Opera’s new NOISE
In the spring of 2020, amidst a global pandemic and in the wake of fresh outrage over the May 25th murder of George Floyd, something novel began to happen in Canada’s opera scene. For what really did feel like the first time, opera companies started listening to their artists.
There’s great irony here, no doubt. In a very specific sense, opera companies have always been listening to artists: auditioning singers and orchestral players; taking in concept presentations given by directors and their design teams. But of course, there’s something transactional in this type of ‘listening’: it’s about hunting down the next Norma, the budding Heldentenor, the latest chatter-worthy director bound to draw buzz and put bums in seats.
Yet now, while live shows are paused and auditions don’t make sense, select Canadian companies are trying out a new kind of listening, kicking off a movement that’s essential, overdue, and poised to foment revolution.
By the end of May, most of the country’s opera hubs were settling into the idea of trading their live seasons for digital content. Archival video clips from past productions, Zoom-composite ensemble performances, live streamed quarantine concerts produced on a shoestring budget, interviews with artists whose calendars were freshly cleared by a season’s worth of cancelled gigs—these were the offerings of our major arts organizations, even if they were a far cry from the thrill of a live show.
But when George Floyd was killed following nearly nine minutes of dehumanizing violence, the world seemed to snap together. Transformed into a focused horde of outrage over systemic racism, we came shamefully late to the full realization that this has been happening since long before we could record it with our phones. It was ‘The News Story’ in all of our feeds, as social media was dominated by black square after black square, and individuals and organizations deferred to the idea that this problem was more important than anything
