that was the case, Aida and Carmen would have disappeared from the global repertoire long ago. And while I'd agree with you that the dramatic substance of Miss Fortune is weak, isn't that part of the score? In fact, its very foundation?

[Rose-Mary Hyslop]

I haven't seen a lot of contemporary opera, but my reaction to some of those I have seen is that it was overly conceptual(Satyagraha, parts of Nixon in China). The Tempest, which I did enjoy, had some unenjoyable music. I could admire Ariel, but it was such a relief when she left the stage. Last year's new commission by the Met to the music of Vivaldi, Handel etc(forgotten the title already)illustrated exactly your point about the'kitsch trimmings of traditional opera - the pretty tunes, the silly plots, the puffy shorts'.Vivaldi's wonderful music wasted on a superficial and paper thin plot.I think opera lovers are a simple and traditional bunch. Give us great music,a good drama and we are happy. Don't be over-ambitious or overly innovative.

[Andres]

I still don't understand why that Rusalka is being put as an example of bad staging. It had way more unforgettable images and details than countless other productions, The Minotaur included. Some seem to remember only a grey tracksuit and a large cat, but those three hours were a feast of visual imaginery engineered by two masters of the game, quite on a different level from some of ENO's amateurisms (DG) or simplystic derivative Robert Wilson rehashes (yes, The Minotaur).

I still believe the booing was prompted by ROH's marketing department, which backfired in a double way: ticket sales did not improve and the reputation of W&M was tarnished on these shores. Our very loss.

[Adrian Sells]

You're absolutely right: it's keen pricing and favourable reviews and (particularly with something like "Anna Nicole") massive PR and promotion that sells a contemporary show. However, only time will tell how many of these offerings ever achieve a permanent place in the repertoire. My guess - and all anybody can do is guess - is that the Minotaur won't.
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Intermezzo replies - The fact that five years on The Minotaur has yet to be performed outside the ROH suggests it is not destined to become a popular classic. But does that matter? If you measure quality by frequency of performance then Jesus Christ Superstar is a finer work than Parsifal.....

[John Marston]

The Minotaur is a highly distinguished opera. It is, however, a rather static drama, with lots of reminiscence of the distant past (still going on a 10.00 pm). While this isn't entirely to my taste, such an approach hasn't done Wagner any harm.

The performance was super-confident in all respects, and everyone connected with the production should be congratulated on putting the work over so strongly.

SJT's comments about Tippett are worth remembering. When I was growing up, he was rated alongside Britten, and now he's largely forgotten. I wouldn't want to predict how posterity will view Birtwistle's works...
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Intermezzo replies - And why does that matter? Supposing we could predict, with perfect accuracy, that future generations will not want to listen to Birtwistle. Would that mean we should not perform his music now? Does hindsight prove that Tippett's works should never have been performed in the first place? Of course not - a work's mark on posterity documents the history of its reception, not any inherent quality or value.

[manou]

The Enchanted Island

[PLIMPTON]

I agree delightedly with every single word of Intermezzo here - even though i can't say I'll be rushing to experience The Minotaur again. This really is very good news - it CAN be done

[Chris]

On the night I went, the crowd around me in the amphitheatre was far younger than I am used to, mostly 20- or 30-somethings, and at least half of them were speaking languages other than English, most noticeably Italian. Maybe Italians prefer to see English operas in England and Italian ones in Italy?

[JohnVecchio]

A word for Tippett: I have always found The Midsummer Marriage a life enhancing work and it has received a number of regional and international productions.King Priam is a much knottier work but again with a number of revivals including a planned one by ETO.
The Royal Opera have a good track record with new operas and I for one would welcome a revival of Taverner and Richard Rodney Bennett's Victory, especially since his recent death.

[David]

The success of Anna Nicole (by no means "a great score") was surely down to some very canny PR by ROH (giving away seats to slebs like Boy George and Yoko Ono) and the expensively tatty subject matter, guaranteed to appeal to the media and chattering (but not usually opera-going) classes and create plenty of 'buzz'. The Minotaur, though, is a fabulous piece which really does deserve a wider airing beyond these shores.

[amac]

I was certainly less taken with it second time around - the first act seemed interminably long.

However as far as a new opera commission is concerned this is definitively a success by any reckoning.

Not a big a hit as The Tempest but I think that opera is exceptional.

Lastly Salzburg is doing Gawain later this year - so given a few years I think someone will pick it up.
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Intermezzo replies - Also the Barbican is doing Gawain in concert next year. Birtwistle is in serious danger of becoming popular.

[John Marston]

IM - in reply to your comment on my post:

And why does that [i.e. posterity's view of a work] matter?

Opera are complex beasts, and often a number of productions of a new work are needed that examine various aspects of it in order for society to gain a rounded appreciation of it. This process takes time - many years - and the rewards are large - the identification of a great work of art.

Some examples. I saw Death in Venice at the Monnaie in the ENO production in 2009. My spontaneous reaction as the curtain fell was this was a work of Shakespearean richness. I'd seen it twice before with respect, but not with this feeling. It takes time, repeated viewings and different productions for opinions to gel. Britten's operas matter to us, a view that perhaps wasn't widespread when he died in 1976.

Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage went a long way down this line, with a number of UK productions, but ultimately has failed the test of time. Perhaps around the time of the revival of Graham Vick's ROH production. King Priam is the only one of his operas that currently has a toehold in the repertoire.

Regarding The Minotaur, I'd like to see a production that makes more of the 'psychodrama' that the librettist refers to in the programme. Warlikowski's reading would be interesting.
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Intermezzo replies - The judgement of posterity is simply the expression of majority opinion: a popularity contest. Once upon a time, it may have had some practical application. But with increasing access to recorded versions of even the most obscure and overlooked operas (thanks to Opera Rara and similar efforts) we have the opportunity to make up our own minds regardless of the opinions of some historical elite or other. That is even more the case for live, contemporary works. Who cares whether people will enjoy them in 50 years time? Would you have liked Death in Venice less if 'posterity' had judged it an inferior work? It shouldn't affect our own reaction, and our reactions shouldn't proscribe what future generations are permitted to appreciate.

[SJT]

" The judgement of posterity is simply the expression of majority opinion: a popularity contest."

But this plainly isn't so. If anything, in some cases the reverse is true. Consider Wozzeck. It is regarded as one the key works of the entire C20th repertory. Its stock has never been higher (nor Lulu's, for that matter). But is it popular? Is the "judgement of posterity" in its case an expression of "majority opinion"? Surely not. The (wholly favourable) judgement of posterity on Wozzeck is in fact one of CRITICAL opinion, not that of the public, the majority of whom to this day either don't like it, can't make head nor tail of it, or steer well clear of it.

"Who cares whether people will enjoy them in 50 years time?"

Their composers and librettists, I should imagine, in the vast bulk of cases, Birtwistle certainly amongst them

And as a complete side-bar, I saw the original John Piper-designed Death in Venice with Peter Pears, and it was Death on Wheels, drab, clunkily amateurish and pitifully poor visually. From which baptism of mediocrity it took the opera the better part of a quarter-century to recover. Stagings of new works aren't just helpful: they're crucial in establishing their credentials. Thin beer as Miss Fortune was, the glossy, sharp-edged, immaculately abstract staging was woefully inapposite for a work all about urban entropy and decay, and only served to make a weak work even weaker. Conversely, Tippett's Knot Garden had one of the finest stagings I've ever seen at the ROH, which for a long time helped to disguise the laboured falsity of the opera's psycho-sexual relationship ramblings. What makes The Minotaur special is that, for once, all the component parts came together successfully. I'd take a hefty bet on its lasting...
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Intermezzo replies - Naughty. I did make it clear that the judgement of posterity represents the majority position of a historical elite, not the general public. In the case of Wozzeck, I think it's harmed the work. The general public don't flock to see it because they're told that it's 'difficult', or for connoisseurs only. So it doesn't pay it way, which makes stagings less frequent, so people have less opportunity to see it, so fewer people see it, so the word isn't spread....etc.

Anna Nicole is probably the Jonny spielt auf of the 21st century in terms of 'posterity', but I doubt if many of the thousands who flocked to see it cared about that. The information era makes it increasingly possible for an ordinary person to respond to a work without regard to 'authorised' critical opinion. Why can't we celebrate that instead of sneering?

[Adrian Sells]

Posterity does a pretty good job: it has meant (to use IM's earlier example) that Parsifal has retained a position in the repertoire while Meyerbeer mostly hasn't. As for "Jesus Christ Superstar", I somewhat doubt it will be regularly performed in a hundred years' time. Posterity is ultimately the only thing that gets close to offering an objective qualitative judgement on any work. You have to be dyed-in-th-wool relativist to disparage posterity.
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Intermezzo replies - Parsifal has retained a position in the repertoire solely because people want to see it. So has Jesus Christ Superstar (now c.40 years old). Don't confuse quality with popularity.

[Laura]

Agreed on pricing and quality, but I think quality is key. Also, Handel, Mozart etc have been around for 200+ years, and often done to death. If you miss Figaro this year, odds are you can catch it next year, or the same production elsewhere, sometimes even the same cast. But a one-off, good quality production can put bums on seats. With a little effort. I do think you have to make an effort to sell, especially in what in Europe is a very crowded market in major cities. I spent 8 years living in a regional city and noticed what I perceived as "better support" for classical music in general, but in reality it was a case of smaller venues and no competition. Good contemporary performances will get interest, especially if you're not paying a ludicrous seat price.

[Adrian Sells]

Parsifal's survival has nothing to do with general popularity - I doubt many of an average JCS audience would know the first thing about it. The survival of works like Parsifal has to do with the preferences of a self-appointed group of music lovers of rarified tastes (opera goers) over a long period of time. In my view, this is as close to an objective determinant of quality that you are likely to find. If not thus, how would you determine quality? Or don't you believe in the concept? In which case you are a relativist and there's nothing more to discuss.
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Intermezzo replies - You're misrepresenting my position - to repeat my response to SJT above - "I did make it clear that the judgement of posterity represents the majority position of a historical elite, not the general public."

You're also missing the point. Nothing to do with relativism. What I particularly object to is "a self-appointed group of music lovers of rarified tastes", as you put it, invoking the imagined negative judgement of some future 'posterity' to support their dislike of a current work which both critics and opera-going public have generally greeted with enthusiasm. If you don't like it, then just say why, as Rupert Christiansen eloquently did in his Telegraph review. Or don't say anything. But don't hide behind imaginary supporters.

Maybe the operagoers of 2113 won't care for The Minotaur. In which case they will be welcome to their opinion. But let's not use that possibility as an excuse to rubbish the work today.

[Henry Holland]

"Also, Handel, Mozart etc have been around for 200+ years, and often done to death"

That's not true with Handel's operas > oratorios that are staged like operas. With the exception of "Giulio Cesare" and a very few others, most of them languished unperformed for close to 200 years until the Handel revival in Germany in the 1920's. Now there's about a dozen of them that are standard rep in Europe at least. Just goes to show you how fickle history is.....

If there is a minor upswing in performances of Birtwistle's operas, I hope that someone, somehow manages to put on "The Mask of Orpheus", "The Second Mrs. Kong" and "The Last Supper" in fully staged productions. I'll note that all 8 performances of "The Mask of Orpheus" at ENO in 1986 sold out, so there is an audience for his operas, even if it's dwarfed by those for "La Boheme".

[Justin Chapman]

I am sure that I read somewhere ( possibly Opera Magazine's 'We hear that..') that Pierre Audi is staging 'The Mask of Orpheus' at next year's Holland Festival. Fingers crossed.

[Carl]

For a second run of performances of a new work people tend to go because they remember favorable reviews from last time, and reduced prices certainly help. For a premier it's nebulous; people weigh up the reputation of the composer, look at the cast for performers they like, read the synopsis to decide if it's 'their kind of thing', look at the price, and what the competition is in terms of other things they might be interested in seeing.