With such an expression, no wonder people are flocking to the game instead of the opera! And it is all Wagner’s fault. In American sports parlance this sentence means the game is not over until it is truly over!
It is also Tintin’s fault. Hergé, the creator of the Tintin comic books, was a notorious opera hater, probably Wagner’s fault too. To make his point he produced la Castafiore character as the ultimate vain, self-centered, temperamental and intimidating female opera singer. She epitomized all the negative attributes of the prima dona and became a staple in Tintin’s comic adventures. In the book Castafiore Emerald, her high-pitched glass-shattering voice drove Tintin’s sidekick Captain Haddock to rage. Purposely her signature aria was the Jewel Song of Faust, “I find myself so beautiful in this mirror, etc.”. Thanks to la Castafiore, generations of Tintin’s fans became wary of opera and avoid it at all cost.
Bianca Castafiore also known as the Milanese Nightingale is demonstrating her vocal skills to Tintin and his dog Milou. (By Hergé)
Going back to the “fat lady” herself, a thorough Google search points to some uncertainty over her identity. She could either be Brünnhilde, the leading Valkirie of Wagner’s opera or the late 235 pounds American singer Kate Smith. I prefer to choose the first hypothesis. Brünnhilde sings literally to her death, which ends the fifteen-hour long opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. She gallops into the funeral pyre of Siegfried. The opera is over; watch the world of the gods end.
Wagner used a Norse saga as a source for the plot of his masterpiece opera. Brünnhilde was a slim “shield maiden” who is deceived by her lover, an unsophisticated and selfish guy named Siegfried, who in turn is tricked by a bunch of power-hungry thugs, the Gibichungs. With time, the young, brave and athletically-built Brünnhilde became the proverbial fat lady. How did this came about? Wagner’s fault.
Wagner regarded his operas as total artwork, Gesamtkunstwerk in German, whereby music and lyrics carried equal weight and all the art forms are combined to increase the dramatic dimension of the opera. The singing is so demanding that only mature sopranos could handle the part of Brünnhilde, or for that matter that of Isolde another one of Wagner’s ingénue heroines. The part of Tristan, Isolde’s love interest, is so taxing that it was regarded as “unplayable”; the singer who premiered it died of stress. Research indicates that professional opera singers tend to get fat. Consequently, with age most sopranos, tenors, baritones and basses have difficulty keeping their figure trim or even losing weight.
Since the time of Wagner, the girth of opera singers has grown considerably and obesity on the opera stage has been accepted as a quid pro quo for glorious singing. Opera purists are said to be suspicious of slim singers. When the legendary Maria Callas lost weight to become a regal-looking performer, the same purists claimed she had put female vanity ahead of her art. For them her art had acquired world heritage status not to be tampered with! Opera houses are grand and spacious and except for front row seats the hearing is better than the sight. Few opera goers really cared if the singers didn’t look the part as long as their singing properly delivered the expected emotions.
Until recently it was the norm that mature singers would sing the parts of maidens and charming princes. As long as they sang, their stiff, inexpressive interpretations and total lack of body chemistry were condoned. Some opera lovers rapturously listen to Tristan and Isolde’s love duet acted by two 50-something singers the size of whales. Whales may be known for their singing but their emotional capacity and performing sensibility are somewhat limited. The scene is grotesque and one’s eyes must be kept tightly shut to feel some emotion. Not surprisingly, and with typical opera understatement, the websites of the respective singers define the lady’s voice as “pure opulence”, and the tenor’s is compared to a “full bodied cabernet” Prosit!
Tintin’s generation and the post-Tintin generations had no time for this. Opera performances irremediably slid into the senior entertainment category. The average age of the opera goer is probably around 60. The Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany, easily compares to a chic geriatric clubhouse. How come that no one in the rarefied atmosphere of opera was alarmed earlier?
With their audience dying no wonder opera houses went on a drastic recruiting mission. While they devised plots to attract a younger crowd, they had to proceed with tact to avoid offending their faithful and fastidious patrons. Opera dramas have all the requisite ingredients to please the rock music generation. Because opera houses are either too expensive or too intimidating for a younger audience, the opera is going to them. The trick may lie in the launching of high definition (HD) telecasts of live opera performances. Now the operas are featured in a movie theater near you and all over the world.
Opera is the ultimate acquired taste, and a discerning ear needs practice. The YouTube and Facebook audiences are probably more sensitive to credible performing than to elegantly delivered music and “opulent” singing. A close-up with singing whales may be a put-off. Opera managers know that they have to factor in this reality. Consequently they are renewing their roster by recruiting younger and more glamorous singers. Vanity Fair recently noted that the singers have “to be easy on the eye and on the ears.” It is a challenge for singers trained primarily to sing and optionally to act and anathema to the grey haired purists for whom gorgeous singing is measured in stones or kilograms.
Opera is both high drama and high scandal. To revamp the genre and attract new opera goers, Ariadne auf Naxos should only be allowed to wear that iconic little black dress (In 2004, Covent Garden of London fired a leading soprano because she was too big to fit in the black cocktail dress. Thanks to surgery, the soprano has since lost weight; she now looks gorgeous in a size 14 little black dress.). For Salomé, another Richard Strauss heroine, opera houses should only cast a soprano able to deliver a physical performance as sensual as that of Karita Mattila (At the New York City Metropolitan Opera, April 5, 2004). Her striptease during the titillating Seven Veils dance was so mesmerizing that it left the audience entranced, the hypocritical old farts included.
Wagner and the Italian opera composers were no puritans; they created intoxicating music to enhance a dramatic plot to the enjoyment of a much younger audience than that of today. Surely they will welcome the current efforts to coax the You Tube crowd. Coincidently, I discovered that the majority of opera’s big stars have videos posted on You Tube. The video sharing website has a rich collection of oldies like the recording of the Queen of the Night aria by pseudo soprano Florence Foster Jenkins. The sublime and ridiculous (Susan Boyle?) are on You tube.
La Castafiore is not found on You Tube yet; so there is hope for opera.
Beatrice Labonne, Rio de Janeiro. April 27, 2009.
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