'Opera isn't elitist': A Response to Chris Addison

Amidst the (widespread, I’m sure!) excitement that has surrounded the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup in the past week or so, a Guardian article (the link is here) has appeared that has provoked a range of responses from the music-based echo chamber that is my Twitter timeline. While many people have praised Chris Addison for his attempt to prove that opera can be engaging and accessible, others have (quite rightly) pointed out that Addison is perhaps not best-placed to decide this. As a middle-class white man, he has undoubtedly had a rather different experience of elitism to many other groups; his claim that if he ‘can learn to love it [opera] so can anybody’ has unsurprisingly, then, been viewed with a reasonable amount of cynicism. Indeed, before I get too involved with this post, I feel I should also be upfront about my own experiences of elitism; while I occupy a rather different position of privilege to Addison, my status as a (white, middle-class) music student does undoubtedly colour my perceptions regarding opera and elitism. I do, however, hope that I can still contribute something of worth here…

It’s not hard to see why opera is often viewed as elitist. On any given night, the Royal Opera House can be found filled with incredibly wealthy Londoners, some of whom may express more than a little distaste for those who aren’t quite of their social class; a personal ROH highlight was when my £11 seat was upgraded to a £120 one, much to the dismay of the person I found myself sitting next to, who clearly disapproved of my decision to wear a denim jacket. While I have managed to put the attitudes of these opera-goers to one side, and often relish the opportunity to somewhat irritate the snobbier members of the audience, I wouldn’t like to assume that the ability to ignore this is universal. As someone who has spent the majority of their life involved, in some way or another, with classical music, opera likely seems more accessible to me than it does to someone who has, for example, heard a lot of negative stereotypes or has little experience of it. Indeed, for many classical music fans, a musical education in some form or other acts as the gateway into this interest; while I think it is in no way necessary to have this sort of educational grounding to appreciate opera, it is still important to acknowledge the privileges afforded to those who can access this education. I am therefore hesitant to argue that opera is free from elitism; it does have a number of barriers, intentional or not, that I can only scratch the surface of here.

However, I think there are ways in which these barriers can start to be broken down. Recently, there have been a number of efforts, of which Addison’s original article is perhaps one, to try and make opera accessible to a wider audience. For example, the V&A’s exhibition ‘Opera: Passion, Power and Politics’, created in collaboration with the ROH, demonstrated a clear effort to try and engage with a wider audience. Although parts of the exhibition were perhaps aimed more at established opera fans, such as the display of autograph scores, the attempts to present clear information about the development of opera and its relation to broader historical contexts hopefully helped to present opera as something that can still be engaging and relevant in modern society. I attended the exhibition with my girlfriend, who I highly doubt would class herself as an opera fanatic; she was admittedly apprehensive about the exhibition, and the trip to Salome that we had planned for later that day, but felt that visiting the V&A gave her a greater understanding of opera and helped her to enjoy Salome more (or so she said!). While, as I’ve said, an education in opera shouldn’t be a prerequisite for going to a performance, attempts such as this one to bring opera to a broader audience may help to quell some fears or uncertainties for people regarding whether opera is really ‘for’ them.

I don’t think the perception of opera as elitist is just due to a lack of available information, though. Having looked at the upcoming performances at opera houses such as ROH or The Met, it seems to me that the repertory and productions on offer are also to blame for this perception of opera. Their repertory can without a doubt be classed as ‘stale, pale and male’; at a time when people are becoming increasingly conscientious about issues of race, gender and class, many of the big-name opera houses seem to be holding fast to what are, essentially, the values of the elite. It is frankly shameful that the Met has only staged operas by two women composers, with Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald in 1903 and Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin in 2016; the situation is also unsurprisingly dire when examining the performances of works by people of colour. Perhaps, instead of performing the same works over and over again, opera houses should be commissioning and staging new works, and not just from white men (!), if they want to get serious about accessibility.

The productions themselves can also leave a lot to be desired; I, for one, am not too excited to see the return of Richard Eyre’s La traviata at ROH in 2019, a production that is literally older than I am. Outdated, traditional productions often serve to reinforce the offensive stereotypes present in 19^th-century canonic operas such as La traviata; while this production is aesthetically pleasing and I did, admittedly, greatly enjoy aspects of the performance that I saw last year, it does little to undo the ‘tart with a heart’ stereotypes inherent in the opera. In this respect, more innovative productions, such as Barrie Kosky’s recent ROH production of Carmen (which I reviewed here), seem to me to be a better way forward. Not only are they vivid and engaging at a visual level, but they often serve to undo or counter the harmful stereotypes that can be encountered in more traditional stagings. Indeed, if opera is merely serving as a vehicle for the continued reinforcement of the views of the elite, then of course it is going to be viewed as elitist!

All in all, I think it takes more to stop opera being viewed as elitist than the mere declaration that it is ‘for everybody’; while I feel that opera has a lot to offer, in terms of both its capacity to engage with current political issues and events (when directors try, at least), and its array of what I personally consider to be incredibly moving and emotionally raw music, there are barriers that need to be tackled, both inside and outside of the opera house, before we can wholeheartedly declare opera to be free of its elitist associations.