Opera vs. Musical Theatre

If I have not said it before let me make this clear: I love spectacle. I love the all inclusive nature of spectacle; how it combines singing, dancing, lights, sets, costumes – essentially everyone and everything into it’s world and leaves the audience agog at the sheer magnitude of the production. To many in the classical world, spectacle is a cheap trick which impeaches the purity of the music, yet, in the musical theatre world spectacle is a given.

Saturday night I attended the opening night of The Merry Widow at the Detroit Opera House presented by Michigan Opera Theatre and yesterday night I attended the final dress rehearsal of The Music Man at the Power Center presented by the University of Michigan Musical Theatre Department. As I sit here thinking about the pieces which I have seen this week, I cannot help but think about the 2/3 full opera house on opening night compared to a 2/3 full Power Center during a dress rehearsal that was only opened because every single other performance sold out weeks ago. As I sit here, I can’t help but wonder why.

Ignoring the obvious oversimplification that modern people do not like opera, and ignoring the factors which are beyond the scope of this blog post such as substantial differences in ticket prices, location and accessibility of the theatre, the use of foreign languages etc. I think the biggest problem opera has when “competing” with musical theatre is the perception of Park-and-Bark singers in unrealistic circumstances screeching about their lives for a minimum of 2.5 hours.

This perception is there for good reason as unfortunately, many opera productions turn out that way. And frankly, I think it’s because opera houses aren’t expecting enough from their singers.

For a “dying” art form, opera is oversaturated with singers deluded with notions of becoming the next Pavarotti and stuck with no back up plan, but thousands of dollars of debt. Most of these singers are incredibly talented. Most of them have good diction and are fluent (or at least conversational) in the languages they sing in. And most of them continue to barely make ends meet as they live gig to gig, supplementing their income by teaching the next generation of opera singers.

As with anything in life, when you have more people who want a position than you have positions available, you are able to ask more of the canidates. You can extend the requirements from a good voice to a great voice, from 1 semester of ballet (which did not do much more than have the singer realize how bad they are at dance) to years of dance training and Park-and-Bark singing to acting that makes you love and feel for the character. This is what musical theatre requires and I see no reason that opera should be any different.

Yes, it is a lot to ask of a performer. But it is a lot to ask of an audience member to spend $200 on a ticket just to see you sing. If it is only about the voice, as some claim, strip away the costumes and the sets and lower that ticket price down to $100. But if a performer wants to transport the audience to a different time and a different place, I cannot be sitting in the audience noticing your unpointed feet or floppy fish hands as you dance, or the dead expression in your eyes as you sing about how happy you are.

I love opera. I think it is a complete art form but so often this seems to be forgotten as Park-and-Bark infiltrates its way into otherwise stellar productions. If we as artists want the tradition of opera to strongly into the future, we must embrace spectacle just as musical theatre has or soon opening nights that play to 2/3 full halls will dwindle down to shorter runs and fewer productions.