I don't agree with the OperaAmerica spokesman that disposability is what we need. I think composers should write what they are inspired to write absent concerns about the endurance or disposability of their works. And as the examples of composers whose operas were very popular in their own day attests (e.g., Mozart and Verdi) - along with the more recent example of musical theatre composers like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, it is QUITE possible for a work to be both extremely popular and enduring in appeal. I can't say whether Mozart or Rodgers *intended* for their works to outlive them, but the fact is, neither composer seems to have sacrificed QUALITY in order to pander to a lowest common denominator of a throw-away culture's popular taste. Composers should write what they believe to be GOOD, and leave it to posterity to determine whether that "good" is also "enduring" or merely "disposable".
Karen Mercedes http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html ________________________________ One must be something if one wishes to put on appearances. - Ludwig von Beethoven
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