The Envy of the World?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My experience is similar to Db's. When I lived in East Sussex, I went frequently to Touring Opera presentations of Festival productions, at prices well below those of the aeolie selects, and with no dress code. Similarly, Covent Garden productions always had tickets available at prices I could afford - and that's not including the schools performances of both companies at that time (all tickets a fiver).

Out of interest, I've just checked recent Glyndebourne Touring Opera Ticket prices: La Traviata for a tenner (which is actually cheaper than the cheapest ON tickets) and Covent Garden cheapest prices at £25 - which is 90p cheaper than the cheapest tickets to see, for example, Dara O'Briain at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and £6 cheaper than the cheapest tickets to see Manchester United.

But, returning to the point, I doubt somehow that the BBC employees who criticise some of their salary-funders as "elitist" are more likely to be seen in the cheapest seats at Opera North than with "the well-heeled corporate types at the Royal Opera House".

[Bryn]

My experience is similar to Db's. When I lived in East Sussex, I went frequently to Touring Opera presentations of Festival productions, at prices well below those of the aeolie selects, and with no dress code. Similarly, Covent Garden productions always had tickets available at prices I could afford - and that's not including the schools performances of both companies at that time (all tickets a fiver).

Out of interest, I've just checked recent Glyndebourne Touring Opera Ticket prices: La Traviata for a tenner (which is actually cheaper than the cheapest ON tickets) and Covent Garden cheapest prices at £25 - which is 90p cheaper than the cheapest tickets to see, for example, Dara O'Briain at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and £6 cheaper than the cheapest tickets to see Manchester United.

But, returning to the point, I doubt somehow that the BBC employees who criticise some of their salary-funders as "elitist" are more likely to be seen in the cheapest seats at Opera North than with "the well-heeled corporate types at the Royal Opera House".

Chances are they'd lig it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The best thing R3 can do is to make it freely available and, as far as is possible, comprehensible with good introductions (and I think libretto translations on the website for those interested to follow the performance).

Sorry - should've added

[french frank]

Really? Not the dress code at Glyndebourne? Not the high prices at Glyndebourne (£230 stalls, e.g.) and other country house opera houses, e.g. Garsington £150 stalls? Not the well-heeled corporate types at the Royal Opera House?
.

Db was talking about snobbery. That's not the same as wealth. The only remotely similar occasion I've attended was one at the ROH for Die Tote Stadt. I paid £28 for my seat and wore my jeans because, except for family weddings (we don't have many), I always do. No one looked askance at me. If people enjoy dressing up to go out, it's no skin off my nose. And I haven't found I'm any skin off theirs

I also once went to a Sunday morning concert at the Musikverein, my clothing ditto. My impression was that other people were fairly formally dressed, but pretty relaxed. It may well be that it's a bit about self-confidence, and knowing the things that really annoy people and not doing them, because you know they annoy people. Youngsters (particularly) often don't know, but the so-called 'rules' are easily picked up by neophytes who start going because they hope to enjoy the performance and aren't just 'going'.

[oddoneout]

The best thing R3 can do is to make it freely available and, as far as is possible, comprehensible with good introductions (and I think libretto translations on the website for those interested to follow the performance). I think it does this reasonably well at present.

I would agree with this but if R3 is the only repository of 'at home free access' opera does it not risk being part of the perceived 'opera problem'?
Many many years ago TV broadcasts of opera productions on BBC or Channel4 were not, as now, in the hens teeth and unicorn poo category of rarity, and arguably provided an easier introduction for novices(or indeed an accidental exposure to something which otherwise a person might never see) - not least because of access to the visual drama which helps in understanding who's doing what to whom. Once interest is piqued, R3 can be one of the options to further pursue the interest, in addition to catering for existing afficionados.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would agree with this but if R3 is the only repository of 'at home free access' opera does it not risk being part of the perceived 'opera problem'?
Many many years ago TV broadcasts of opera productions on BBC or Channel4 were not, as now, in the hens teeth and unicorn poo category of rarity, and arguably provided an easier introduction for novices(or indeed an accidental exposure to something which otherwise a person might never see) - not least because of access to the visual drama which helps in understanding who's doing what to whom. Once interest is piqued, R3 can be one of the options to further pursue the interest, in addition to catering for existing afficionados.

Yes - "reasonably well" in the sense, as you say, of "the only repository" available in the UK. But so much R3 and the Beeb could do: not least, the text (in English) running concurrently with the broadcast on the i-Player (in the way that TV programmes have subtitles available); and a weekly half-hour programme - preferably on R2* - introducing the stories and other background material of the operas to be broadcast on R3 in the next week; and reinstatement of televised operas.

(* - Radio 2, so that a wider audience than the usual "gatekeepers" might (even by accident) encounter the works - and to encourage the sort of "diversity" that the Beeb claims it wishes to promote (but doesn't) - as a reciprocal gesture, there could be a half-hour weekly programme in which R2/R1 presenters present a non-Classical album that they think R3 listeners should be aware of and treat with respect - and give their reasons.)

[Lat-Literal]

It is somewhat ironic that the classical music people who worry that classical music is too elitist are generally among the British nationals who worry that nationalism is too populist.

[Bryn]

It is somewhat ironic that the classical music people who worry that classical music is too elitist are generally among the British nationals who worry that nationalism is too populist.

And your evidence for the existence of such an association?

[Lat-Literal]

And your evidence for the existence of such an association?

Well, I would think - and we have had examples mentioned above - that they would tend towards a leftish cultural inclusivity and regard what they opposed as being too conservative. That does not mean that people who are leftish politically are necessarily opposed to a cultural standard that doesn't go out of its way to target new audiences. Indeed, the post war Labour left had a view that people would wish to lift their interests onto a different level with greater health and wealth without needing to be lured in by any managerial Pied Piper.

The people I work with are probably to a considerable extent the target market for the new audience. 25-40 years old, well educated, liberal, arty, well read . 6 Music listeners,mostly I should think.

Chances of any of them being converted to R3 by Clemmie, SK, or one of the others banging on about elitism,or inclusivity, or a bit of lightweight 70 year old pop music on Breakfast , or by them tuning in to Elizabeth Alker on a Saturday morning because they are intrigued by one of her tweets ? Exactly nil, I'd say.
They'll come to this stuff, if they do, their own way, the way we all do. Through investigation, chance, curiosity, personal recommendation .( I always try to share a musical recommendation if the moment is right , and I mean two way, and it works, for me and for others) .
And when they do, that's when R3 needs to be there and ready to do a great job.

I agree with this - it conforms with my comments above. To what extent we are typical I don't know. But it wouldn't have mattered to me at the initial point of entry whether R3 was just doing its own thing or specifically working to make me have an interest as it would have often got that wrong. Obviously once there, some things interest more than other things.

I do believe in diversification - age, ethnicity, gender, breadth re nationality/genre etc - but I'm not keen on the way it's wrapped up with hand-wringing as an antidote to concepts like snobbery. I think people who worry about being perceived as snobs have little conception of how, among many, they are not being perceived at all. And there is little evidence for the British public having issues with snobbery per se when it suits them - if someone like Rees-Mogg says what Joe Bloggs wants to hear, he's suddenly popular for being a "character".

It is true that the British like a tune and are uneasy with intellectualism. As Aznavour, I think, said in the recent TV documentary on French chanson, you get in British rock and pop a decent tune (here he must have been going back a bit!) and if you get a deep lyric that's a bonus. In France, you get the deep lyric and if there is a decent tune, that's the bonus. It doesn't, to my mind, translate easily to classical music - the French have so much wonderful classical music - but there is a point about differences in what is intellectually accessible.

We could, though, be seeing in the usual complex way one of the socio-cultural shifts that happens from time to time with the inevitable associations of going back as well as forwards. The health drives among youth - less blissed out blur and more counting calories; Southgate's mannered use of words; again Rees-Mogg : someone said to me yesterday, quote, "unlike Boris, and whatever your opinion, some feel that at least he tells it straight"; the growing disaffection with political muddle; and what will be the increasing emphasis in the future on technological skills at home and in workplaces; - everywhere you look we may be heading towards the new age of precision where that is increasingly linked in people's minds with success and it may bode well for advanced verbal and musical structuralism. It won't suit me - I am impressionistic in leaning - but a modern math movement may well be good for R3.

[Darkbloom]

Really? Not the dress code at Glyndebourne? Not the high prices at Glyndebourne (£230 stalls, e.g.) and other country house opera houses, e.g. Garsington £150 stalls? Not the well-heeled corporate types at the Royal Opera House? In the words of John Carey, "No other single institution does as much as the Royal Opera House to perpetuate the association of high art in the public's mind with lavishness, grandeur and exclusiveness. The colossal injections of other people's money needed to maintain it are notorious. In 1996 alone it swallowed £78 million of lottery funding. It has been the principal beneficiary of public subsidy ever since the Arts Council's inception." And that lottery money injection, since lottery tickets are predominantly bought by the poorer classes, could arguably be regarded as a straightforward subsidy of the wealthy by the poor.

There are of course excellent regional opera companies, and touring companies, who do much to welcome a wide audience and make opera financially accessible to all classes, as well as serving an audience outside London - Opera North, Welsh National Opera, English Touring Opera, the Birmingham Opera Company, to name a few of the best known. But as long as opera continues to cultivate an image of being the musical playground of the privileged classes, it will put off many who should not be put off. The best thing R3 can do is to make it freely available and, as far as is possible, comprehensible with good introductions (and I think libretto translations on the website for those interested to follow the performance). I think it does this reasonably well at present.

Festival events are a bit sui generis, in my opinion. People get dressed up because it's an occasion, like Ascot or Henley (not that I've ever been to Henley, but I assume they do). I don't feel like starting a jacquerie just because someone is wearing a dinner jacket. Most people, in my experience, are more interested in having a good time themselves than paying attention to the wardrobe or demeanour of their fellow attendees.

I was put off going to Covent Garden at first, because of its reputation. I can honestly say that, out of all the dozens of times I have been now, not one dowager has looked through her lorgnette at me. Don't forget, you can go there and see top-notch opera for very little money. I once spent less than a tenner on 3 operas - that's the kind of access I care about.

The ROH might receive a lot of funding (although we can spend billions in overhauling our nuclear arsenal without winking) but it's a superb institution. Some of the seats are horrendously dear, but a lot are very affordable and some downright cheap. It's there if you want to go.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, I would think - and we have had examples mentioned above - that they would tend towards a leftish cultural inclusivity and regard what they opposed as being too conservative. That does not mean that people who are leftish politically are necessarily opposed to a cultural standard that doesn't go out of its way to target new audiences. Indeed, the post war Labour left had a view that people would wish to lift their interests onto a different level with greater health and wealth without needing to be lured in by any managerial Pied Piper.

Popular interests following in the post-war period of rationing and austerity were heavily shaped by consumerism, for which America provided the model and the culture associated therewith.

I agree with this - it conforms with my comments above. To what extent we are typical I don't know. But it wouldn't have mattered to me at the initial point of entry whether R3 was just doing its own thing or specifically working to make me have an interest as it would have often got that wrong. Obviously once there, some things interest more than other things.

It's hard to generalise: the extent to which individual inclination and background intersect with demographics in any era are subjects for sociological research.

I do believe in diversification - age, ethnicity, gender, breadth re nationality/genre etc - but I'm not keen on the way it's wrapped up with hand-wringing as an antidote to concepts like snobbery. I think people who worry about being perceived as snobs have little conception of how, among many, they are not being perceived at all. And there is little evidence for the British public having issues with snobbery per se when it suits them - if someone like Rees-Mogg says what Joe Bloggs wants to hear, he's suddenly popular for being a "character".

The exploitation of "snobbery" and "elitism" for populist purposes harks back to an age when "ordinary people" were excluded from the cultural interests of the ruling classes, who had the time and support domestically to indulge them. Consumerism quite probably marks the watershed between that kind of inclusiveness won in return for higher spending power and shortened working time which Herbert Marcuse characterised in his 1964 book "One-Dimensional Man" - the appeal being for disposable product, in line with capitalism's growing need to create rapid turnover.

Once the "loadsamoney" society had been secured in the collective cultural mindset, with Britain at the helm in shaping youth culture tastes from Mary Quant to 1990s Britpop, the resultant self-afforded quotidian informality could express itself in self-identification with a "right" to self-caricature, (viz the Ealing Comedies, Monty Python, etc etc) which it could then embody in representative figureheads such as Boris Johnson. After all, had we, the plucky Brits, not "laughed" our way to victory, relying on the ad hoc on the local level through the war and making do while the Generals dealt with the more important stuff?

It is true that the British like a tune and are uneasy with intellectualism. As Aznavour, I think, said in the recent TV documentary on French chanson, you get in British rock and pop a decent tune (here he must have been going back a bit!) and if you get a deep lyric that's a bonus. In France, you get the deep lyric and if there is a decent tune, that's the bonus. It doesn't, to my mind, translate easily to classical music - the French have so much wonderful classical music - but there is a point about differences in what is intellectually accessible.

I've always wondered if the advantages conferred by geography on Britain's dominating position in world affairs up to and just about including the Edwardian era were the disobligating factor when it came to our lack of an intellectual tradition of any depth. Our main contribution to philosophical thought would appear to have been Logical Positivism; whenever we have sought to look beyond surfaces it has been to foreign thinkers that we have turned, notwithstanding the fact that some of these have chosen Britain as their place of residence. If the Elgin Marbles can be regarded as symbolic in this sense alone, it is as if the treasures stored up in our copious libraries, archives and museums can be taken for granted - they, or rather the associated tourist monies accruing, help both Exchequer and in sustaining the homegrown myths that make up "heritage" for as long as historical memory ("Who Do You Think You Are?) can hold. These will provide our society's emotional binders, until, as you suggest:

We could, though, be seeing in the usual complex way one of the socio-cultural shifts that happens from time to time with the inevitable associations of going back as well as forwards. The health drives among youth - less blissed out blur and more counting calories; Southgate's mannered use of words; Rees-Mogg : someone said to me yesterday, quote, "unlike a Boris, and whatever your opinion, some people feel that at least he tells it straight"; the growing disaffection with political muddle; what will be the increasing emphasis in the future on technological skills at home and in workplaces; - everywhere you look we may be heading towards the new age of precision where that is increasingly linked in people's minds to success and it may bode well for advanced verbal and musical structuralism. It won't suit me - I am impressionistic in leaning - but a modern math movement may well be good for R3.

[vinteuil]

I've always wondered if the advantages conferred by geography on Britain's dominating position in world affairs up to and just about including the Edwardian era were the disobligating factor when it came to our lack of an intellectual tradition of any depth. Our main contribution to philosophical thought would appear to have been Logical Positivism; whenever we have sought to look beyond surfaces it has been to foreign thinkers that we have turned, notwithstanding the fact that some of these have chosen Britain as their place of residence.

... you don't rate Hobbes, Berkeley, Locke, or Hume?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

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[Serial_Apologist]

... you don't rate Hobbes, Berkeley, Locke, or Hume?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

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Oh but I do! While they were in some ways precursors, I wouldn't think their ideas necessarily provided the preconditions for Logical Positivism.

[Constantbee]

... comprehensible with good introductions (and I think libretto translations on the website for those interested to follow the performance)

More pictures, and a few more short interviews with performers, directors and managers.

[Beef Oven!]

Oh but I do! While they were in some ways precursors, I wouldn't think their ideas necessarily provided the preconditions for Logical Positivism.

Have you lost your mind, or have you found a use for that long-lost shovel you recently discovered in the garden shed??!!