Democratising opera : Opera North and the access agenda in action

TEMPO (Cambridge University Press), 2023

The education and outreach departments that coordinate community and participation projects have become a ubiquitous component of opera houses in the UK over the last 40 years yet rarely do their productions appear on the main stage. This article considers recent projects run by Opera North, English National Opera, Opera Holland Park and Glyndebourne and asks whether opera houses are genuinely committed to connecting communities with opera or treat outreach as no more than a means of obtaining funding. The article explores the history of the development of outreach departments and the potential that community involvement offers as a revitalising force for the operatic artform. A series of interviews with opera professionals brings the debate up to date.

Histories of the development of an ‘English National Opera’ in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century typically emphasize the origins of the movement in ideas about social reform, bringing together themes of democratic accessibility and national cultural renewal in a way that makes these agenda seem inextricably linked. This chapter traces an alternative discourse about opera and democracy in relation to ‘affective communities’ that extended beyond – and often ran counter to – the version of community bounded by national identity, and indeed against identity as such. This involves reading Edward J. Dent’s work on topics such as libretto translation, amateur opera productions, and the history and aesthetics of opera performance as an echo of the cosmopolitan attitude of ‘friendship’ that has been attributed to certain of his Cambridge associates – an attitude that had both political and aesthetic implications.

Opera has its own distinct culture, history and expectations that have dictated the policies surrounding the high-culture art form for hundreds of years. Many areas are dictated including social, political and economical backgrounds. In general these policies have not been established by government agencies, but rather by audience members. It is widely thought that opera is for the 'elite' and 'highbrow' populations and many opera attendees in the upper class want it to stay that way. Yet since the government began subsidizing opera in the UK, the funds have been meant for increasing accessibility. While government hands over millions of pounds worth of funding (to only a select few opera houses) the public, or working class, view on opera still has not changed in decades. Popular culture scorns the 'high class' art form that is opera. So what in turn can be done to cease the cultural division between so called elite and popular cultures? One change currently being made is to actually make the art more readily available to those that would otherwise not attend. If the distinction between art and entertainment can be torn away and united in the public's mind, perhaps policy will change and truly support opera for the masses. OperaUpClose is creating new, more popular and entertaining productions of opera with this very goal in mind. A perfect example of this aim at work is their production of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème.

Nineteenth-Century Music Review

The average music lover knows little about British opera between Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten. Composers such as Thomas Arne, Sir Henry Rowley Bishop and Isidore de Lara are hardly household names, performances and recordings are sparse, and a sense of Britain as 'Das Land ohne Musik' lingers. In recent years, however, interest in this neglected repertoire has grown. This is in large part due to the tireless efforts of organizations such as Retrospect Opera, founded in 2014 by David Chandler and Valerie Langfield to record 'forgotten' British operas. 1 To date, they have issued recordings of works by

California History, 2015

This article describes the troubled, politically fraught path to the realization of San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House, the first municipally owned operatic performance venue in the nation. Although envisioned prior to the 1906 earthquake (in which the two most important opera houses in the city were destroyed), the realization of an innovative concept in which the people of the city would found and maintain an opera house took a quarter century to materialize. Supporters of the idea ascribed to the common sentiment of the time that classical music had an “elevating” and “ennobling” potential to “uplift” the poor and create a more responsible citizenry, but opera's historic association with wealth and elitism counteracted these arguments and blocked progress on the building until at last, in the 1920s, San Franciscans raised $2 million in direct contributions and voted for a $4 million bond issue.

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2012

The title of this special issue, 'Operatics,' calls to mind the intricate workings of opera-the dynamic relationship between source text(s), libretto, and musical score as well as the technological and physiological labour that makes possible operatic production and performance-and opera's powerful capacity both to rework particular narratives and historical moments and to work on audience members through varied modes of reception. The word also playfully attests to the histrionics of opera: the theatrical excess inherent to the genre in its often lavish fusion of music, lyrics, gesture, and stage spectacle; the affective impact of operatic adaptation; and the impassioned debates triggered by specific productions, composers, and operatic texts and modes that are taking place in the media, at academic conferences, in the lobbies of opera houses, and in the popcorn line at the Metropolitan Opera's 'Live in HD' broadcasts. Whether dissecting the Regieoper phenomenon, Robert Lepage's Ring cycle, or the Met's radical expansion of opera audiences through the 'Live in HD' phenomenon and the resultant transformation of the ways in which audiences, directors, and artists confront the genre, these debates seem to be hinging increasingly on the 'operatics' of opera. 'Operatics' is also the name adopted by an interdisciplinary working group that gathered at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto for three years (2009-11) under the leadership of Sherry D. Lee to explore questions related to operatic adaptation, mediation, and reception and, in particular, to consider how the experience of opera in different media and performance contexts impacts our response to and our critical reading of opera as both sound and spectacle. Comprising undergraduate and graduate students and faculty members from the Departments of English and History and the Faculties of Music and Medicine at the University of Toronto, the working group met regularly to discuss assigned readings, opera performances (both live and HD), and to share work in progress. Each year culminated in an interdisciplinary symposium that opened up the working group's

The role of arts in developing communities is increasingly recognised. In 2010, an arts education institute in the low socioeconomic city of Delfzijl in the Netherlands produced Bizet’s Carmen as a community opera project. Opera, with its complexity and elitist reputation, does not easily align with the democratic and participatory nature of community based arts. Through working with a mix of professionals and amateur performers, the opera project achieved both artistic results and community outcomes. An additional festival contained a vast number of professional and community initiatives, making opera accessible for a large and diverse audience. This paper will argue that defining community arts in terms of community development is too narrow. Understanding how cities can be re-shaped through cultural engagement is better understood through exploring the relationships between the arts world, community organisations, corporate industries/business, local government and the community. This assertion forms the b asis for examining the projects network and social capital dimensions, which culminates in identifying mechanisms of engagement and fostering participation in terms of purpose, legitimacy and coolness (group affiliation).

2018

Some of the earliest connections between the citizens of Sydney and their opera house were made through the flood of letters to the editors of Sydney’s daily newspapers in the days following the announcement of Jørn Utzon’s winning design for one of the most sought-after architectural prizes of the decade. This research unpacks the connections between people and newspapers and looks at how the unconventional modernist design proposed for Bennelong Point variously, set Sydney apart or made it the butt of jokes, promoted modernity or absurdity, represented a canny political move or presented as a foolhardy folly. These letters, by ordinary Australians to mass media publications, provide an early biography of the structure that is now a globally recognised symbol for Sydney.

Tertiary Opera Training in Australia and the UK: Ethnographic Perspective Current formal research into the way institutions and opera companies train their opera singers is virtually non-existent. Paul Atkinson’s (2006) Everyday Arias: An Operatic Ethnography, is an informative but lonely example of otherwise neglected area. Atkinson proposes that while popular culture receives extensive research attention, the “high” culture suffers from a so-called academic “inverse snobbery”. This thesis surveys some of the complex issues specific to operatic training and performance. The ethnographic survey draws on observations and comparisons of production rehearsals, private lessons and personal interviews of participants in a professional Australian opera company, an Australian tertiary institution and a UK tertiary institution. Two professional and two student productions are used as case studies to highlight the emergent themes. This research aims to better understand the unique nature of the operatic training and rehearsal process, as well as investigate the relationship between institutions and the contemporary opera industry. Keywords: opera, ethnography, tertiary opera training, opera rehearsal, Australian opera training, opera industry