It is impossible to come up with rules for successful compositions. Much depends on how you define the  question of what is successful? One reason that comes to mind is that so many works are exceptions.

That a rule can be turned into an assessment that can be graded says more about rules than works of art.

  Words fail to describe music as they are always at a distance to the sounds themselves.

12 Problems of American Opera Composition.

 

12 Problems of American Opera Composition.

1. Not enough work is produced by Major institutions.  Maybe one a year?  We need at least 50-75 new major works a year, otherwise opera composition is a zero sum game. 

   Instead of all these stage directors rewriting the librettos of the standard rep, why not create a new opera?

    Exclusive commissioning of movie composers (famous, or at least well know) or instrumental composers inexperienced with a lyric form. (also pop stars).  

2. Underscoring is an instrumental form.

3. It does not matter that a work fails, the performance itself is the success.

   So, no way or reason to improve ones work or refine it.

4. Fear of non tonal music has lead to “place holding” compositions where the music is the least important part of the opera.

5. New music theater is not grand opera though we pretend it is, because its the only new activity out there.

6. “Straight” theater is decades ahead of new opera in content and context. Where else but in opera could inexperience be called avant-garde?

7. Too many cooks -that is producing institutions want to “mold” their creations and their composers.

8. Most America opera works are based on Verdi's Falstaff –his last work, or late Wagner which have no arias. So the result is through composed plays.

9. New Music theater is Broadwayish, and squarely in the “third and fourth (pop) stream.”

10. Cultural appropriation? A casual glance at operatic subjects show that cultural appropriation is still central to opera. As are stereotypes.

11. Sexism More women composers commissions please.

12. Oh, did I mention Racism? As for the many forms of racism one could point out; opportunity, pay, visibility, leadership, and content, one could note that Classical music seems hell bent on making itself and its composition tools irrelevant.

On ignorance

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."  Isaac Asimov 

An article in the NY Times  made me think of this.

How the Art world has co-opted the musical arts and the consequences thereof. 

 

You see in the visual arts "Training" is just another style.  In the music world skills such as performing or composing take a lifetime to learn.  In the visual arts said skills are just another style. That is to say at least in the art world "my ignorance is equal to your knowledge."  In previous posts  I pointed out how this "ignorance" is trumpeted as an "advance" and how that overlooks the fact that rigorous training in art is required, just not in music. As hypocritical as that is, we have to face the fact that museums are offering more and more concerts as they have become presenters and producers. The irony here is that traditional performance organizations have been disparaged as "Museums".   Yet in all cases institutions present their own version of orthodoxies and stay in their lanes.  Personally, I only found the performances of the AACM members of interest.

I am not sure how this will all play out. I am happy to see more work by artists of color and different genders.   Yet because performance is everything today my question is about the effect of artistically narrow "curated" *opportunities.  Who gets performed and why?  Does art create the artist or does the artist create the art?

*
Artistically narrow opportunities: refers to the following:
When Institutions offer commissions to the semi-famous rather than trained musicians.   For one example of many; when the MN Opera commissioned "Doubt" the composer said (I paraphrase) 

 

 How upsetting it must  be  for "real composers" that he got this opportunity" -overlooking that the opportunity was never available to a "real" composer.

 On the museum end it seems to be coolest thing at the moment or  any musical event that does not feature the music.

Marnie--I made 20 minutes

So the offset arpeggios create some interesting textures and as much as I found the intersection of motor rhythm and minimalism of interest--I hear Dumbarton Oaks a lot--the music fades to back or underscores its all story.  No songs, text forced into the musical line, unintelligible text in the faster sections--and mostly in the slow sections too but you can hear some but then you also hear the unfortunate accents on 2nd syllables; Moth-ER, Mar-NIE, etc.  Text repetition helps some.
Its beautifully done of course this is the MET-- but for the content of the music. The scenes have shape but the music neither helps nor delineates it. Since you can't understand the words its up to the underscoring to create some clarity. It does, but nothing in the music feels necessary or motivated. It meanders.

In the opera transatlantic the composer put the motor rhythms into everything including the vocal lines --this failed spectacularly and you would think that composers would learn the lesson. On the other hand the disconnect between the accompaniment and the vocal lines persists here.
And why a countertenor?

I also stand by my former comments.

fictional non fiction and cultural appropriation

The problem with; TV, Movies, and books is that they are all fictional non fiction--in some way based on fact.  That means that all these stories and plots are stuck in the grove of of creating simple and obvious understanding, That is, the need to be commercial.  So there is no moving on.  There is no obscurity only slice of life.  Cultural appropriation occurs as an attempt to mix things up without bending any rules of patterns of  necessity.  Everyone is stuck on the island.  The conventions of these entertainments, and I have to include fashion as well, build on their own private histories rather than the understanding of the world at  large.  This gives folks the cover to pretend that  they can describe other cultures that they have no knowledge.  Presenting without authenticity is the root of this, That is why it is common and will continue...

other odd thoughts

Tried to watch Avenging Angel.  That  lasted 5 minutes. See  --the film ends  when it is discovered that the main characters are on actually in a stage performance and as characters they can't leave the stage.  The film starts as if they are in the real world.  The opera starts on the stage completely ruining the effect.  Just like composing an opera about a singer who refuses sing yet sings constantly this creates a complete dramatic misfire.  Not to mention the screaming and yelling {sing high sing loud} rendering the text irrelevant. The music did not help
This work seems to be inline with those recent works that hark back to the one of the worst traditions of opera; praising the powers that be/were. 

I failed you Nico

Today I could not go to the Met simulcast of Nico Muhly's new opera.
After listening again to his Two Boys  the technical issues were to much for me--I knew I would walk out of the performance of Marnie. 

The vocal lines in Two Boys neither lead or follow and exist only as as heterophonic space to declame the text.  The story falls flat.

Two Boys has some first rate instrumental music but that too is a problem. I kept thinking the vocal parts should switch with the instrumental parts or at least be part of that instrumental texture.


It's not just because underscoring is an instrumental technique and opera is a lyric one,  but because his vocal models; that is Glass and Adams, have never had the same success telling traditional opera stories as with their Tableau.  A static tableau is not just different from a traditional operatic setting of, for example, a commercial mystery novel, but the audience expectation of the results is also different.   The expectation is grand opera. Also Glass and Adams are successful because of what they are not (serialists)-not because of what they are. Hating serial music is not enough anymore.

 I also wanted to go because of the reviews I read which I feel do a disservice to the composer-- faint praise and faint damnation as well. Even the usually reliable New Yorker found time to talk about many things other than Nico's music.

When you start at the top what inducement would their be to improve your technique? Obviously only those folks who can provide performances have opinions that matter.
I will catch this on the MET on line when It gets there.


 

Four Moments in MN Symphony 4, Mov 4 Philip Fried