Paris en fête : How to make classical music fun !

How to make classical music fun without dumbing down! Paris en fête,with François-Xavier Roth conducting Les Siècles at the Philharmonie de Paris this week, broadcast live HERE.  Proof that "education" without genuine excellence is counter-productive. This should be compulsory viewing for bureaucrats and audiences who think culture must be forced down grimly like it were poison. Please read my article End the Missionary Position in Classical Music !  This concert was so good that I've listened several times over; presumably many in the audience want more, too.  Roth is a wonderful communicator, whose enthusiasm inspires because he believes in what he does: he doesn't play games and doesn't ever dumb down.

Carmen, first. But "Who is Carmen?"  asks Antoine Pecqeuer,  another born communicator who doesn't need hype to do what he does. Carmen is popular the world over because she's a personality. Carmen lives forever: self centred Don Josés will never understand.  Thus the essence of what opera should be: human emotions in universal, infinite variety. Which is why small minds do get art.  As Pecqeuer reminded us, Carmen bombed at its premiere because it was ahead of its time. Isabelle Druet talks about Carmen so unaffectedly that the Habanera seems an extension of the personality.  Part of the fun, too, is that the Choeur des Grand Ecoles is bigger than you'd ever get on an opera stage. 

Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Délibes, Berlioz, Offenbach, a programme of pieces familiar to French audience  but with a twist to show that French repertoire is not parochial - the Bachannale from Samson et Delila. Pecqeuer talks about French tradition, from Lully to Boulez, and Roth expands. Dance is the foundation for rhythm,  structure and inventiveness. Thus, Un bal from the Symphonie fantastique.   From Berlioz, instrumental experiments and sophisticated colour.  "What does Paris mean to you?", Pecqeuer asks the audience, many of whom are young children. "Le pain" says one, totally matter of fact.  Then, the overture from La vie Parisienne, and the Infernal Gallop from Orphée aux Enfers. By now the audience are really getting into the spirit.  The Infernal Gallop, "the can can", yet again, this time with the audience singing along, Roth speeding up the tempi. Everyone's exhilarated, high on the thrill.  Is classical music elitist or dull?  No way!  Those at this concert will come away feeling that music is a vital part of life.   

Will children ever learn about opera ?

Good article by Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph : "Will children ever care about opera?"  He went along to the latest initiative, under the auspices of ENO. Every arts organization has to do these because funding these days involves making a social case for the arts, and this venture seems well organized and earnest. Top marks for effort. Unfortunately the funding system predicates on the idea that the value of the arts can be measured. The Funding Gods need statistics to prove that the arts are worth supporting, so arts venues are forced to divert scarce funds towards ventures like this which make nice paper offerings but don't necessarily have much effect.  Trouble is, it's impossible to quantify the value of the arts.

As Christiannsen notes "one boy asked the perfectly intelligent question: “Why does it sound so posh?” To which there came no good answer." For all I know, these well -meaning efforts serve to reinforce public assumptions that the arts are not for them but for some strange elite. Even the word "outreach" implies a value judgement.  It drives me crazy when broadcasters gush like excited children peeking in on adult mysteries. But the arts are about human emotions and the expression thereof. Why should there be divisions between insiders and outsiders? We all have a right to think, to feel and to learn. Once the arts are saddled with social and cultural baggage, non-artistic standards creep in, because it's human nature to need to conform to the received wisdom of the crowd. Almost by definition, individuality and innovation go against the herd instinct. How, then, to justify the arts by terms which don't fit its unquantifiable values?

Without creativity, mankind might not have evolved. The arts represent this spirit of adventure and improvement. "Stop learning and you die", my father used to say. Maybe there are millions of walking corpses out there but as long as artists remain, we have hope.

Perhaps one way ahead is to think of opera education as a form of emotional intelligence. Music is therapeutic. Even in supposedly wealthy societies, it fills inner needs that might otherwise be hard to articulate. Funding the arts is public health for the soul.

We also make assumptions based on middle class, western models.  In other cultures, the arts have intrinsic value. In China, for example, you're not considered fully educated unless you have some awareness of the arts. Perhaps that stems from Confucian literati values, but it's so much a part of the way people think. Even if parents are poor, they want their kids to succeed and better themselves. Lang Lang's father was a musician but screwed up by the Cultural Revolution and poverty. So he pushed his son to breaking point. But Lang Lang has character and came back to music when he felt right doing it on his own terms. He's idolized not just for his music and for being famous, but because he's an inspiration. Westerners might sneer, as they do so often with Chinese achievements, but Lang Lang proves what an individual can do, despite all, odds. See "Vom Starkult zur Liebe um die Musik" on BR Klassik.

When I was  in kindergarten, we learned by what I now recognize as Carl Orff methods. I banged a tambourine tunelessly, but I got a lot out of it. Music lessons were the highlight of the week. The emphasis was on participation and performance, with theory and appreciation coming later. We even learned the rudiments of composition. I used to write mood pieces like an infant Takemitsu. Western classical music was everywhere - in the movies, in ads, in social events. It was no big deal.  If anything traditional Chinese music and opera got the highest respect. But we learned that music was an inextricable part of life. Our school used to win nearly every event in the Schools Music Festivals (which included poetry recital and chamber music).  Winning wasn't the point at all, but excellence. We'd have felt lost if we hadn't learned something and enjoyed the experience.

Below, a class of 8 year olds, singing for sheer joy. How fresh and engaged they sound . Listen to the pianist - she's not much older. Whatever these kids go on to do in life, they've learned that music is fun, and emotional responses are part of being fully human.  The conductor was my classmate Christina. While I was inept, she reached Grade VIII almost without trying, She has an exceptionally beautiful soprano voice: through her, among other things, I learned to love Lieder while still at school. But what a wonderfully intuitive teacher she is! She motivates kids with her enthusiasm. Later, they''ll go to to more difficult things but the groundwork has been laid.

Wagner Die Feen Wiener Staatsoper

Wagner Die Feen at the Vienna Sate Opera? One could dream. Last year Wagner's early opera received several performances, including one in London with the Chelsea Opera Group (read my review here) but none could be quite so original as the special Oper für Kinder production that was done in Vienna, not in the main house but in  the tiny auditorium . Die Feen isn't Grand Opera though the teenaged Wagner might have had great ambitions for it. The plot is corny and there are so many characters it's hard to keep track. But in the intimate atmosphere of a tiny theatre, the audience is drawn into the action. Belief can be suspended, so the magic takes effect.

In German-speaking countries, opera for children is of a very high standard indeed, simplified but not trivialized. The full three-hour score has its longueurs, but this production compresses the essentials into a compact 47 minutes, so the dramatic flow is sharp and concise. We enter into the spirit of the opera, communing with this strange world of fairies, mortals and lovers as if they were real people like ourselves. Beautiful set - colours of the earth and nature, blended with fantasy shades of sapphire and delightful light effects.  The image of a doe flies across the stage: birds and paper hearts evoke the simplicity of folk art. Nature is not naive, though. Figures emerge from holes in the dense undergrowth. I imagined the smell of damp soil. The Fairies wear white tutus with overskirts like leaves, much in the way fairies might have been depicted in small German theatres in the early 19th century. The mortals enter the realm of the fairies clad in early 20th century explorer gear - a delightful comic touch.

Through productions like this we experience the magic of opera. "Glaubst du en Feen?"  an invisible  woman's voice asks. We're entering an exciting fairy tale. We can learn the Overture and the lengthy arias later. For now we engage with the spirit of the opera. Children have a natural capacity for wonder.  Perhaps all creative artists have this kind of imagination. Far too often in this world our souls are poisoned by negativity.  How can we really function without empathy and feeling?  This production is so good that adults would be well advised to learn from it.  It's available on demand on the Wiener Staatsoper Mediathéque.