If the New York Metropolitan Opera Closed, would you care?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Financial woes.

 

The high costs of production is killing music-theatre in America.  Between rapacious stage unions and musicians who have feather-bed deals, and an apathetic public who are more interested in the latest rap, the greatest art form ever created is going to go the way of the dodo.

 

How many of us have ever been to a live opera performance?

 

I, for one, have been to dozens.  Unfortunately none of them at the Met, which is not even in my country.  I've been to performances in gymnasiums, high-school auditoriums, and theatres all over the places where I lived at various times.  Alas, I have never set foot in the new house, the Four Seasons Centre, in Toronto since it opened after I left the city.

 

Opera is the most complete form of entertainment anyone can ever attend in person.  Music, comedy, drama, the whole nine yards. 

 

And you are darned right it is expensive.  A full symphony orchestra, usually a specialized theatre tuned most delicately for sound, performers who have trained to age 30 or more before the voice is really ready, super conductors who can handle the orchestra, the performers and the chorus all at once, an enormous staff, and an army of stage hands and electricians.  You wonder why tickets are often more that a hundred dollars a pop?  All this has to be paid for, even after government grants, if any, and any philanthropic organizations that might have dropped a million or two on them, plus any TV rights, again if any.

 

Who, besides me, has seen Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème (Puccini).  Life in a Paris garret, complete with death by consumption.  A great opera worth a whole box of Kleenex.  I think I've seen this one live a couple of times and every time I notice I can catch it on TV. 

 

Sitting in your living room with munchies isn't quite the same as sitting in a darkened theatre.  The bar at intermission is usually better for one thing.

 

Oh, and there are modern operas too.  I'll bet most of us have seen West Side Story.  And what about South Pacific?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I have been to a few school performances, Wicked, and La Bohème. I ordered them from least entertaining to most. I don't live anywhere new NYC so unless the New York Metropolitan Opera sold DVD's (in which case, they don't need as many performances anyway), it won't affect me ever.

 

--Ocram

[Easy Bakes 253]

I'm quite sure the politicos will not let that happen.

a few fund raisers with the  richy rich crowd that cant let their other rich friends donate less then them to support the arts and you can raise quite a bit of money.

 

This is probably part of the over all problem

 

"We're trying. As long as governments are not interested in arts education, I think we are in a Catch-22 situation.

"How can we possibly hope to create new audiences for this art form if we are not introducing them or educating them?"

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I have been to a few school performances, Wicked, and La Bohème. I ordered them from least entertaining to most. I don't live anywhere new NYC so unless the New York Metropolitan Opera sold DVD's (in which case, they don't need as many performances anyway), it won't affect me ever.

 

--Ocram

There are lots of DVDs.  Try the Met web site.

 

Be warned, opera is an acquired taste. 

I'd suggest starting with something fairly easy like Amahl and the Night Visitors by J. Menotti. 

Then the old, but excellent, war horse of all war horses, Carmen by Georges Bizet.  And for contrast, the update called Carmen Jones starring Harry Belafonte.

If you can find it, you could try the full formal version of West Side Story.

 

After that, I'd suggest taking a college course in music appreciation with a title something like "Keyboard Literature and Vocal Music from the 17th Century to the Present".  If you are not hooked by the end of the course, I'll be surprised.  You might even get to like baroque opera, even Monteverdi.  I am sure you would like Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

 

If you really get hooked, you'll want to see Beethoven's only opera -- Fidelio.  He wrote it to prove he could.  It has everything from Mozart to Wagner in two acts.

 

And speaking of Wagner, the entry there is The Flying Dutchman (Der Flegende Hollander).  Starts out pretty easily, but goes all the way into the ideas of music-drama in the manner of full blown Wagner.

 

And if you want to go to the quintessential Verdi opera, go see Nabucco.  One of the songs in that opera very nearly became the Italian national anthem but Verdi wouldn't allow it.  (Va Pensiero).

 

You also need to be able distinguish between a musical show and an opera.  Operas tend to be very emotional or sometimes very funny.  Musical shows tend to be reviews.  Operas have plot and although the story may be trivial, the music isn't.  This is why West Side Story can be either a Broadway performance or a Met performance and still be an opera.

 

If you like Lennie Bernstein's music, you should try an see a performance of Candide.  The heroine gets raped by the entire Hungarian Army, but still believes that everything that happens is for the best.

 

Don't be shy.  In big cities like San Francisco and L.A., for example, there are often rush seats available for opera performances for no more than you'd pay for a night out that the movies.  Both have outstanding opera companies as do many other cities around the continent.  For most performances dress is very optional except for the dress circle.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I have seen parts of Carmen, West Side Story and Rent but I really want to see them all the way through. I want to see more Pucini operas. I have been recommended to see Giselle, but it is not an opera (but it is a far better ballet than the boring things I have to see with my family [swan Lake and Nutcracker]).

 

About Wagner, I don't care for his stuff. I have heard beautiful, soft and melodious songs in German, Wagner never made anything close to that. Also, I don't like the themes of his operas.

 

Now that I know that the NYC Metropolitan Opera sells DVD's I will try to support it by buying said DVD's.

 

--Ocram

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

No big loss. I don't mind the occasional opera in songs -- Miss Sarajevo by U2 comes to mind -- but to listen to a whole concert of it would drive me crazy!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, your taste in Wagner is rather unrefined.  If you are thinking only of the Ring cycle or one of the helden tenor operas you have a point, but go see Lohengrin sometime.  (The famous wedding march is in it.)  Spare yourself and give Parsifal a miss.  S-n-o-r-e!  Some people actually like it.  Runs for about six hours.

 

If you like good German sing-spiel opera try Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber (1821).  It's a melodrama complete with hero (played by Sterling Quality), innocent heroine (played by Nellie Neverheenhad) and a rather nasty villain (Played by Oilcan Harry).  Other stuff by Weber includes Oberon, which is long before the Mendelssohn treatment (Midsummer Night's Dream).

 

If you like ballet, try and see some French Operas.  There is usually a ballet in the second act.  Some operas have optional insertions of ballets to please the 19th century French opera audiences.  I can think of a couple of famous ones in Verdi: one in Aida, and one in Otello.

 

And, of course, there are American composers like Bernstein, Copeland, Menotti and others.  Many modern operas are performed in English.  Cabaret, for example, which is really a sing-spiel by Kurt Weill.  And the great composers of the 1940s, Gershwin, Kern, and the others.  A lot of those Broadway shows were more than just stage extravaganzas.  South Pacific, of course, but don't overlook Oklahoma!, Carousel, and the perennial Gypsy.

 

 

No big loss. I don't mind the occasional opera in songs -- Miss Sarajevo by U2 comes to mind -- but to listen to a whole concert of it would drive me crazy!

 

And have you ever really gone to a performance of a real opera, lad?  How about Les Miserables?

 

I've seen it on stage three times.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

No big loss. I don't mind the occasional opera in songs -- Miss Sarajevo by U2 comes to mind -- but to listen to a whole concert of it would drive me crazy!

 

And have you ever really gone to a performance of a real opera, lad?  How about Les Miserables?

 

I've seen it on stage three times.

 

No I haven't and I don't intend to. It's a form of music I have never gotten into and I listen to all sorts: heavy metal, skate rock, reggae, rock 'n' roll, blues, techno, modern classical, electronic, progressive rock, southern rock, Arabian pop, gospel, hip hop, rap, dance rock, ambient, jazz, fusion, folk.

 

The only opera I like is in small doses, primarily during films- not musicals though. There is that scene in The Fifth Element with that blue-skinned female alien opera singer and it is an absolute stand-out. But if I had to listen to more of the same for another hour or ninety minutes, it would get boring pretty quick for me!

[Tarkus 6,933]

The Met is one of the biggest names in the classical music scene worldwide, and certainly one of the most prestigious here in the US.  Suffice to say, losing it would be a pretty substantial blow.  A lot of fairly established opera companies, symphony orchestras, and ballets have gone belly up in the past 5 years, but the Met going under would take the cake.  I'm not a huge opera buff by any stretch--much more of a symphonic guy (though I second Nonny's recommendation of Der Freischütz)--but the significance of that ship sinking is immense.

 

The current state of the classical scene is something that hits pretty close to home for me.  Outside of the SC4 world, I'm a composer (and fledgeling music professor), having just finished my PhD in music composition and theory this past year.  I'm also a cellist.  From the inside, I can tell you there's really a lot of dissenting views as to what is happening with classical music.  There's been quite a few notable voices who have argued that it's dying, or, is in fact already dead, for a number of different reasons-- inadequate funding (esp. governmental assistance), choice of repertoire (too much Beethoven/not enough Beethoven/that Schoenberg and his twelve-tone system), lack of education, concert etiquette that is seen as "arcane", etc.  Others still have made the argument that everything is just peachy, that classical music can't die and that it's just undergoing a metamorphosis, the result of which hasn't fully taken shape yet.  Then, of course, there's the simple economic argument, that the oddities of the US economy over the past few years made the existing, established organizations financially unsustainable.

 

I think there's some facet of truth involved in most of those hypotheses, and it's created a perfect storm.  There's an ideological/economical battle of sorts going on right now in the classical community, about the purposes and aims of classical music institutions, namely with the idea of whether or not these organizations are supposed to be run like businesses, and if business has any place in "art".  The particular part of the field that I deal with--contemporary music--is even more of a battleground, especially when the academic side gets involved.  (Try counting how many times the word "neoliberal" shows up in most recent New Music Box articles and the following comments section.) 

 

Quite naturally, as a practitioner in all this, with a vested interest from an odd angle, I have my own views/biases about it.  There's actually a bit of a skewed view of music history that I find counterproductive, namely the supposed "tonal/atonal" dichotomy, which plays into the repertoire angle.  The old guard view is that people go to the concerts to see standard repertoire for the umpteenth time (for the opera side, that'd be your Verdi, Mozart, Rossini, Wagner, etc., and on the symphonic/instrumental side, Beethoven, Mozart (again), Brahms, Schumann, etc.) and that anything written after 1900 sounds like a lawnmower running over a squirrel.  While they will occasionally pull out post-1900 stuff that'll pleasantly surprise and excite people (1900 is considered "modern" in the classical establishment, BTW), like Stravinsky or Holst, which actually falls in the excluded middle between "tonal" and "atonal", they'll often pull out the thorniest, most all caps "ATONAL" thing possible (think hardcore serialism or spectralism) as an exemplar of "new" music.  This just reinforces the squirrel and lawnmower, even though a lot of post-1900 music is in the same realm as Stravinsky and Holst, and programming it would, IMHO, help their problems.  I'm a little biased, as I write in this vein myself, but if you look at the success of rock groups like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer in the 1970s, who recorded arranged "cover versions" of late 19th/early 20th century classical pieces on their albums (see "The Barbarian" off their debut, which is actually an arrangement of Bartok's Allegro barbaro), I think that's rather telling.

 

When more "business-y" types get their mitts on executive power of one of these organizations, they'll follow the old guard's conventional wisdom, dig their heels further into the 18th and 19th centuries, especially as some of those pieces can be done less expensively (you can do Mozart's 40th Symphony with 40 players, but you need 100 to do The Rite of Spring), leading to no improvement in the state of affairs, and further down the road, to salary cuts, then lockouts and shutdowns.  The latest little stunt on this front is the Hartford Wagner Festival's decision to use a canned, digital orchestra for their production of "Das Rheingold".  Wagner karaoke, if you will.

 

If groups like the Met and the Detroit Symphony continue to implode from this sort of thing, it'll certainly create a vacuum.  There are some folks who are trying new tactics--crowd-funding and the like, bypassing the old guard (a good friend of mine from grad school is actually having considerable success putting together a production of his opera this way).  The folks who consider classical music to be in metamorphosis usually cite developments like that as evidence that it's not dead.  I don't think it is dead, but it's fallen into the category of being a "niche" at present.

 

I've probably gotten a bit rambly, but hopefully, that provides a different angle.

 

-Tarkus

[elavery 1,013]

Being a professional classical musician I am obviously concerned about the future of the profession. I used to go to the Met a bit when I was studying at Juilliard which is next door. I doubt the Met will actually close, although NY did lose its other opera company NY City Opera a couple of years ago which was a huge loss. 

 

The Met has the great initiative of showing its productions in movie theatres around the world, helping to expose more people to opera. Unfortunately it is also this initiative that is loosing them big bucks.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Tarkus, elavery, and I are probably the grand triumvirate of classical music so far.  Frankly, I am getting pretty sick of the 18th and 19th century stuff, but will support it with my dying breath.  I used to be in love with Puccini, but that kind of infatuation wears off after a while.  I like early music of the 16th and 17th century.  You could say I sort of go for Baroque.  I used to do a lot of vocal work for fun, mostly choral but I have trod the boards in some G&S when I was in high-school.

 

Much of the good work done in the 20th century was for the Broadway stage.  That didn't stop some tin pan alley people from composing operas anyway and presenting them in disguise so they could sell tickets.  The stuff produced in the 1930-1950 era was a mix of reviews and musical plays.  (Opera is often defined as music-drama). 

 

Puccini was 20th century mostly.  Madam Butterfly was based on a 1906 stage play by David Belasco, as we know.  I don't know how many times I've seen it, but it busts me up every time without fail.  If some company has the stomach for it, Puccini's triptych is well worth watching.  Three one-act operas back to back to back: Gianni Schicchi; Suor Angelica, and Il Tabaro -- and evening of grand guignol -- a comedy, a tragedy, and a horror.

 

I also like most of the atonal and 12-tone stuff done by Berg, Weill, and the others.  In fact, I think I've never heard an opera I didn't like, but there were some I'd rather not see again.  Wozzeck is surely one of them.

 

I have fairly eclectic taste when it comes to music in general, but what I am hearing from contemporary popular stuff these days is a white noise.  Music has lost its direction, and needs a restart.  The last time this happened was with Mendelssohn when he brought J.S. Bach out of the closet and made him more accessible to the general public.  Maybe this time the flash back will be to big bands and away from three men in a garage with god-awful amplifiers.  It might even reach further back.

 

My generation is dying out.  I hope the future won't be left with the current cacophony.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

It's not quite so bad. Modern classical is still lingering on. I love John Adams and Philip Glass' compositions. In particular John Adams Common Tones In Simple Time and the soundtrack Philip Glass scored for Koyaanisqatsi are absolute standouts and are only thirty or forty years old.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH2yfw-UkI0  --> Common Tones in Simple Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp5gxR7D_tw  --> Prophecies from the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack

 

 

Of course I love it when progressive rocks briefly merges with symphony orchestras. Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother comes to mind as well as the more recent symphonic version of Yes' Gates of Delirium.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRJzdKUho0  --> Atom Heart Mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhg9R2MG5lo --> Gates of Delirium (symphonic)

 

Good music is still around and the greatest has all been recorded on CDs and even the obscure greats can be found in the depths of Youtube and other video-sharing sites. Problem is today most music has been butchered and rendered to the lowest common denominator because many people's attention spans are so small. The good old oldies are dying out and whatever is both good and new becomes more and more obscure. While it is rare to find anything mainstream which is truly great.

 

The way I see it the current state of music is akin to that of a large ocean of pig swill where many pearls are hidden deep down in the muck. The demise of classical is just one part of a larger problem. But it won't totally die out and as long as recordings exist it will remain immortal. Besides headphones and speakers are becoming so good they can almost replicate the concert experience. Even better, when songs are tuned properly to 432hz you can hear them literally inside of your head with high-quality headphones. I only recently discovered this but it's a whole new experience!

 

Yeah we're definitely in the musical dark ages, but since there are many connoisseurs of good taste out there, high-quality music will not be totally forgotten about. 

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I cannot stand atonal music and I am easily bored by monophonic classical music. I also did not enjoy the symphony on post-modernism (when I had a student discount for the Seattle Symphony) as much as some others but it was OK.

 

By the way, when I want to weird people out about "modern classical" music I play this "masterpiece" by Igor Stravinski:

 

 

I find that music bizarre. I would love to see some operas by Verdi but sadly I am rather poor right now, being supported by my family while going through community college. I don't know how I will be able to go to University without scholarships.

 

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Ocram, doesn't your college have a music library?  All of mine did.  The snazzier the university, the more likely to have a faculty of music and the associated library.  Students get free use of listening booths.

 

As far as scholarships are concerned, you know full well how to achieve them.  Work hard, get a 4 point average, and keep it going.  And try to do something in your chosen field before you get to university.  It isn't only athletes that get scholarships.  In my day, there used to be bursaries for students who were considered deserving but too impoverished to attend.  These often paid tuition only and left living expenses to the student which usually meant a part-time job while studying.

 

One tends to value education more if you had to work outside academia (or even inside as an R.A. or a T.A.) in order to keep body and soul together while at school.  R.A. or T.A. appointments usually go to bright kids in the third or fourth year of an honours program.

 

Back to the main topic:

 

Most opera houses are much smaller than the Met's auditorium.  Most are around 2,000 seats or less.  The Met holds more than 3,000.  Maybe it is time for some serious fund raising and a move to a smaller house.  The new house at Toronto has 2,000 seats and is modelled after the Vienna Statsoper to a certain degree.  A smaller house is easier to sell, and can sometimes be sold more often.

 

You still need room for a 150 piece orchestra, and a decent sized stage with lots of amenities.  One thing I've never seen in a opera house is an apron stage like the Stratford Festival.  I wonder how it would work for a piece like I Pagliacci?  Many operas are quite intimate in many ways.  Of course, a glaring exception is Aida, but even then there are some really intimate scenes once you get past the spectacles.

 

Some people say they don't have the attention span for opera.  It is a matter of experience and knowing what you are going to see.  Everyone should know the story before seeing the show.  Being able to follow along as with the Canadian Opera's use of surtitles (on the proscenium) makes the whole performance more enjoyable.

 

For people who like music parody, I recommend Anna Russel's 20-minute Ring of the Neibelungen.  It helps if you have seen the whole ring cycle.  Ms. Russel's performance is a hoot.

[Duke87 1,070]

It's not quite so bad. Modern classical is still lingering on. I love John Adams and Philip Glass' compositions. In particular John Adams Common Tones In Simple Time and the soundtrack Philip Glass scored for Koyaanisqatsi are absolute standouts and are only thirty or forty years old.

 

This, I think, underscores part of the problem here. The "classical" music of the 18th and 19th centuries is at this point so far removed from the modern world that most people don't "get it". It doesn't attract new audiences because it is simply too dated. And why should it? The growth and development of an art from is never helped by keeping it stuck in the past. Stuff like Mozart and Beethoven puts me to sleep, it isn't "entertainment".

 

On the other hand, Koyaanisqatsi is an amazing work of art with an epic soundtrack. And there are plenty of other modern symphonic soundtracks out there that are great works of art. Look at John Williams' compositions for Star Wars, or hell, look at the soundtracks to SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4.

 

Symphonic music is alive and well, but it is reaching audiences in different ways. Yes, opera is a dying medium (and no, I won't miss it one bit), but the type of music involved lives on in media which are more relevant to the modern world (movies, video games, etc.), and in pieces of music which are more relevant to the modern world (see above).

 

 

Of course, perhaps there is also a question of perceptional bias. The "respectable" and "high class" image of opera certainly contributes to keeping me uninterested since such things are not at all befitting of my more vulgar and down to earth personality. I would not get along well in a group of (stereo)typical opera fans.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Pity.

 

Those who denigrate the roots of their culture become uncultured at a quick rate.  However, I do agree that the Classical and Romantic periods of music have outlived their current usefulness, much as the works of J.S. Bach had run their course until revived in the 1900s.  Mush of this repertoire will soon become the purview of scholars and musicians only while the popular taste tries to go forward.

 

The rate of decay is accelerating, probably due to the promotion of the short attention span due to the electronic revolution.  When was the last time you heard a tune from the 1940s?  1980s (Star Wars main theme for example).  It is all being blotted out by the white noise of the current sensation which lasts less than three months.  At this accelerated rate of passing, not much composed and played in the current decade will survive into the next.  Anyone heard any good, singable tunes lately that stuck to you?

[Larks2242 251]

People still go to these things, I didn't realize it was popular?

 

I think its also the generation gap, we have movies and video games now, usually the problems with these kind of things are that older people who would be the core target demographics arn't able to attend due to medical or health or that they are no longer around, which means that the base is shrinking and leading to less income, its the same for most older type things.

 

Kinda the same reason old music is not as popular and the market for things change as well as popularity, Its pretty natural change nothing remains the same forever.

 

Although surprisingly people still talk about the beatles, makes me wonder if when we all get old are people going to continue talking about Justin Beiber? They seem to have the same popularity, seems every generation has their super group, beatles, N-sync, backstreet boys, N.W.A, Aaron Carter, Justin Beiber.

 

Side question is this where the New York Mets get their name? I've never heard the word met outside baseball, aside from the word "meeting".

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Of course, perhaps there is also a question of perceptional bias. The "respectable" and "high class" image of opera certainly contributes to keeping me uninterested since such things are not at all befitting of my more vulgar and down to earth personality. I would not get along well in a group of (stereo)typical opera fans.

The funny thing is that my personality is somewhere between crude and refined and I have the ability to feel comfortable acting and talking crude while also being able to "put on airs" the next evening by going to an Opera or gourmet dinner with wealthy family members. Some people I know are stuck in one form of behavior or another. Some of my wealthier (extended/distant) family members are appalled every time my sister visits because I believe she is incapable of going an hour without swearing and usually insults me in some way that offends the audience (my family members) than the target (me). All the while, I enjoy myself by making myself look better while cleverly making sly and snide "rebuttals" to everything my sister slings.

I would describe my personality as clever, epicurean (hedonist with fine taste), jovial (I love a good laugh) yet cynical with dry humor. When in polite company I can act polite, respectful, and nice but I love a good laugh. Most people who know me solely from college and similar settings think that I am a boring, nice, polite, and intelligent man. Last week I told them, "I am a happy and nice guy who is usually rather polite but I can make snarky jokes as well, which means some people don't always get them."

Back on the topic at hand: I will be sure to purchase some DVD's of some of the Met's operas that I think I will like.

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

People still go to these things, I didn't realize it was popular?

 

I think its also the generation gap, we have movies and video games now, usually the problems with these kind of things are that older people who would be the core target demographics arn't able to attend due to medical or health or that they are no longer around, which means that the base is shrinking and leading to less income, its the same for most older type things.

 

Kinda the same reason old music is not as popular and the market for things change as well as popularity, Its pretty natural change nothing remains the same forever.

 

Although surprisingly people still talk about the beatles, makes me wonder if when we all get old are people going to continue talking about Justin Beiber? They seem to have the same popularity, seems every generation has their super group, beatles, N-sync, backstreet boys, N.W.A, Aaron Carter, Justin Beiber.

That's two mentions of Justin Beiber in one post.  For this you should be ashamed to mention that brat, doubly so.

[Larks2242 251]

 

People still go to these things, I didn't realize it was popular?

 

I think its also the generation gap, we have movies and video games now, usually the problems with these kind of things are that older people who would be the core target demographics arn't able to attend due to medical or health or that they are no longer around, which means that the base is shrinking and leading to less income, its the same for most older type things.

 

Kinda the same reason old music is not as popular and the market for things change as well as popularity, Its pretty natural change nothing remains the same forever.

 

Although surprisingly people still talk about the beatles, makes me wonder if when we all get old are people going to continue talking about Justin Beiber? They seem to have the same popularity, seems every generation has their super group, beatles, N-sync, backstreet boys, N.W.A, Aaron Carter, Justin Beiber.

That's two mentions of Justin Beiber in one post.  For this you should be ashamed to mention that brat, doubly so.

 

 

I for one am not a fan of his but one cannot just disregard that he carries the same weight as hype as if it were the 1950s., If time was switched I'm sure I'd be hearing how awesome he was back then instead, girls always seem drawn to overrated pop bands and mass marketed people for some reason.

[CapTon 592]

I am not a particular fan of orchestras and whatnot, but that doesn't mean I enjoy Miley Cyrus and Jason Derulo they just never catch my attention and get me interested. It's as simple as that.

[Duke87 1,070]

Side question is this where the New York Mets get their name? I've never heard the word met outside baseball, aside from the word "meeting".

 

No. There were several teams in the 19th century that went by the name "New York Metropolitans", most notably this one. The name of the modern New York Mets MLB team is an homage to them.

 

But yes, "Met" is short for "Metropolitan", and this colloquial shortening is used in several contexts outside of baseball. The Metropolitan Opera House is often known as "The Met Opera" (as has been hinted at here), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is frequently known simply as "The Met".

[Tarkus 6,933]

 

 

People still go to these things, I didn't realize it was popular?

 

I think its also the generation gap, we have movies and video games now, usually the problems with these kind of things are that older people who would be the core target demographics arn't able to attend due to medical or health or that they are no longer around, which means that the base is shrinking and leading to less income, its the same for most older type things.

 

Kinda the same reason old music is not as popular and the market for things change as well as popularity, Its pretty natural change nothing remains the same forever.

 

Although surprisingly people still talk about the beatles, makes me wonder if when we all get old are people going to continue talking about Justin Beiber? They seem to have the same popularity, seems every generation has their super group, beatles, N-sync, backstreet boys, N.W.A, Aaron Carter, Justin Beiber.

That's two mentions of Justin Beiber in one post.  For this you should be ashamed to mention that brat, doubly so.

 

 

I for one am not a fan of his but one cannot just disregard that he carries the same weight as hype as if it were the 1950s., If time was switched I'm sure I'd be hearing how awesome he was back then instead, girls always seem drawn to overrated pop bands and mass marketed people for some reason.

 

 

The Beatles are in a different echelon than the rest, as they had a wider appeal than teenage girls.  I'd say Justin Timberlake's work will survive as well--'N Sync will simply be a footnote. The only thing Bieber will be known for in 5 years is mugshots.  The sooner he becomes irrelevant to popular culture, the better. 

 

There is actually some good "popular" music out there still, which actually satisfies my penchant for harmonic intrigue, but it tends to fall more into the "indie" category now--I'd cite Tame Impala and Temples as good examples.  This kind of stuff doesn't get the mainstream attention that the Beatles or Pink Floyd used to get, but that field is arguably fairing better than the classical side at present.  That said, there are some newer composers and ensembles on the classical side, particularly in NYC, that have managed to hook into that side of things, under the guise of "indie" or "alt.classical", however--Nico Muhly and Caroline Shaw (who I've met) are good examples.

 

I find it interesting with some of the responses here, that while the old guard "masterworks" of Beethoven and friends are sleep-inducing, composers like John Adams, Philip Glass, and John Williams (the latter two are quite active on the film side of things), seem to have the exact opposite effect.  I think that programming more in that direction would reinvigorate the scene quite a bit.  The various orchestral arrangements of video game music out there have brought in substantial attendance as well (just wish the arrangements they did at those concerts weren't quite so saccharine, as the work of Koji Kondo and Kenji Yamamoto of Nintendo really inspired me to become a composer). 

 

I believe there is good, newer, more relevant music out there that would attract the audience, but the established organizations are a bit too sold on the 18th/19th c. museum shtick.  One would need quite a bit of funding to pull off a new endeavor, as the really exciting newer orchestral music requires a larger group, but I think that once the need is established, it'd improve the lot of the classical world as a whole.  Having a Mad Men-style TV series about a music conservatory wouldn't hurt, either.

 

Oh, and Ocram, appears like you're looking at late, twelve-tone system-using Stravinsky (1966), which is definitely a bit . . . of an acquired taste.  You may find his earlier works, like Petrouchka (1911) much more envigorating.  Had the chance to play this piece myself 12 years ago . . . most fun I've ever had in an orchestra.

 

 

-Tarkus

[Larks2242 251]

 

There is actually some good "popular" music out there still, which actually satisfies my penchant for harmonic intrigue, but it tends to fall more into the "indie" category 

-Tarkus

 

 

 

 

"Good" is purely subjective though, I can just as easily point to Snowgoons, Tha Jacka and 40 Glocc and say they are good, clearly not everyone understands street music and how relevant  and important it is to our society as I do but that is a whole different topic for another day.

[Tarkus 6,933]

 

There is actually some good "popular" music out there still, which actually satisfies my penchant for harmonic intrigue, but it tends to fall more into the "indie" category 

-Tarkus

 

 

 

 

"Good" is purely subjective though, I can just as easily point to Snowgoons, Tha Jacka and 40 Glocc and say they are good, clearly not everyone understands street music and how relevant  and important it is to our society as I do but that is a whole different topic for another day.

 

 

Excellent point, Larks--it is absolutely a subjective measure, which definitely adds another layer of intrigue to it.

 

-Tarkus

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

All music is subjective in most senses.  Some music without words says things that cannot be expressed in other ways.  A good example is "The Lark Ascending".

 

Many people use music as a distractor these days to fill up their mind with noise so that they don't have to think.  It is a shame, especially considering the content of "pop" these days.

 

By the way, Tchaikovsky was the winner of the War of 1812.  He was really the only one who made anything much from it.

[Duke87 1,070]

By the way, Tchaikovsky was the winner of the War of 1812.  He was really the only one who made anything much from it.

 

Otherwise known as the music to which Looney Toons shoots off cannons.

 

 

This is perhaps the most culturally relevant use of classical music today. Certain pieces are iconic to certain contexts in old cartoons.

 

It's also an interesting shift in that field in general - in those days it was common to grab existing pieces of music and use them in cartoon shorts because you could. These days shows have their own unique music because anything public domain is too dated to be fitting and obtaining rights to/paying royalties for existing copyrighted music isn't worth the headache compared to just composing new stuff.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

When was the last time you heard the Liszt Preludes?  It was the main music for the Lone Ranger radio/TV shows in the 1950s.

 

There is lots of stuff in the public domain, and yet people go around composing new stuff to use for commercials.  Waste of time.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

snip

Yeah, Liszt was the best human pianist ever. I have heard some computer reproductions of his work and I must say that I am impressed! It is such a shame that I will never hear the works of Paganini, who was rumoured to have driven his audiences wild. Of course, Liszt was able to play those difficult violin recordings transposed for the piano and there exist several high quality programs that can reproduce piano (or pipe organ) music even more complex and difficult than even Liszt could have ever played.

I often times listen to non-vocal music to fill up my brain with noise because sometimes I don't want to think and sometimes I want to filter out some distressing thoughts (or reflections on negative memories) while studying. I usually study best with headphones on listening to Smooth Jazz, Classical, or Romantic/Classical (Beethoven) AKA soothing and/or boring music while writing down and speaking out my thought process for solving calculus problems of multiple dimensions or whatever I have to study at the moment (such as complicated chemical reactions). I can get away without music and even with distractions when studying more subjective things (like "Liberal Arts" electives) or qualitative things (like biology).

--Ocram

[LexusInfernus 908]

This, I think, underscores part of the problem here. The "classical" music of the 18th and 19th centuries is at this point so far removed from the modern world that most people don't "get it". It doesn't attract new audiences because it is simply too dated. And why should it? The growth and development of an art from is never helped by keeping it stuck in the past. Stuff like Mozart and Beethoven puts me to sleep, it isn't "entertainment".

 

That I think is not true. Sure, Mozart and Beethoven is not for everyone, but neither is Lady Gaga or Slipknot. No band or genre of music is for everyone. But even now there are people born who will hear Mozart or Beethoven and think its amazing. Because no matter what you might think, those songs still have catchy tunes, they still sound good and so people will return to it. Make no mistake, Mozart and Beethoven and all those other classical componists were essentially the pop musicians of their time, and if their music is still around after a few hundred years, I think its a safe bet to say that they will be around for another few hundred years. Music doesn't have to be connected to the modern world to still sound amazing. And in that sense, classical music has it perhaps a little easier, seeing how instrumental it often is, so people can imagine their own context. Songs with lyrics are more difficult to appreciate because of the lyrics and the context they provide for you. 

 

 

That said, I probably wouldn't want to see an Opera. I prefer my classical music from a CD, while I'm sitting in a comfortable chair and reading a book or something. Its something I want to enjoy by myself.