Have you seen the posters, photos and images accompanying the program of the WA Opera season 2013? The "Year of the Divo" is the counterpart to this year's "Year of the Diva", and will showcase operas in which male characters are the protagonist.
If you check the program and photos of this year's season and the ones of the coming season, you will certainly notice a few things:
* The photos are gorgeous. The sort of photo you find in Vogue or Harpers Bazaar with beautiful models, awesome make-up, hairdos, accessories, apparel and backgrounds.
* Each photo has a person representing the main character of any of the coming operas. This year's program has gorgeous women in expressive photos, and next one has gorgeous men.
* The person photographed for each opera is not the leading singer, but a model.
* The models and photos of this year have men in sexy and erotic poses showing a bit of flesh.
First reaction - Wow, what a hunky.
Second reaction - What what what?!
1 - I do love photos of gorgeous men lightly dressed, even naked :O if aesthetically done, but this is not a fashion or photographic magazine. I hate the objectification of women in Society; should I have a double standard regarding the objectification of men? If it is correct to showcase men in erotic attitudes and slightly dressed for an Opera program, why not doing the same with women? If that was happening there would be much more media attention and social discontent, that is for sure.
2 - If the program and main posters is/are about promoting and attracting public to the Opera, why does the WA Opera need to photograph pretty people whose only talent is being pretty, while those hyper-talented performers are not in the poster? Are they deformed? Are they super-ugly? Are they obese? Some of them are photographed in the inner pages of the program, that is great, but not in the posters that will be reproduced everywhere.
3- I doubt that the general public -those who are not Opera aficionados or hardcore fans- will feel more tempted to go to the Opera after seeing these posters. I won't. If the singer and the hunky were the same person, the answer might be different.
4- If the Opera season is not bringing much people to the theatres, and the WA Opera wants to attract more, why not asking themselves those basic common questions that might help to attract more people. Questions like:
- Are the prices high in general? Are the prices too expensive for students, families and pensioners? Are the season subscriptions too expensive?
- Are the showing times convenient and attractive to different groups of people?
- Is the program attractive enough in general?
- Are the individual operas attractive enough?
- Are the operas' stage design, wardrobe, lighting and ambience cool enough?
- Is His Majesty's Theatre a good place to represent the specific operas chosen?
- Do the specific operas showcase themes and stories that connect with the modern spectator?
***
I do love Opera, without me being an expert or connoisseur. I attended several shows last year and even more the previous years. I enjoy the dressing up, His Majesty's and the shows. I have always found myself wowed by the talent of the musicians of the WASO, which plays in most shows. Sometimes, I find myself moved by the singing qualities and performance of the night. I always leave the theatre thinking how fortunate I am to attend, live, a show in which the players needed of years of study, practice, many different skills, plus an unbelievable innate talent to do just that. They should be in the poster photos, dressed in those gorgeous outfits they use to perform in. After all, they are the ones that will bring the public to the Opera, and make you want to return, not pretty boys and girls. Their voices and talent, not their pretty faces or gorgeous bodies.Still, I understand why Opera is not attracting young people, why many old people snooze soundly while attending -yes, they do!-, and why I, myself, feel sometimes emotionally disconnected from what I am watching and listening to. A reason why I haven't gone to the Opera this year.
I do value the classics and enjoy classic operas and some of their arias and stories, but most classic operas do not speak to modern sensibilities, or my sensibility, beyond the artistic quality of the show as a whole. Sometimes, the scripts are sexist or simplistic, some others are a reflection of the issues, themes, characters, places, ways of living and fashion that were in vogue at the time the opera was written. In fact, those operas were super-cool, the last big thing, at the time - avant-garde or contemporary.
However, we are not living in the 17th, 18th or 19th century. Our time knows the wonders of experimental and mainstream cinema and theatre, musical theatre and cabaret, TV soap operas, music bands, and much more. Thus, a simple opera needs more than good music, good lyrics, and good performers to move us - to connect. Pretty posters with contemporary fashion-style photos won't turn a program based on old classics into a contemporary thing, simply because the program is not contemporary. Oxymoron!
I think the WA Opera needs of better pricing to attract people with not many means, needs of more shows, more showing times; most importantly, it needs to reinvent itself and start offering operas that, despite not being so popular or known -the favourites- have a more contemporary feeling, modern stage and wardrobe design, and stories that are closer to the world, feelings, worries, and issues of the citizens of the 21st century.
I am not saying that old classic operas are invalid or that do not have universal themes. Some of them are and have. I am saying that the WA Opera, and Opera venues and companies in general, need to think out of the square, think more about the present and the future and less about the past. That would be super-cool. Cooler than investing in a marketing campaign that showcases the beauty of the models and of the photos, instead of the incredible talent of the persons who are behind the music, voices and theatre of the WA Opera as a whole.
