HARDtalk

[aeolium]

What on earth does that mean - "being local they veered towards a consumer mindset"? Is that the sort of thing they would say about people who campaigned about the planned closure of their local hospital, whereas as citizens they ought to be seeing the bigger picture? It sounds to me like the sessions and surveys were aimed at getting the "right" response from the point of view of the ROH.

It would be interesting to see if those participating were asked about their attitude to opera, had they ever been to one, if not what did they see as the barriers to them going, etc. The very general questions cited don't really tackle those issues.

[Sir Velo]

And here is the BBC Hardtalk Editor's reply to just criticism .

[aeolium]

hummm

Here are a couple of very popular bands (popular in the UK )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e502auOnLuA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA4oq7DBU8E

and so on

I'm not sure that the language that people sing in is a great barrier ...... (some other things are)

Fair point. I suppose I was going on what I had seen on some of the broadcasts from Glastonbury, where the audiences seemed to know most of the words

No, hearing the words isn't so critical, but perhaps it's a factor for some people. I think it's possibly more the way opera is sung, but as you say there are other barriers.

[ahinton]

In the artsjournal blog I did put forward the notion that Sarah Montague's (given) agenda might indeed have been to play "devil's advocate" by resorting to a certain particular style and technique of "provocative" journalism to which she would surely be well familiar as a presenter of Today but, even if some benefit of the doubt were to be accorded to her for attempting to do this (and irrespective of how successfully she might be perceived to have done it), nothing in the interview appeared to consider why opera in particular and "classical" music in general might be deemed by some to be "élitist" and therefore for well-educated rich toffs only - by which I mean that the particular agenda instead appeared content to take as read that this must all be the fault of opera and "classical" music and their practitioners various rather than bother to question whether such a view might instead have been imposed externally over the years on the basis that, if you tell enough people the same thing often enough, most of them will probably end up believing it.

There are also other flaws in the "argument" that the interview seemed largely to avoid. To begin with, not all well-educated and well-informed people are toffs, rich or élitist. Then what about the composers? - did Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Puccini, Britten, Henze et al knowingly and wilfully set about writing stage works for the sole benefit of wealthy folk with PhDs? (I suspect that Verdi and Britten in particular would have had a few barbed comments to make about such a notion!). There was even relatively scant attention given to the extent to which, say, Don Giovanni, Tristan und Isolde, Falstaff or Salome are capable of reaching out to and moving people in the opera house irrespective of their education or their previous listening experiences. Even the issue of short attention spans allegedly attributable in part to the less than discriminate and proportionate use of certain technology in recent times and their input into the "problem" was largely skated over.

It has long struck me - as someone from what might be described as lower middle class origins who grew up in a broadly music-free zone until the age of eleven - that, because music itself can and does have powers to determine that its listeners will be drawn into it provided that they're willing to put in at least a little of the effort invested in it by its creators in the first place, the entire edifice of the "élitist" non-argument is at best specious and at worst dangerous. Without wishing to appear unwarrantably churlish, however, I wouldn't much fancy my chances of success at trying to explain that to Sarah Montague...

[french frank]

What on earth does that mean - "being local they veered towards a consumer mindset"? Is that the sort of thing they would say about people who campaigned about the planned closure of their local hospital, whereas as citizens they ought to be seeing the bigger picture? It sounds to me like the sessions and surveys were aimed at getting the "right" response from the point of view of the ROH.

In the world of public-value-speak, consumer value and citizen value might be best illustrated by asking about Radio 3: 90% might say as consumers, no, I'm not interested in consuming the product myself at the present, but I can see that in various ways (creative industries/ employment in general, 'the arts are a good thing', a range of minorities needs to be catered for): it has a 'public value' or 'citizen value'. I don't know why locals might be more likely to think that (they had no other excuse for not going?).

I think it would be fairly safe to assume that a group of 16 'randomly selected' adults would, statistically, be unlikely to have had much personal experience of opera.

[french frank]

where the audiences seemed to know most of the words

http://www.kissthisguy.com/funny.php

[aeolium]

http://www.kissthisguy.com/funny.php

Yes, on reflection that's one advantage of opera