(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . THE PROBLEM OF OPERA [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-07 Most people don’t think about opera at all. Those who do, don’t see it as controversial, unless somebody decides to set the opera in present day New York, and have the characters wear modern clothes. They give no thought to The Mute of Porticci, where the rape of a young woman who can’t speak leads to a popular uprising. The Mute isn’t performed very often these days, possibly because it ends with a volcano erupting. But, in it’s day, it was seriously controversial, and banned in some places. Giuseppe Verdi, who wrote operas with songs even people who don’t like opera know, like the The Anvil Chorus in Il Trovatore. Is nobody’s idea of a controversial figure, but, in his day, he was a revolutionary of sorts. In those days, the Italian peninsula was made up of several small countries. Verdi’s part of Italy was ruled by Austria. Verdi was one of the radicals who believed Italians should unite into one nation, ruled by Italians. His early operas, Joan of Arc and Sicilian Vespers, were about people rising against foreign oppressors. He would go on to serve in the first Italian parliament and have trouble with the first Italian censors. His opera A Masked Ball was, originally, inspired by a historical event where the king of Sweden was assassinated at a masked ball. The censors didn’t like it. Italy had a king, Victor Emanuel. They didn’t want anyone getting ideas. So, Verdi did a serious rewrite, and set his opera in colonial Boston. Instead of the King of Sweden, he had a Count of Essex, who is the governor not of Massachusetts. (Perhaps Mr. Verdi didn’t want to try to spell the name of the bay state.) He is the governor of Boston. His new Masked Ball would create roles for Black singers. (Marian Anderson made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, singing the role of Ulrica the fortune teller, in Verdi’s opera.) But things like that just don’t happen in Boston. That wasn’t his only problem. For his opera, Rigoletto, he had to demote the king to a grand duke. Again, the censors didn’t like the idea of royals behaving badly. (Though they didn’t mind the soprano singing after she died, which she does.) One wonders what Verdi would think of the radio station in North Carolina that decided they would not air some of the more controversial performances on this season’s Live From The Met. The Metropolitan Opera broadcast is one of the oldest radio programs still on the air. It goes back to the days when radios came with headphones. It was followed, in some markets, by a program of country and western music that would come to be called The Grand Ole Opry. (That was the opera, this is the grand ole opry!) Millions of people, who had never heard opera before, among them my mother, learned to love it. Presumably, the station in North Carolina isn’t worried about Rigoletto or A Masked Ball. They are concerned about contemporary works, that focus on contemporary topics. They don’t mind the modern music. (Which offends my ears.) They are worried about the subjects that might offend some listeners. Opera is about drama. The drama may be set in the medieval France, colonial Boston, or twentieth century Mississippi. But the music will be filled with passion, as the singers do things they probably shouldn’t. Which, for some people, is just fine, as long as they’re doing it in a medieval castle, or a renaissance manor house. But if it’s set someplace familiar, in a recent time, someone might be upset. Or, someone who heard about the opera from someone who didn’t actually hear the opera, because they never listen to classical music, which is for snobs anyway, might be upset. As people want to ban books they’ve never read. People who don’t like opera know about Figaro, the clever barber, who helps the Count of Almaviva out of his predicaments. The Marriage of Figaro was controversial in it’s time, because it’s about a smart servant and a not so smart count. In Austria, which was, at the time, an absolute monarchy, not so smart nobles, on the stage, made real nobles, in the audience, uncomfortable. Figaro began as a character in a play by a French author, Antoine de Beaumarchais, who was a friend of Benjamin Franklin’s. It was banned in France, because the French ruling class was even more upset by dumb nobles than the Austrians. Beaumarchais response was a classic. It deserves to be printed on yard signs and displayed across the nation. “Only little men are afraid of words.” That sums up the modern censorship movement better than anything I could write. Yes, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, we have your measure. Yes, Moms For Liberty, we know who you are. You are very small people, frightened by words on a page, or, apparently, songs on the radio, that may or may not be in English. It has been a while since opera has been controversial. For nearly a century, now, people like my mother, a staunch Republican, have tuned in every Saturday afternoon, to hear Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Carmen, Pagliacci or Nixon in China. That last is contemporary, and a little controversial. But so was Rigoletto once upon a time, for reasons we now think are foolish. Because censors are not wise, and only little men are afraid of words. 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