In this post and the one to follow, I will discuss two problems that are characteristic of the difficulties that have accumulated to the point where the continued existence of one of America’s cultural treasures is threatened or at least seriously challenged. One, the subject of this discussion, is beyond the control of the company. The one to come is entirely the Met’s fault.
Basically, there are two reasons people are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to attend an opera performance. The first is the opera itself; the second is the opportunity to hear a familiar work performed by a singer of exceptional ability. Since the death of Puccini in 1924, with very few exceptions, there have been virtually no new operas that excite an audience the way La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, or Der Rosenkavalier do. Thus, what brings people back to the theater to see an opera they have seen and heard before is the chance to see and hear a familiar role sung by a great artist. When, for whatever reason, an opera is staged with a competent cast but one lacking in star power, the incentive to spend a considerable sum on an opera ticket is greatly reduced, especially when the variety of entertainment options is as great as it is today.
Consider two time intervals that I personally have experienced, the first in what now seems the distant past. My first opera at the Met was Tosca on December 25, 1954, with Licia Albanese, Eugene Conley, who replaced an indisposed Jan Peerce, and George London in the principal roles. I managed to scrape together enough money to buy a seat in the Grand Tier. Thereafter, I was a regular standee at the Met, often standing through three or four performances a week. Standing room was $2 a ticket. If one or more star performers were singing you had to get on line three to four hours before the performance to be sure of gaining entrance. Two dollars was a lot of money to me back then. I used to hope for the day when I could afford to buy a seat. This regular attendance continued until the end of the 1960-61 season, after which I left the New York area and returned to the Met only during visits to my native city.
Here’s a list of some of the sopranos and tenors I heard at the Met before I was 25 years old. The list would be just as impressive if I included the other vocal ranges. I’ll start with the sopranos. They are presented in no order other than as they occurred to me.
- Zinka Milanov
- Maria Callas
- Renata Tebaldi
- Birgit Nilsson
- Leontyne Price
- Victoria de los Angeles
- Leonie Rysanek
- Lisa Della Casa
- Eileen Farrell
- Licia Albanese
- Roberta Peters
- Antonietta Stella
- Anna Moffo
Now the tenors in the same random order.
- Jussi Björling
- Giuseppe Di Stefano
- Richard Tucker
- Mario del Monaco
- Franco Corelli
- Carlo Bergonzi
- Jon Vickers
- Nicolai Gedda
- Jan Peerce
- Cesare Valletti
There are two points to be made from the above lists. First, I was lucky enough to attend the Met when the company was full of great voices. While it was nice to have a great staging such as the 1958 Japanese-led production of Madama Butterfly with Antonietta Stella in the title role, the presence of so many extraordinary voices was enough to fill the house on a routine basis. The second is that today’s opera scene is particularly fallow. There is nothing today like the profusion of great singers represented by the two lists above.
This absence of greatness explains, to a great degree, the problem confronting the Met. The company stages new operas that the public doesn’t want to hear more than once. When they present standard works, almost all of which are a century or more old, they lack the star power needed to attract an audience willing to pay hundreds of dollars a ticket. I’m not saying the Met doesn’t have a lot of fine singers; they just don’t have the star power of two generations ago. There’s nothing the company can do to overcome this deficit. It is a victim of changing times.
