Passion at the Opera

Well! Pretty Lady is mildly bemused to report that, contrary to lifelong precedent, she has today created somewhat of a Public Scene. She screamed, to tell the truth, at a Total Stranger. Moreover, she was not cut off in traffic; she was not given an Unjust Citation; she was not subject to physical violence of any kind, nor were any of her loved ones. No, the person who aroused the sudden Flaming Ire, such that Pretty Lady did not know she possessed, was a mere, diminutive opera director.

It is not that Pretty Lady is such an extreme fan of opera, as an art form. Just yesterday she was explaining to her Gentleman Friend that she is more inclined to change the station during Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, than not. Opera in general strikes her as unduly pompous, schmaltzy and Over The Top.

This does not mean that she has no respect for opera singers, however. The discipline and training required to achieve proficiency in the genre absolutely commands it. A lady or gentleman capable of rendering an aria with grace, clarity and projection is not an individual who one day decided to open his or her mouth and bray; this person, at a bare minimum, has dedicated a decade or two to study and practice, and the concomitant sacrifices thereof. Such a person is, by definition, a Professional.

And Professionals, to Pretty Lady's mind, deserve to be treated professionally.

It does not matter, then, if a hypothetical opera company is operating on a shoestring. It does not matter if the auditorium is furnished with folding chairs and the occasional dumpster-picked sofa. It is immaterial if the entirety of the stage design consists of three lame Powerpoint slides and seven floodlights. As Pretty Lady knows, it is possible to do a great deal of Art on no budget at all; one merely has to be Ingenious and Resourceful.

Thus it is thoroughly, criminally inexcusable for an opera director to produce a pivotal scene wherein the hero sings his dungeon aria--not in chiaroscuro, not in Dramatic Shadow, not in Dim Spotlight--but in utter pitch darkness. In pitch darkness sings the hero, invisible, while seven floodlights brightly illuminate a swath of bare floor in front of him. In illegible, invisible, inscrutable pitch darkness perform three of the main characters, for twenty-five minutes, until the villain comes along, with the self-serving ingenuity to illuminate his own face with a flashlight.

This, friends, is not simply a Risky Choice. This is not a Creative Blunder. This is not explainable by Youthful Ignorance. This is the sort of pigheadedly stupid directorial decision that only arises out of lifelong wilful jack-assery.

For no human being who has ever seen a play in a theatre, let alone an opera at the Met, let alone a high-school musical, would think it apt to render his performers invisible while expending all available wattage upon forty square feet of naked masonite. No human being who possesses the faculty of sight, that is.

Pretty Lady is well aware that some unfortunate humans do not possess this faculty; she does not fault them for it. However, when a person sets himself responsible for a group, and leads that group into a vulnerable position, it is that person's obligation to acknowledge his or her weaknesses, and accomodate those weaknesses in some way, by requesting assistance.

This opera director, Pretty Lady knows for certain, is surrounded by professionals. He has a his command an entire orchestra, two conductors, and a chorus of excellent opera singers, all working for cheap or free. He is in continuous contact with one theatre director and a couple of techies.

The only way that he could possibly have perpetrated such an egregious blunder, then, is if he has made a habit of categorically rejecting all input from all professionals on a subject he knows nothing about. Period.

This is why Pretty Lady felt no compunction about buttonholing this alleged director after the performance and reaming him a new one. She did not Hold Back; she displayed none of her signature Tact and Diplomacy. She dwelt at length upon lack of professionalism, wilful ignorance, and the egoistic asininity of such. She dismissed outright any attempt at plea by poverty. She concluded with a strong statement to the effect that this fool of a director had grossly insulted his own excellent performers, and bid him a curt good-day.

For, dear friends, today the issue is Opera; yesterday and tomorrow the issue is War and Conflagration. A person, she maintains, who has the careers, lives, safety and well-being of others at his disposal is not justified in maintaining a state of pigheaded Denial about his own shortcomings at their expense. A performer is dependent upon a director to light his laboring figure as effectively as possible, within available means; a soldier, a student, a child is equally dependent upon the wise allocation of resources by his own Dear Leader. Dear Leaders everywhere would do well to recall this.