Close it up, call it a day, whatever term of art tickles your fancy. Yes, the Metropolitan Opera's 2021-2022 season - a difficult one, indeed, for the company and its roster of artisans - finally ended back in early June.
It seems like a million years ago, doesn't it, that the pandemic forced the Met Opera, and practically all other opera houses and theaters in the US and the world, to shut their doors and close up shop. Hoping against hope they could keep the COVID-19 monster at bay, opera houses fell silent for a while - a long while, that is; two or more years in fact - in quiet contemplation and almost total isolation.
While everyone else worried over the fate of their loved ones, fans of the world's most expensive theatrical art form found themselves huddled around their Ultra-HD TV sets. Wondering, waiting, hoping for a sign of life. A miracle of some sort.
Not to poo-poo the issue, exaggeration is a key element in trying to understand how and where opera can realign itself with our present-day realty. Or try to fit into a changing and ever-evolving music world.
Yes, pandemics have a way of forcing people to look at the world through different glasses. Windows of opportunity still exist, of course, and can appear without notice or prior warning. This can be both good and bad. One must take up the challenge and innovate, innovate, innovate to our heart's content.
How does all this help opera along an utterly unpredictable path? Good point! I've often embraced the theory that to know where you are going, you must know where you have gone. You must look back at the past before you can plan ahead for the future. Try to see where things were before venturing out into the unknown. Then, and only then, can you see where you are.
Where does all that leave the present? That's another good point. As the Beach Boys once warbled (I'm paraphrasing here), God only knows what we'd be without opera. Or without movies, or theater, or Broadway musicals.
For that matter, where would we be without our jobs? Our careers on hold? Our wages frozen? The possibilities for advancement closed for the duration? By contrast, rising fuel prices, food shortages and supply chain issues, along with new COVID variants, viruses and more viruses, protective gear, changing mask mandates, school shootings, out of control gun violence, all of the above and more have upset the status quo. No kidding?
In addition, the balance of nature has been upset. What do we do about rising carbon-fuel emissions? Stunning and sudden climate changes? Melting icebergs, collapsing glaciers? Intense heat waves? Unremitting weather fluctuations? A disaster waiting to happen and around every corner?
With all these in mind, the question remains: why bother with opera at all? Why pay attention to classical music, its close cousin? Or to rock, to pop, to hip-hop, to rap? To folk music, to ballet, to classic films, to musical theater? Better to ask: Why pay attention to anything at all, period? And why bother with the world at large?
Because they matter. They matter to us, as caring human beings. They matter to our families. Think of one's family. The individual members of your expended family. Your spouse, your significant other. Your children, their children, your brothers and your sisters. Your cousins, second cousins, and their children. Your friends, their friends, their families, their siblings. Our relations with our neighbors. And their extended relations.
You get the drift. They all matter, in one form or another. That's why we care. That's why we mourn. That's why we hope. And we pray. For better things to come our way. For a better world, too. Life is not just angry politics, nor is it comprised of irreconcilable differences. There's no good without the bad, and no bad without the good.
Life is struggle, life is hard, life is for living. To ignore the good things that life can offer is to ignore the living part. It was Leo Tolstoy - the novelist, the thinker, the humanist - who said that life is the day to day living of it.
So let's start living it, okay? Day to day, moment by moment, second by second. Enjoy your music, enjoy your movies, enjoy each other's company. See your favorite show. Watch, hear, listen, learn, and finally love.
Gone on: Live it up! You'll be glad you did.
Copyright © 2022 by Josmar F. Lopes
