"Each year we see new examples of classical music being compromised or mutilated in the misguided belief that this is the way to win new converts," writes pianist Evan Shinners in a recent op-ed in the New York Times. (read the entire essay)
Shinners goes on to criticize the Metropolitan Opera for presenting an abridged, English-language version of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and suggests this abridged version devalues opera as a genre and Mozart as a composer.
"An audience that’s lured in to sit through an abridged version of an opera has not learned how to listen to an opera," he writes.
Several people have sent me this editorial and asked me to respond, so here I am.
Although Shinners doesn't mention this in the article, the abridged version of "The Magic Flute" that he finds so problematic was presented in matinee performances and marketed specifically as family-friendly. Director Julie Taymor is best known for her work directing "The Lion King" on Broadway.
Shinners's critique reminds me of a conversation I had with an IPR listener years ago who told me he didn't see any value in us creating classical music programming specifically for children.
In this listener's opinion, children didn't need their own program or any type of presentation that was any different than what adults received.
He cited his own family as an example: his two (now adult) children grew up listening to "Adventures in Music with Karl Haas" and both went on to study classical music at Interlochen. Clearly, they didn't need specific children's programming in order to learn about classical music and love it to the extent that they went on to study it.
To him, since his children didn't need or want specific children's programming, no children did.
Okay, but:
Here's a wild idea.
Are you ready?
What if we try all kinds of things to reach all kinds of audiences with classical music without having to criticize the ways in which others are trying to do the same thing?
I think there's enough room that we can have programming for children that exists simultaneously with programming for adults. We have 24 hours in a day and infinite room online and in podcasts. We can present a smorgasbord and people can pick and choose what they like.
People are allowed to like our family program Intermezzo or our live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera or the daily hour of Bach's music on the Well-Tempered Commute or "Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin no matter what age they are or what their knowledge of classical music is.
If you're here, you're here. Like what you like, how you like it.
None of us in the world of classical music has the silver bullet that will draw Taylor Swift-size crowds to symphony concerts or chamber music recitals. That doesn't mean we shouldn't all keep trying to grow the size of our audiences and increase our engagement with our current audiences. It just seems like we can do that without poo-pooing the efforts of others who are trying different approaches than we are.
I find Shinners's idea of Bach Store concerts fascinating. He sits at a piano in a pop-up location and plays the music of Bach for five hours while people stay and listen as long as they like. I just wish he didn't need to frame this concept as being superior to others.
If we want to bring more people to the table of classical music, we need to build more tables and bigger tables, not criticize other people's designs.
What do you think? Send me your thoughts at amanda.sewell@interlochen.org and your comments may appear in a follow-up essay.
Postscript: Hippos
In his New York Times op-ed Evan Shinners is deeply critical of the Met Opera for shortening Mozart and therefore devaluing it, but he also praises Disney's "Fantasia" for inspiring his childhood love of classical music.
Apparently, trimming the (often very problematic) plot of "The Magic Flute" to 90 minutes in a family-friendly production is mutilation, but animating hippopotamuses in tutus is acceptable because the scene is accompanied by Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" in its entirety.
Except "Dance of the Hours" is, itself, an excerpt of an opera. It's a short ballet that appears at least two and a half hours into Ponchielli's "La gioconda."
Back to the point I made above - can we just let people like what they like without having to critique its value?
