Why Opera is the New Hip Hop

Well, it's not really, but one should always remain speculative and controversial, now read my feature!!!

HIP TO B SHARP – OPERA’S GRAND CRESCENDO –

An oversized hairy man stands astride the stage, his legs spread apart, arms stretched out towards the heavens. He opens his mouth to bellow out that first resonant note in an unfamiliar tongue. Not exactly a My Chemical Romance gig.

While it may be assumed that the word “soap” would be a necessary prefix in order for it to appeal to Gen Y, opera has started to ascertain a distinctive presence on the radar of cool.

“The data shows that a lot of people start attending the opera when they’re quite young,” says Opera Australia’s Emma Williams.

You wouldn’t be blamed for believing that the opera was only for the blue bloods: conjuring up images of fur stoles and tuxedos milling around outside the Opera House en masse, an air of superiority and overpowering perfume surrounding them.

Making opera more palatable is certainly an issue when it comes to making it popular. Recognising this, the Pacific Opera Company was founded in 2002 to break down existing barriers between young opera performers and audiences.

“We do student concession tickets for $45, that’s the most affordable opera around!” boasts the Company’s director, Julie Taylor. “”and we go out to the Western suburbs and people come who have never been before.”

Pacific Opera also took on one of opera’s fundamental challenges when it comes to remaining in the cultural loop: the language.

“We sing in English – always,” Taylor explains, which is beneficial not only for the audience, who: “absolutely love the immediacy of the laughs and they get the story.”; but also for the performers “to allow them to concentrate on the development of their singing.”

Recent controversy has surrounded the Sydney opera community of late, involving celebrated mezzosoprano, Fiona Janes and Opera Australia director, Richard Hickox. One of the issues raised by Janes in her seven page letter was that the performers being selected for roles were too young.

A somewhat grandiose statement, in Taylor’s opinion. “Young people either don’t get a role at all or they get put in the chorus...there are not enough performances in Australia for novice opera singers and young people have to go overseas.”

Taylor, is proud to boast of one of their fundamental principles, “to provide opportunities for professional development for emerging young artists here in Australia.” Here she executes the dramatic pause effortlessly: “to ensure the future of opera”

Pacific Opera makes a point of casting young people in principal roles, but offer them the assistance of a mentor, consisting of their Council of Patrons, which boasts names such as Yvonne Kenny.


Furthermore, in a continuing effort to “make the opera accessible to everyone”, Taylor along with celebrated music teacher, Susan Deas started a regular Sunday Adult Education Course entitled, Opera Unzipped.

“She and I came up with this course that was just a Sunday afternoon of opera appreciation with champagne on arrival,” says Taylor.

Like Taylor, Deas aims through her continuing education course in opera appreciation to acquaint people with opera "in language non-musicians can understand, demystifying the basics”

So what type of people show up? “All sorts of people come to the classes,” says Deas, a lecturer of Continuing Education programs that include “A Beginner’s Guide to Opera”, as well as organist, music teacher and general opera enthusiast. (“I don’t know what keeps the passion alive for it, but it’s still there…”)

Without the offer of champagne on arrival, getting young people into opera appreciation, according to Taylor, it’s about “dumbing it down”, introducing it gently.

“We do some high school education programs in collaboration with the Blacktown Arts Centre,” she says. “We had this guy in the corner with these big dreadlocks and he was saying ‘right – she likes him, but he doesn’t like her’ and we had this group of 600 kids becoming more and more engaged.”

Surprising at all? “Well some had never even heard a tenor voice before and they just go, ‘oooohhh…’ Certainly young people are when they experience these things for the first time, more likely to be opera goers when they’re older.”

According to Williams, lifestyle has a major impact on the attendance rates.

“It’s quite interesting…They get into the opera via student tickets and remain there through their twenties,” she says of the Opera Australia demographic. “When career, mortgage, family, etc take priority, they stop attending in their 30’s, early 40’s and then start coming back to the opera…once these financial and time constraints are removed.”

In her letter of complaint, Janes also outlined a decline in Opera Australia’s repertoire.

Williams believes that the influence in audience attendance is “primarily repertoire.” Fundamentally, the program is designed to feature the “More popular operas – operas performed by Puccini and Mozart normally have a larger number of attendees”

She labels operas by the likes of Handel, or any opera from the Baroque era as strictly for what she dubs, “the opera purists”.

The Pacific Opera Company don’t subscribe to notions of purity. “We started out doing the standard repertoire, but this year we are doing lesser known works by good quality people.” Says Taylor.

However, while the approaches of Opera Australia and the Pacific Opera Company may differ somewhat, the most beloved of all the operas seems universal.

“Madame Butterfly,” says Williams. “It’s one of our most beautiful and successful operas, and in fact it’s going to be on again in our 2009 season…it’s one of the operas that come back again and again because they are so loved by their audience.”

Agrees Taylor: “the more emotionally tragic like Madame Butterfly really gets to people: it’s got everything – betrayal, lust, murder.”

So in spite of the public furore surrounding Opera Australia, in what media have dubbed a “bunfight”, how much of a presence does opera have in the Sydney arts community?

“In the words of a great blind singer ‘opera is the paradise of music’,” intones Taylor. “We’re offering people cultural variety, so I think that we contribute quite fundamentally.”

Williams agrees, citing last year’s Opera Australia attendance figures: “In total, including all the performances in Sydney and Melbourne plus that from our Oz Opera touring company, it was 447 000.”

So, will the youth carry on the opera-going tradition well into the future? This time, it seems that it’s only over when (or if) the fat lady stops singing.