Twits at the Opera
September 16th 2009 08:13
In what seemed to me to be a rather innovative approach to opera, which, in spite of all its glories, is now often accompanied by a snobbery and pomposity that has nothing to do with its origins, the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) recently staged the first opera with a libretto inspired by, and selected from, some 900 tweets sent by various operatic-minded twitters.
The tweets were whittled down until there was enough material to make something
sensible of about 25 minutes in length, and mezzo-soprano Hannah Pedley and baritone Andrew Slater, accompanied by a pianist, presented the unique piece in the opera house's Paul Hamlyn Hall.
The piece has been put together in record time, as befits something involving the cyberworld, and it's only a month or so since twitters were first presented with the opening statement of the opera: "One morning, very early, a man and a woman were standing, arm-in-arm, in London's Covent Garden."
Not exactly inspiring, but enough people used their imaginations, and their 140 character tweets, to give the Company something to work on. Two composers put the thing together, and the thing was ready to go.
Of course, the project had its detractors: Jeremy Pound, the BBC Music Magazine's deputy editor, obviously thought the whole thing was some kind of appetite suppressant, and called it an 'accident waiting to happen.' He was totally wrong, of course, as musical snobs have so often been over the centuries.
Failing to see that it was something called FUN, he denounced it in the following manner: "Whenever there is a new fad you know somebody in the art world is going to grab hold of it by the horns. They should be careful that it doesn't overtake the serious stuff they do."
Oh, puleeese, Jeremy. Get a life. Stop being so blasted serious about music. Or are you one of those boring audience members who smile wanly at comic operas and wish the composers had never written them? (The composers in question being Mozart, Donizetti, and co - blokes who plainly could laugh at things that were funny, and cry at things that weren't.)
Photo of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary
The tweets were whittled down until there was enough material to make something
The piece has been put together in record time, as befits something involving the cyberworld, and it's only a month or so since twitters were first presented with the opening statement of the opera: "One morning, very early, a man and a woman were standing, arm-in-arm, in London's Covent Garden."
Not exactly inspiring, but enough people used their imaginations, and their 140 character tweets, to give the Company something to work on. Two composers put the thing together, and the thing was ready to go.
Of course, the project had its detractors: Jeremy Pound, the BBC Music Magazine's deputy editor, obviously thought the whole thing was some kind of appetite suppressant, and called it an 'accident waiting to happen.' He was totally wrong, of course, as musical snobs have so often been over the centuries.
Failing to see that it was something called FUN, he denounced it in the following manner: "Whenever there is a new fad you know somebody in the art world is going to grab hold of it by the horns. They should be careful that it doesn't overtake the serious stuff they do."
Oh, puleeese, Jeremy. Get a life. Stop being so blasted serious about music. Or are you one of those boring audience members who smile wanly at comic operas and wish the composers had never written them? (The composers in question being Mozart, Donizetti, and co - blokes who plainly could laugh at things that were funny, and cry at things that weren't.)
Photo of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary
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