I attended only two performances at the Met this year, Don Carlo and Peter Grimes.
But to suggest that works of great art that have survived for centuries need to give way so we can have more new music, is foolish. I support new music, there must of course be new music. These people will come on occasion, they won’t come to six or eight operas a year, year after year. But despite what Mr Gelb seems to think, a diet of new works is never going to build a sustaining audience for a place like the Met. Opera is a little different, it’s much harder to get an opera produced than it is to get an orchestra to play a 20 minute composition (not that that is easy), and therefore the quality of new works will be higher because they are more thoroughly vetted, and also subject to various workshops and trials. I can guarantee you the musicians aren’t purchasing them. The fact that the orchestra records all of these works, or a great many of them, is truly astonishing to me, because I cannot imagine any living human being purchasing that recording other than the composer. Occasionally something is worth listening to and maybe even listening to a second time. But to the average Symphony patron, they can’t possibly come across as anything but noise, though as we say: fast is good, loud is better, fast and loud is best. I’m a fairly sophisticated musician in my own right, I feel qualified to make at least somewhat of a judgment, I won’t say it stands as the only possible opinion. I have given up season tickets to the Symphony in my hometown, which I will not identify, because of the inclusion of new works on every single concert, most of which are just plain bad. BUT – most new music performed today is not well received, and the vast majority of it never receives a second performance, or in any case not a third. If those types of things can continue true for new shows, many will also do well. Each production that did well – deservedly it seems, for the most part – did well because of a particular set of characteristics. The recent phenomenon of the well selling new works is not something to be trusted. Met should focus its effort on realizing the musical values first and foremost, the staging enhances and comments on the musical aspect. That is why we enjoy listening to recordings.
Opera’s primary artistic expression lies in its music, vocalists, and the libretto. Perhaps the stage director should spend an hour non stop running around a slanted moving platform trying to sing into a huge auditorium? Take Zauberflote’s constantly moving suspended platform. Artistic casting at the Met needs a lot of improvement!!! The productions themselves are often weak, distracting, not faithful to the libretto, and physically distracting to the vocalists. When the vocal casting is mismatched and conducting is compromised it is very hard to put together a musically exceptional performance. She also apparently failed to establish a strong relationship with the orchestra. Stutzmann is a prime example, perhaps politically correct, but musically her Mozart was dull, lacking dramatic tension, lacking synergy with the characters and lacking insight into the period music, despite the privilege of conducting two of the greatest operas. Then there is often a poor choice of the conductor. There was some improvement this season, but so much more can be done. Choice of vocalists often finds vocally miscast (mostly talented) singers or poorly balanced vocal casts. It seems to me that the main problem at the Met is lack of coherent focus on musical values.
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