Watching the
Culture Show on BBC 2 I am reminded of a post-concert conversation topic that has reared its head so many times before. A DJ reporting on Glyndebourne trots out the old line... "the average age of the audience is 65... silver headed... aren't getting any younger... more accessibility for younger audiences... hip hopera [Cosi fan Tutti meets hip hop meets bad puns]... modern opera still won't sell... relies on the old classics for the ticket sales... membership club... stuffy... blah blah blah...
What these monkeys don't realise is that Opera IS difficult. People my age don't 'click' with opera or indeed some types of art (classical) music, unless they come from a particularly musical background or are trained singers. Look, even I don't know more than about 3 operas in real detail, and my Dad's worked in an Opera House since before I was born. I'm sure one day I will come to appreciate them much more, but not yet. My violin professor was telling me only the other day that he never really 'got' opera until he hit his late thirties and began a conducting career. And that's coming from someone who's been a professional classical soloist all his life. You need real life experience to appreciate opera to its fullest extent.
Institutions such as Opera Houses shouldn't worry about the age of their audience. The audience for opera will never be full of people in their early twenties. It's true that the 'older' generation of listeners won't be around for ever, but so long as the right pathways for the development of musical appreciation are available, then there will always be a new generation ready to replace them. The concern of artists and institutions should instead focus on those pathways. Are the right communication techniques in place to introduce genres such as opera to a younger generation, without pressure and without presumption? This is where companies such as Glyndebourne are absolutely right to play around with 'hip hopera' and other gimmicks, yet not introduce them to the official programming. By connecting core elements of opera to the cultural Zeitgeist, these people are forming the fundamental links necessary to implant awareness of high art into the brains of future consumers. It's crucial though, that this is done in a 'high-quality' way; if Mozart is to be fused with Hip Hop, it must be fused well! The Hip Hop must be good! Similarly, it would be foolish to import this kind of music back into the art music programming, as this would be an outright confusion of genres. There's a difference between fusion and confusion. Fusion expands, Confusion dilutes.
Essentially, Glyndebourne has got it dead-on right. They're recognising that their niche is - although small - as relevant as ever, and they're dealing with the need to find a future audience. Ten out of ten.
The Culture Show is a great programme for two reasons. One, it gives a kaleidoscopic review of the UK arts scene without segregating the coverage of different genres through arbitrary decisions based on demographic analysis (thus avoiding the danger of playing up to faux 'class differences'). Two, it 's broadcast at 7.00pm. A culture show during UK TV evening prime time? Now that's an achievement.
OK - I can finally share with you this great news: I have been awarded an £8,000 Pyramid Award by Deutsche Bank, to turn the Hesse Ensemble and Violin-MP3.com into something really good. They'll also be appointing me a mentor from the bank to assist with the development (who, ironically, turns out to be a distant relation of David's teacher, Lydia Mordkovich!). We'll announce the news more widely later in the year to coincide with the Hesse Ensemble's debut concert at the Academy (25th October), but you read it here first!
