The article explores the diversity of contemporary opera, showcasing works that tackle modern issues and employ diverse musical styles. It contrasts this experimental approach with the traditional, melodic style championed by Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, sparking a debate about the future direction of opera.
For those who think of opera as an antique genre preoccupied with musty subject matter, the above-named works might prompt a reconsideration. They address, variously, the birth of Christ, the suicide of Virginia Woolf, drone warfare, the murder of Federico García Lorca, the apocalyptic recent history of Ukraine, a Kurt Cobain-like rock star, the homoerotic art of John Singer Sargent, and a cult society built around ambient sound. Their musical languages are no less diverse.
Who, really, are these “experimental, sometimes atonal” composers who tyrannized opera in the latter part of the twentieth century? If you look at playbills for American opera houses between 1950 and 1990, you see dozens of non-radical, even hummable scores by the likes of Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, William Grant Still, Jack Beeson, Carlisle Floyd, Robert Ward, Douglas Moore, Dominick Argento, and William Bolcom.
Opera Experimental Music Contemporary Art Peter Gelb Metropolitan Opera
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