Anyway, I'm fresh out of solutions. Sorry. I hope that isn't why your reading me today. Did you come here for investment advice maybe? Well, I'll be damned if I know where you should invest your money. Stocks, bonds, real estate are all falling, interest on cash deposits is pitiful, and everyone keeps telling us that commodities are the place to be. Really? All I can say is that I have no clue why oil is trading at $145 a barrel, and I'd rather understand what I'm investing in rather than just throw my money in the pot because that's what everyone else is doing. The next time someone tells you to invest in commodities then ask them to explain the corn market to you, or the metals market, or the oil market or whatever, and not in general terms but in specific terms of risk and reward. After you hear their answer, then decide if you want to invest in commodities.
But I don't want to talk about that - it's too depressing. Let's talk about politics. Nah, wait, I don't really want to talk about that either. I want to talk about Bayreuth. I'm sure you must have seen this story come across the wires. In case you didn't, it looks like the Bayreuth festival has decided to go online this year, and in a surprising display of "not getting it" has decided to charge web audiences a mere $77.00 to watch to their live opening night webcast. According to the article, they hope this will attract new generations of opera goers.Or...uh...maybe not.
Now before I offer my opinion on the subject let me just say that I think it's great that Bayreuth has decided to at least explore new media as a means to reach new audiences. I mean it's not like the festival is going to fail if they choose not to participate in the digital revolution. This is the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, for crying out loud - the house that Wagner built. According to Wikipedia, the Bayreuth festival has been sold out ever since it's first performance in 1876. Clearly, attendance is not a problem.
But the Bayreuth festival doesn't want to be left behind by the newer technologies, so they've decided to experiment with live streaming. Again, I think that's great, even though I'm not as worried as some that opera may be a dying art form. Sure, it's not as popular as it once was, but there are many successful opera houses all around the globe and audiences are still buying tickets to see performances of what is essentially a four hundred year old art form. If you think of all the cultural changes that have taken place over the last four centuries then you have to think that opera has enough staying power to outlast the digital revolution as well.
The key, of course, is new audiences, and that's really what this whole streaming thing is about. It's a great idea, but do they really think they're going to attract new audiences by charging $77.00 for the stream? Not likely. Not when you consider that on the web people expect to get things for free, and that today's teens or twenty-somethings are much more inclined to go to a peer-to-peer site and get a bootlegged copy of what they want (along with various viruses and worms and rootkits, etc...) than they to pay 77 bucks to watch to an opera. It's a good idea Bayreuth, but if you want to generate any buzz on the web you've got to give it away.
Then again I could be wrong, and if just one child is saved from a life of Christina Aguilera records then it will be worth the whole undertaking (pfffffftttt). Actually, I was trying to remember how I first got into opera and I really can't remember any one thing exactly, although I'm pretty sure I didn't have to shell out $77.00 for the experience.
For me, I think, I just got bored with rock and roll. At a certain point I just understood everything there was to understand about that music, and the experience started to go stale. So I started listening to jazz instead, and I liked it, but jazz rarely achieved the kind of artistic depth I was looking for. Jazz was more like a dozen or so real innovators, and 10,000 copycats all doing more or less the same thing.
My real musical epiphany didn't come until a few years later when I was flipping around the radio dial one night and happened upon something that just blew my mind. That was Mahler's Third Symphony and it changed my life. The arts can do that you know. Just look at any teenager and see the effects that a certain style of music can have on the way they act and the way they dress and just their whole cultural outlook. After hearing Mahler's Third for the first time I went out and bought the record and have been listening to classical music ever since. That's the absolute truth, and somewhere along the way opera entered the picture.
So who knows, maybe the Bayreuth webcast will change someone's elses life just as Mahler changed mine. I'm sure there are still plenty of kids out there who are hungering for a deeper musical experience than the three minute songs being served up on the radio or on Itunes, and maybe they'll be willing to spend the $77.00 to try something new. If not then perhaps Bayreuth will try again and maybe offer a free webcast instead. That would be good too. If so, then I'd suggest they try a different opera. Der Meistersinger is nice, but doesn't strike me as the Wagnerian opera that would appeal to a teenager. Teens would probably be more into something like Tannhauseur, with all that sin and redemption and death and stuff. Kids eat that up.
But it'll come, it'll come. Like I said, opera's been around for four hundred years, so I'm pretty sure it's going to stick around for a while, and who knows, maybe four hundred years from now they'll still be singing Christina Aguilera songs too.
Hey, it could happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment