The Future of Opera

Having a discussion about the future of opera is about as silly as talking about the future of vaudeville or big band or the minstrel show. 

The opera performance, a kind of in-house play, with lavish costume, sets, loud singing, musical accompaniment and sound effects was popular in Europe from the mid 1600s to about the time of the rise of modern forms of entertainment such as the movie palaces of the teens and early 1920s. 

The realities of life and technology, and state of the art of music, in the Enlightenment is what gave birth to the opera, circumstances that are gone today. The arts are not so formalized anymore. Singers like Sarah Brightman and Josh Groban can gain huge audiences selecting freely from many different musical palettes including ballads, well-known classical arias, and original classical-style songs. 

Gone are the days when people will condemn such large-arena and outdoor performances as 'wrong' or in bad taste. And the recording studio has opened up huge possibilities for the evolution of nuances in music simply unimaginable in the 19th century when the ability to essentially shout notes to the back of a room while staying on key was considered a great skill. 

Compare the following 1916 recording of Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso with the recording that follows it of modern-day Italian baritone Patricio Buanne singing the same song in 2016. Both videos are cued up to the same spot for comparison. Technology has enhanced, not retarded, the beauty of the sound.

Opera, like vaudeville or minstrel shows, is a form of music from an earlier time, that evolved to suit a certain kind of audience during a specific stage in the evolution of the art.

Trying to hold onto such things makes no sense. What was beautiful in them becomes even more beautiful in new venues sung by new talents singing for new audiences. 

Luciano Pavarotti passed away in 2007, just when YouTube was beginning to change everything. 2007 was the same year that Paul Potts was discovered in England, and just 6 years later Amira came on the scene. 

Understanding each other, Paul and Amira toured together to raise money for Amira's playgrounds, singing operatic arias to large sold-out audiences. The age of Pavarotti and Maria Callas had given way to the era of Paul Potts and Amira Willighagen - and countless others that would emulate and follow after them.

Paul Potts and Amira Willighagen dining before a performance

Below, Amira, ten years old, steps out onto a stage before 15,000 people, ready for the new era in music. 

And things don't stand still even for Amira or her contemporaries like Paul. Covid 19 has forced them to seek new ways of addressing audiences, and Amira has made great strides in the new medium of streaming concerts. Here she is in her most recent streaming concert, African Christmas.

So what is the future of opera? We are living in it. It is a time when the greatest most memorable songs of the opera gain new life in new media. And continue to move hearts through a new generation of inspired artists.