What are you talking about, Opera Man?

       Some opera critic named Zachary Woolfe wrote a ridiculous article for the New York Times Arts Section entitled, "How Hollywood Films are Killing Opera."  The movies he mentions are some new Fox Searchlight thing about a troubled teen girl that is titled Margaret, as well as Pretty Woman which opened 22 years ago, and Moonstruck which was made 25 years ago.  According to Zach, all the pretty dresses and swanky dates nights depicted in the opera going scenes in these movies make the American Opera going public want old fashioned big sets and screaming sopranos instead of real artistic substance.  Woolfe states:

Though both films have been given credit for helping to popularize opera, the idea of the art form they have popularized has profoundly damaged it in this country. The films have taught Americans a particular idea of what opera is, so that is the kind of opera Americans think they want.

Woolfe complains that the opera that Americans demand is less than inventive:

The repertory is largely stagnant, focused on the same small group of hits. The few big stars who remain — the Plácido Domingos, Renée Flemings and Anna Netrebkos — are needed to sell almost anything that is not “Aida,” “Carmen” or “Turandot.”  The typical production style is blandly nostalgic escapism rather than vibrancy or relevance. This was the case through much of America in the 20th century, and there hasn’t been much change so far in the 21st. 

Ok, Woolfe, you want something more dynamic in contemporary American opera than what you see a character watch in a movie.  Problem is, Zachary, a movie that Cher made when Ronald Reagan was president is not really relevant to much of anything.  

       What is incredibly relevant, movie-wise, to modern American opera (but which our dear friend Zach forgot to mention) is that since 2006, the Metropolitan Opera in New York has broadcast its operas simultaneously in HD in various movie studios and released them on DVDs.  Could HD opera simulcasts make opera more accessible to new audiences?  (Hooray!!)  Could HD simulcasts cause casting directors to choose opera singers based more on physical attractiveness than singing ability?  (Booo!!)  Those issues seem way more relevant than mentioning what happened in a fairy tale prostitute movie from the era of the first gulf war. 

       So, is contemporary modern opera all about big sets, big wigs, big stars, and one more repetitive La Boheme and one more staid old Madame Butterfly?  Well, it wasn't in 2007 when I went to see the new American opera Grapes of Wrath to a sold out house without a single dry eye.  The CD is out of stock on Amazon.  American Opera wasn't stagnant last year when I drive 8 hours to see the new opera Silent Night, which actually put the opera goer in the trenches during World War One and which won its composer a Pulitzer Prize. 

      To be fair, the last opera I saw in Germany featured a naked octogenarian, a violent gang rape, and a robot-filled sweatshop - and most of that sort of thing isn't too popular in the American opera scene today.  But, Zachary Woolfe doesn't mention anything he would like to see contemporary American opera do differently.  He just says that movies from over 20 years ago are messing it up.  I understand that you may have had a deadline, Zach, but let's try to stick to actual news and analysis in the future.

Update:

I tweeted Zach Woolfe to ask why he mentioned Pretty Woman and Moonstruck but not the new MET HD simulcasts.  He deleted my tweet.

Please don't play with Peruvian orphans for a week and then go home

       Forgive my recent absence from writing, but I was on vacation for the last 10 days.  This morning I headed directly for the New York Times online travel section to happily plan my next vacation, and what to my wandering eyes should appear but Jennifer Conlin's article, "Volunteer Trips:  Is Your Family Ready?"  In this article Conlin discusses voluntourism, a fad where wealthy people from the western world take their privileged children to slums to impoverished countries and get an eye opening experience. 
       Conlin discusses how to be prepared to find an American-trained doctor should the need arise, how to protect your children when things get too real, and how your teen's fancy college admissions counselor might actually advise him or her NOT to talk about the experience in a college application essay.  The most offensive though, is how she cautions parents (if they plan on a safari or beach extension as well) to do the luxurious part of the vacation FIRST before the volunteering part.  That way, your child won't feel like he should send his rack of lamb to the starving family he left behind 10 hours earlier.
       I am glad that wealthy people want to help the developing world.  That's really great.  But nowhere in this article does Conlin seem to be aware that these voluntourism trips may do more harm than good for exactly the people they are supposed to help.  They tourists themselves feel fantastic afterword.  They spend a great deal of money, learn about the world, and can feel good about themselves for helping.  Maybe it helps their kids get into college too.  Maybe they sound a bit more awesome over the water cooler at work.  Although the New York Times hasn't quite caught on, other news outlets have expressed concern that these trips may be actually detrimental to the so called "aid" recipients.
       The article shows a photo of a volunteer woman playing with two orphans in Peru.  What about when she leaves?  The Human Sciences Research Council tells us that it can be detrimental for orphans, who have already had hard lives, to get attached a string of caregivers who move on after a few weeks, never to return.  What if a volunteer does a low skilled job for free, thus taking a paying job away from a local person.  What if a volunteer freaks out and has to be evacuated?  It happens all the time.  The New York Times article mentions a girl who breaks her wrist and requires the services of an American-trained physician.  What local person had to wait so that the volunteer girl was treated?  There are plenty of voluntourism companies who will let you pay for the privilege of teaching English.  You're their customers after all, not the students you're trying to help.  But what if you're a really bad, untrained teacher who does nothing to help the kids because what they need is a trained and long term teacher with a real lesson plan?  Do people in need really want some rich person from halfway across the world who doesn't speak their language or understand their culture waltzing in and very crappily building a part of a school for 10 days?  Isn't there someone local around to hand out the school supplies or the goats?
       An executive profiled in the article spent $16,780 (excluding airfare which was probably at least $3000 more) to go with her husband and nine-year-old twins to Kenya to lug water around, make beads, and help build part of a school for a few days.  Now, say you're an aid organization in Kenya wanting to build a school.  Would you rather have two middle-aged non-construction workers and two nine-year-olds, who can't speak your language and who need to be fed and housed, come and help you for 10 days, or would you rather have $20,000 to hire local construction workers?  Sure, that family could have donated $20,000 instead of going on vacation that year, which would have been a much greater act of altruism, but then the children wouldn't have gotten to have their "eye opening experience" to talk about at school the next fall.
       I heartily believe that privileged children should know about the rest of the world.  Have them get minimum wage jobs, read books and watch documentaries about the less privileged, and give money to good causes.  But let's also not forget that no matter where you are in America or how rich your town, somebody in your community needs help.  The first rule of helping, though, is that it's not about the helper - it's about the person in need.  Kids can learn this lesson at home without hogging all the good local doctors and traumatizing orphans.  There are certainly poverty and need in the United States.  The woman who lives next door has cancer, and your teenagers want to bake her cookies and walk her dog?  Tough titties - it's not about them.  What if what she really needs is rides to and from chemotherapy and your 17-year-old could drive her?  What if what she really needs is somebody to mow her lawn, and your 13-year-old could do it?  Can a nine-year-old really help build a building in any reasonable way?  Oh hell no.  Would you want to be in a school built by a nine-year-old?  But a nine-year-old can take a summer job pet sitting for the house across the street when the family goes on vacation and donate half of the $100 she makes to a worthy charity.  She'll learn how good giving feels, and the charity will probably be happier to have the $50 than a nine-year-old around to "help" for a few days.
       I'm all for volunteering and giving time and money.  But, the New York Times, let's come to realize (as so many other news outlets have) that hugging orphans for a week before abandoning them to the next rich tourist is not helping this world in a proper, sustainable, and long-lasting way - it's about stroking the tourist's ego and conscience.