The reaction to the Classical Brit Awards in the opera industry has not surprised me. It has disappointed me. The level of bitterness towards certain artists and their rapid rise to fame and fortune is an understandable reaction from a group which, on average, has trained and worked many years but never reached the top. It is easy to put it all down to jealousy - but I think they have a point.
David Selig has written a lengthy piece on the ins and outs of the various artists in the Brit Awards. As an expert in classical music he focuses on the perceived inadequacies of a number of soloists and groups. But is this a fair position to judge from? Where does the problem really lie? I cannot subscribe to a view that criticises the success of others and puts them down as less worthy. It is an all too common trait for people who are struggling to rise up the success ladder (or have failed) by placing others beneath them.
Why do people expect the music industry to be any different from any other business? Supply and demand. Simple as that. Walk into any record shop and see shelf upon shelf of the same classical music sung in every language by many singers with many conductors and many orchestras. Quite how many more copies of La Boheme one needs is unclear. I suspect the answer depends on who you are. Your more educated opera buff probably has most copies performed by many companies in many places over time and can identify the singers and orchestra from the sound they make. These people are rare. The next group are the folk who have a general interest in opera. They probably have a copy of La Boheme, appreciate the music and, to some extent, have some appreciation of the quality of the singing. Then there is the majority: people who probably know what opera is, just. The problem is that the first group are fussy and probably have most of the CDs they want. The second group have a few opera CDs and the third group, no doubt making up nearly all of the population of this country, don’t have an opera CD to their name and (sorry to say this), probably never will. I place myself in the middle group. And this is probably a very small group as well.
So here is the news. I can tell a really bad singer, but rarely can I spot the difference between a good singer and an excellent singer. I simply don’t care. If it sounds good, I don’t care who sang it, how many engineers changed it or whether the singer would be able to project on a descent size stage. Who cares! It sounds good, I like it and I want to buy it.
There is a fair argument that some of the artists and acts in the Brit Awards are not classical and it is probably right. But it may be that the majority of the audience don’t know the difference. And that is business. A market of a few thousand people who may buy a new version of opera arias by a new excellent soprano – and a market of the other 60 million people in the country enjoying something that appeals to them, with some hope of recovering the hundreds of thousands of pounds it takes to market a new CD.
|
There is absolutely nothing stopping any singer going out there, getting a loan, hiring an orchestra and making a CD themselves. Then persuade a few radio stations to play it and some shops to stock it and see where that gets them. How many of them have done this? I would guess very few. It is this reluctance to take the financial risk which indicates that they themselves do not believe in their own product.
I feel sure that Leslie Garret works as hard as any singer, practising regularly, recording, doing concerts, etc. Is it any easier for her because she is popular? She deserves all the fame and money she has because she produces a product people want. And fame creates more fame. It is easier to fill a concert with people to see Pavarotti than an unknown tenor, even if he has a better voice. Fact of life. We all do it. And we would give our right arm to be that celebrity.
This is business, folks. Opera, no matter how popular people think it is, simply does not have the cash-spending customers to support the burgeoning numbers of artists that are out there. “But we trained for years!” So what? If three million people trained as milkman it does not mean that the industry should change to support three million milkmen.
Let's stop giving those people a hard time. They are not there INSTEAD of opera singers, they offer a product to people who think that it is good enough and actually enjoy it. If the majority of the listeners who like Russell Watson wanted opera CDs with real opera singers, they would go out and buy one of the hundreds of CDs out there. But they don’t. Wine analogy: most of you will like a £8 bottle of red. Have you ever tried a £100 bottle of wine? Could you tell the difference between a £100 and a £200 bottle? The answer is you probably don’t care and you will have a good time with a bottle (or two) of the £8.
I quite like Amici Forever. Sorry if that makes me a peasant but there are a lot of people out there like me. I have lost count of the number of ‘real’ operas I have sat through which I have certainly not enjoyed due to bad staging, bad directing and bad acoustics - so let’s not get too precious about opera.
In summary, if you want to do opera in a pure way then there simply is not much money in it - and not much room at the top. Get over it. If you want the money, make a product that will appeal to the millions and not the thousands. You can’t have it both ways.
John Stokes, Managing Director
|
