6 ms·

In 19-century Italy, opera was about as popular as pop music today. As an artist, you certainly can change (some of) the world if you do art which people care

by nine_k 2y ago

In 19-century Italy, opera was about as popular as pop music today. As an artist, you certainly can change (some of) the world if you do art which people care about. If you do refined academic portraits, or [adjectives expunged] postmodern art, only a bubble is going to care. If you do art like, say, Banksy, a lot more is going to care. If you sing in classical opera, only a narrow (but usually wealthy) circle of opera goers will care. If you sing like Taylor Swift or like Whitney Houston (who had a powerful, opera-worthy voice), you may have a much wider effect.

karmonhardan 2y ago
This isn't even necessarily true. High art is the basic research of culture. You'd be amazed at how many elements from your fave this-or-that are copped (often wholesale) from some obscure piece of media. Often, that reference lifts the latter out of obscurity, and everyone pretends that they knew it was groundbreaking and brilliant all along. "The favorite artist of your favorite artist," is a real concept. An example : Darren Aronofsky's now-famous cribbing of Satoshi Kon's work, back when anime was mostly thought of as, "Sex and violence, Pokemon, and Miyazaki (if you even knew of Miyazaki)." And even that's kind of the tip of the iceberg. Decades-old expressionist films, little-known performance and video art, paintings, music, fashion; unless you really know the landscape, how can you tell what is and isn't influencing culture down the line? How much of your experience in the world of 2024 was shaped by the proclivities of teenagers on IRC and 4chan in 2004, just trying to make each other laugh? [Insert that monologue from The Devil Wears Prada]
- nine_k 2y ago
  Thank you, that's a nice take! As J.L.Borges aptly noted, a serious artist produces not only successors but also predecessors. (Regarding Miyazaki, I could not miss an animator who was praised so highly by Kurosawa. I learned about the rest of anime later.) But my point was more narrow: however beautiful The Magic Flute or Barber of Ceville or even Carmen may be, they are sort of stuck in a particular point of cultural space, you can't materially change them without leaving the genre that defines them. This is not specific to genres that became high-brow "refined art"; you can't play a rock-n-roll like it's 1957 either, it will only resonate among the fans of the genre / period, not very numerous now. With that, both opera and rock-n-roll were once the epitomes of wide, overwhelming popularity, each at their time. I agree about lineage. This is basically how culture grows and develops. The past is absolutely not worthless, but no cultural epoch is a final destination. Rainbow in 1970s, Jethro Tull in 1990s, and Master Boot Record in 2020s all directly quoted baroque music, but each of them did that differently, and not exactly the way an authentist ensemble would play it.
jhbadger 2y ago
And from the 1920s to the 1960s, jazz was pop music. It isn't seen quite as highbrow or obscure as opera, but at least in the US, you are far more likely to hear jazz (and opera) on public radio and not commercial stations. It's the standard cycle of popular entertainment from popular entertainment to "art". Charles Dickens wasn't writing "great literature" in his age, he was writing popular literature akin to someone like John Grisham today.
- antupis 2y ago
  We kind of see same shift happening in real-time with The Beatles at the moment
- lubujackson 2y ago
  Even worse, Charles Dickens mostly wrote serialized novels that were published weekly in a newspaper. The closest modern equivalent is a weekly comic book (or manga) that gets turned into a graphic novel after its run.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Speaking of modern terms, I suppose the Iliad's "books" would be named "episodes", and the Odyssey would be "the next season".
    - vundercind 2y ago
      It was even a whole literary universe, full of intertwining storylines and crossing-over characters! We’ve lost most of it, but there were tons of works connected to the Iliad. It’s just the last year of a ten year war. The instigation of the war, events in gathering the allies on both sides, the voyage of the Greeks to Ilium, and other battles and skirmishes are alluded to, but not directly covered in Homer’s story. Then there’s the return of the heroes other than Odysseus! We have some of this in surviving tragedies, but know only titles and maybe topics for a whole bunch more. Then you’ve got all the national myths that connect to it. The Aeneid, the Round Table and broader “Matter of Britain”, et c.
giraffe_lady 2y ago
> In 19-century Italy, opera was about as popular as pop music today. Is this true? It was very popular with the people whose accounts mostly make up primary documents from that period. But they were a tiny minority of the population in absolute terms. The population was still primarily rural-agricultural, did that allow access to opera for most people? There are several extant folk music traditions with continuity to 19th century italy, it seems much more likely to me that most people's music exposure would have been to locally produced folk styles than opera.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Consider the fact that, say, at the time when Verdi was rabidly popular, late 19th century, there was no iTunes, no TV, no CDs, cassettes, or vinyl records, and no music radio. Live performances ruled supreme, among all classes. It's true that opera was a higher-brow entertainment than going to dances, but still a ton of people atteneded opera houses, it was normal, even for not rich. Very certainly not a tiny minority; it was a bit like movies prior to TV. Speaking of Verdi, he postponed rehearsals of the famous "Donna e mobile" aria until the day before premiere, to keep it a secret, because he predicted (correctly) that it was going to be an instant hit. On release, it basically became a pop song, performed all over the place (recording did not exist, remember). This may give an idea what a hit could look / sound like at the time. BTW it has most features of a modern hit song: a clear rhythm, a simple but catchy and recognizable melody, somehow playful words about the nature of romantic relationships.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Yeah I've considered all that but still you were making a concrete historical claim about a specific time and place and I was wondering if it's true. I still am. Of course live music was how people accessed music, and generally for this time in most parts of europe we have a strongly attested art music tradition enjoyed by the aristocratic minority and a separate, vastly more popular yet barely attested folk music tradition associated with the lower class rural majority. The elite wrote about the things that interested them, and their writings make up the vast majority of primary documents from the era. We have to be careful not to accidentally consume their biases along with their information.
zozbot234 2y ago
> If you sing in classical opera, only a narrow (but usually wealthy) circle of opera goers will care. If you sing like Taylor Swift or like Whitney Houston (who had a powerful, opera-worthy voice), you may have a much wider effect. Isn't that mostly just a change in technology? Taylor Swift and Whitney Houston have to sing into microphones that amplify their voice electrically, whereas opera singers obviously don't; they just sing the way public singing was done for much of recorded history. To some extent, the point of opera and classical music (which also features unamplified instruments) is a kind of historical reenactment; of keeping performance practices alive that have a very long history of their own.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Audio amplification also exists on operatic stages, even very prominent [1]. Moreover, you can get very good, wonderful, excellent recordings of basically any classical opera, both old and modern performances, for a pretty acceptable price. For watching, you can have pretty captivating video recordings with really good sound. It's still a niche product compared to recordings of, say, Taylor Swift (who is also an excellent performer). [1]: https://thespaces.com/sydney-opera-house-emerges-with-a-whole-new-sound-thanks-to-an-acoustic-refit/ https://thespaces.com/sydney-opera-house-emerges-with-a-whol...
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    Yes but the performance practice is way different. Modern pop singing uses a "crooning" performance style that's totally unfeasible without the modern microphone and electric amplification. Even musicals singers can afford to clearly "belt out" their tunes without dangerously straining their voice, because it will always get amplified as a matter of course. Opera singers don't have that luxury.

by nine_k 2y ago

karmonhardan 2y ago

This isn't even necessarily true. High art is the basic research of culture. You'd be amazed at how many elements from your fave this-or-that are copped (often wholesale) from some obscure piece of media. Often, that reference lifts the latter out of obscurity, and everyone pretends that they knew it was groundbreaking and brilliant all along. "The favorite artist of your favorite artist," is a real concept. An example : Darren Aronofsky's now-famous cribbing of Satoshi Kon's work, back when anime was mostly thought of as, "Sex and violence, Pokemon, and Miyazaki (if you even knew of Miyazaki)." And even that's kind of the tip of the iceberg. Decades-old expressionist films, little-known performance and video art, paintings, music, fashion; unless you really know the landscape, how can you tell what is and isn't influencing culture down the line? How much of your experience in the world of 2024 was shaped by the proclivities of teenagers on IRC and 4chan in 2004, just trying to make each other laugh? [Insert that monologue from The Devil Wears Prada]

nine_k 2y ago
Thank you, that's a nice take! As J.L.Borges aptly noted, a serious artist produces not only successors but also predecessors. (Regarding Miyazaki, I could not miss an animator who was praised so highly by Kurosawa. I learned about the rest of anime later.) But my point was more narrow: however beautiful The Magic Flute or Barber of Ceville or even Carmen may be, they are sort of stuck in a particular point of cultural space, you can't materially change them without leaving the genre that defines them. This is not specific to genres that became high-brow "refined art"; you can't play a rock-n-roll like it's 1957 either, it will only resonate among the fans of the genre / period, not very numerous now. With that, both opera and rock-n-roll were once the epitomes of wide, overwhelming popularity, each at their time. I agree about lineage. This is basically how culture grows and develops. The past is absolutely not worthless, but no cultural epoch is a final destination. Rainbow in 1970s, Jethro Tull in 1990s, and Master Boot Record in 2020s all directly quoted baroque music, but each of them did that differently, and not exactly the way an authentist ensemble would play it.

jhbadger 2y ago

And from the 1920s to the 1960s, jazz was pop music. It isn't seen quite as highbrow or obscure as opera, but at least in the US, you are far more likely to hear jazz (and opera) on public radio and not commercial stations. It's the standard cycle of popular entertainment from popular entertainment to "art". Charles Dickens wasn't writing "great literature" in his age, he was writing popular literature akin to someone like John Grisham today.

antupis 2y ago
We kind of see same shift happening in real-time with The Beatles at the moment
lubujackson 2y ago
Even worse, Charles Dickens mostly wrote serialized novels that were published weekly in a newspaper. The closest modern equivalent is a weekly comic book (or manga) that gets turned into a graphic novel after its run.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Speaking of modern terms, I suppose the Iliad's "books" would be named "episodes", and the Odyssey would be "the next season".
  - vundercind 2y ago
    It was even a whole literary universe, full of intertwining storylines and crossing-over characters! We’ve lost most of it, but there were tons of works connected to the Iliad. It’s just the last year of a ten year war. The instigation of the war, events in gathering the allies on both sides, the voyage of the Greeks to Ilium, and other battles and skirmishes are alluded to, but not directly covered in Homer’s story. Then there’s the return of the heroes other than Odysseus! We have some of this in surviving tragedies, but know only titles and maybe topics for a whole bunch more. Then you’ve got all the national myths that connect to it. The Aeneid, the Round Table and broader “Matter of Britain”, et c.

giraffe_lady 2y ago

> In 19-century Italy, opera was about as popular as pop music today. Is this true? It was very popular with the people whose accounts mostly make up primary documents from that period. But they were a tiny minority of the population in absolute terms. The population was still primarily rural-agricultural, did that allow access to opera for most people? There are several extant folk music traditions with continuity to 19th century italy, it seems much more likely to me that most people's music exposure would have been to locally produced folk styles than opera.

nine_k 2y ago
Consider the fact that, say, at the time when Verdi was rabidly popular, late 19th century, there was no iTunes, no TV, no CDs, cassettes, or vinyl records, and no music radio. Live performances ruled supreme, among all classes. It's true that opera was a higher-brow entertainment than going to dances, but still a ton of people atteneded opera houses, it was normal, even for not rich. Very certainly not a tiny minority; it was a bit like movies prior to TV. Speaking of Verdi, he postponed rehearsals of the famous "Donna e mobile" aria until the day before premiere, to keep it a secret, because he predicted (correctly) that it was going to be an instant hit. On release, it basically became a pop song, performed all over the place (recording did not exist, remember). This may give an idea what a hit could look / sound like at the time. BTW it has most features of a modern hit song: a clear rhythm, a simple but catchy and recognizable melody, somehow playful words about the nature of romantic relationships.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Yeah I've considered all that but still you were making a concrete historical claim about a specific time and place and I was wondering if it's true. I still am. Of course live music was how people accessed music, and generally for this time in most parts of europe we have a strongly attested art music tradition enjoyed by the aristocratic minority and a separate, vastly more popular yet barely attested folk music tradition associated with the lower class rural majority. The elite wrote about the things that interested them, and their writings make up the vast majority of primary documents from the era. We have to be careful not to accidentally consume their biases along with their information.

zozbot234 2y ago

> If you sing in classical opera, only a narrow (but usually wealthy) circle of opera goers will care. If you sing like Taylor Swift or like Whitney Houston (who had a powerful, opera-worthy voice), you may have a much wider effect. Isn't that mostly just a change in technology? Taylor Swift and Whitney Houston have to sing into microphones that amplify their voice electrically, whereas opera singers obviously don't; they just sing the way public singing was done for much of recorded history. To some extent, the point of opera and classical music (which also features unamplified instruments) is a kind of historical reenactment; of keeping performance practices alive that have a very long history of their own.

nine_k 2y ago
Audio amplification also exists on operatic stages, even very prominent [1]. Moreover, you can get very good, wonderful, excellent recordings of basically any classical opera, both old and modern performances, for a pretty acceptable price. For watching, you can have pretty captivating video recordings with really good sound. It's still a niche product compared to recordings of, say, Taylor Swift (who is also an excellent performer). [1]: https://thespaces.com/sydney-opera-house-emerges-with-a-whole-new-sound-thanks-to-an-acoustic-refit/ https://thespaces.com/sydney-opera-house-emerges-with-a-whol...
- zozbot234 2y ago
  Yes but the performance practice is way different. Modern pop singing uses a "crooning" performance style that's totally unfeasible without the modern microphone and electric amplification. Even musicals singers can afford to clearly "belt out" their tunes without dangerously straining their voice, because it will always get amplified as a matter of course. Opera singers don't have that luxury.