My goal when picking a music culture for this assignment involved choosing a culture that I was completely unfamiliar with. Unlike some others in my class, I selected a music culture that I do not interact with regularly. As a result, I will review the aspects of music culture surrounding opera within the Dallas area by using my experience at an opera event and other research. I will also detail what I observe to be a change in the way opera has traditionally been viewed, which is causing change in the opera movie culture of Dallas.
2. Methodology
2.1 Online Research
The primary source for this essay is The Dallas Opera website. The Dallas Opera is a company in Dallas, Texas. Their website has interviews, news, schedules and more information that will allow me to better understand opera in the Dallas area.
2.2 Live event
On February 24, I attended an encore presentation of Simon Boccanegra performed at The Metropolitan Opera and originally broadcast live on February 6 at a local AMC Theater. This source will help frame opera all aspects of music culture within the context of modern day technology and let me comment on the cultural differences between a more traditional opera environment and the experience that I had at the AMC theater.
3. Aspects of Opera
3.1 Ideas About Opera
The Dallas Opera's says that opera is similar to a musical but instead of having the characters in the stage show occasionally bursting into song, the singing never stops (“What is Opera”). Operas are theatrical performance that includes a stage, an ensemble up to a full orchestra and a live audience. Operas incorporate aspects from music, dance and theater. Modern operas incorporate styles from cultures all over the globe. In order to save the cultural flavor, the Dallas Opera usually performs their operas in the original language (“Frequently Asked Questions”). Operas are able to continue due to sponsorship and their ticket sales. According to a survey referenced on the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra's website, The Dallas Opera had a budget of 10.12 million dollars. To put this in perspective, The Metropolitan Opera, which is by far the largest opera company in the United States, has a budget of 249.02 million dollars (“Opera Statistics from Top 15 Metro Areas”).
3.2 Activities Involving Opera
As I mentioned earlier, operas are commonly performed by a live audience in what is called an opera house. The Dallas Opera says that audience members to an opera usually wear business attire but even casual-wear is certainly allowed (“Frequently Asked Questions”).
After going to the movie theater broadcast of Simon Boccanegra performed at The Metropolitan Opera there are a lot of observations that I have made about the type of people who participate in this music culture. In total there was 13 people in the theater, all of which had white or gray hair except for 2 people, excluding me. None the audience looked under the age of 30 except for me, so from my observations, it seems like the music culture of opera consists of mid to late aged people. With no one in the audience that I could identify as anything other than Caucasian, there was little ethnic diversity in the audience. With what little I could see of the audience in The Metropolitan Opera House, I could draw the same conclusions about the ethnic diversity and age group and most audience members wore business attire. There are several aspects of watching a live event broadcast into a theater that made me consider the cultural shift that is happening because of the availability of technology.
- The movie theater atmosphere made the event a less of a social event than going to an opera house would. In the two intermissions of the nearly four hour opera, there was little conversation.
- Even though the event was broadcast all around the United States, there was very few people in each movie theater watching the show. This changes the way people can experience an opera drastically.
- The nationwide broadcast allows for a larger audience since it will be more convenient to go to a local movie theater than it is to drive into the nearest major city.
- The actual content is different. Instead of seeing a live event you are looking at a flat screen with a projected image with speakers playing the recorded audio. With this format, the pre-show content was able to have interviews and commercials which is uncommon in opera house showings.
3.3 Repertoires of Opera
The Dallas Opera lists the most popular operas as the following: “Aida (the Egyptian opera, elephants are optional), Boheme (or, to be precise, La bohème, a tale of starving artists that continues to inspire works like Rent and the movie musical Moulin Rouge), and Carmen, the opera that proves that smoking isn’t the only thing bad for your health” (“What is Opera”).
The Met Opera could be causing the same situation as the professional versus amateur performers in matsuri festivals in Japan. Just like the traveling professional performers subtract from the local flavor for each festival, the live events being broadcast to movie theaters could make opera fans less likely to attend a local opera in favor of the live broadcast of The Metropolitan Opera. The Dallas Opera does not do touring shows. They are produced to be performed in a small time frame and will be put into the warehouse so you might have once chance to see a particular production live (“What is Opera”).
3.4 Material Culture of Opera
Operas incorporate a lot of cultural elements of the original opera including the fashion and setting. Thus, a large amount of work is put into making realistic looking sets, costumes and makeup.
Conclusion
Opera contains a music culture that incorporates many other cultures in the performances and incorporates many aspects of those cultures into a completely sung theater performance with elaborate costumes, set designs, makeup and orchestral music. Operas have a vast history over several centuries but still continues to hold a relatively large audience and will probably continue to entertain many in one form or another. Despite popular consensus, operas have greatly changed and has adapted to using technology to provide closed captions for English-speaking audience and provide digital access at home or in a theater.
Works Cited
“Frequently Asked Questions.” The Dallas Opera. 2010. The Dallas Opera. 9 Mar. 2010 <http://www.dallasopera.org/learn/faq.php>.
“Opera Statistics from Top 15 Metro Areas.” Florida Grand Opera Orchestra. 9 Mar. 2010 <http://fgomusicians.org/item/opera-statistics-from-top-15-metro-areas>.
Simon Boccanegra . By Giuseppe Verdi. Dir. James Levine. Perf. Plácido Domingo. The Metropolitan Opera, New York. 24 Feb. 2010. Performance.
“What is Opera.” The Dallas Opera. 2010. The Dallas Opera. 9 Mar. 2010 <http://www.dallasopera.org/learn/what_is_opera.php>.
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