Alexandra Wilson reflects on opera’s previous place in popular culture and its more recent elitist overtones. Is it time to change the conversation?
Once upon a time, opera was popular culture. In late 19th century Britain, brass bands played the latest operatic hits. You could hear snippets of opera in the music hall. Dozens of touring opera companies performed each week to factory workers and shopkeepers up and down the country. Operatic parodies were all the rage – and everyone knew the operas themselves well enough to get the joke.
Fast forward to the present and opera is still all around us – whether in adverts or films, or in the growing number of performances in unusual places, from pubs to railway stations. We can hear world-class opera singers for free at the click of a mouse. And yet the rhetoric surrounding opera has changed. These days, when opera is mentioned in the media, the "e-word" is rarely far away... (Click here to read more)
Once upon a time, opera was popular culture. In late 19th century Britain, brass bands played the latest operatic hits. You could hear snippets of opera in the music hall. Dozens of touring opera companies performed each week to factory workers and shopkeepers up and down the country. Operatic parodies were all the rage – and everyone knew the operas themselves well enough to get the joke.
Fast forward to the present and opera is still all around us – whether in adverts or films, or in the growing number of performances in unusual places, from pubs to railway stations. We can hear world-class opera singers for free at the click of a mouse. And yet the rhetoric surrounding opera has changed. These days, when opera is mentioned in the media, the "e-word" is rarely far away... (Click here to read more)