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Wednesday 9 July 2008

Ill Met by moonlight

Robin Holloway on when good opera is ruined by tack presentation

I’m all for abolishing mystique, for spreading and sharing the joys, rewards, glories of high operatic culture in all its million varieties of pleasure. Explanation that wears lightly any latent tendency towards education; enthusiasm that curbs missionary zeal into urbanity and communicativeness; even touches of legitimate advertisement, done without snobbery, trivialisation, coercion. These are fine, right, proper; can be and have been well done since broadcasting began, not least by the Met in its very recent past. But the current breathless thrustfulness, the jejune ‘empathy’, the luvviedom, the opera-queen campery, are repulsive, not adhesive. One would call it a switch-off (restoring the metaphor to its literal origin), and simply not bother any more to be in and free of a Saturday evening for Jazz Record Requests (delectable hardy perennial that retains its unique tone and its integrity intact), followed by the Met relay. This would be sacrificing an arm and a leg to spite one’s face. What the Met still offers is usually (there have been rare, glaring exceptions) too good to miss. But if the grossness I’ve talked about continues and — God forbid — escalates, we will be denied the real desired experience simply by switching on.

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