Dear Randy and Vocalisters:
I hope you understand that I was attempting to be funny. Obviously,
I am not good at it.
But, to give answer to your question I would offer the following.
Opera is presently the fastest growing performance medium in the US.
It has a long way to go, of course, but its audience now includes
more young than it has at any time in its history in the US. So it
is NOT "basically dead"
I am sure that the late Jerome Hines is not far from wrong about the
fact that little money can be made singing opera. The very same is
true about public school and college teaching, my profession for 45
years. I probably could have made a lot of money in another
profession. The point is, I did not want to! I liked teaching.
And, it is also true that I would probably have continued singing
professional opera longer if I had not had a mid-grown family when my
opportunity came. And, if I had been blessed with a good enough
instrument to compete favorably. Who knows.
As for subsidy, opera has always been heavily subsidized throughout
its entire history. So has theatre. So have symphony orchestras.
If paying their own way is the primary criteria by which classical
performing organizations are to considered successful, then all such
arts ventures are failures. But then so are almost all forms of
public and private education as well. In fact, it is only when
education is treated as a business that it ceases to be quality
education because it then must treat its students as "consumers" and
provide what the "consuming market" seems to want. By definition, it
is education's responsibility to determine what is needed
educationally, not the students. This is one of the primary reasons
that education in this country is in such terrible straights.
The recording industry has made reductions in classical recordings
before. They are profit driven as they need to be. I have seen such
reductions change many times during my lifetime.
Finally, the fact that most of the performing art that is being
purchased in the US today is art that emphasizes commercial values
means that it is also art that is not free. It is art that must
overcome enormous limitations if it is to become great art. The fact
that it occasionally does so is a real tribute to its artists, rich
as they are.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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