An opera diva shuns Selfies, Facebook…
UncategorizedThe Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca (pictured left), who took Salzburg by storm in La Favorita after prolonged maternity leave, has issued a coded attack on those of her colleagues (I think we know who she means, pictured right) who market themselves on social media.
Elina tells the Munich Merkur (not online):
Heute ist es üblich, und das wird auch erwartet, dass man mit Selfies, Facebook et cetera ständig Privates nach Außen kommuniziert. Vieles geht aber niemanden etwas an…Man muss aufpassen, dass das nicht unseren eigentlichen Job überlagert. Wir sind Sänger! Natürlich bin ich auch Geschäftsfrau. Ich kenne die Spielregeln und mache das alles gerne. Aber im Alltag ist dieser Rummel für mich oft lästig, andere Kollegen ticken da vielleicht anders.
It is common and expected today that you are constantly communicating your private life outwards with Selfies, Facebook etc. Much of this is nobody else’s business…. We need to be aware that this does not overlay our real job., We are singers! Of course, I am also a businesswoman. I know the rules of the game and keep everyone happy. But in daily life this hype annoys me, other colleagues may take a different view.
Good for her.
Quite understandable, but can we make one exception? The sharing of love for music and at the same time being in touch with the world is shown by the Yankee Diva from Kansas, viz. Joyce DiDonato.
Indeed Joyce uses social, and indeed all other, media quite brilliantly. She is an utterly, even uniquely, outstanding ambassador for opera in particular and the arts in general, and a complete inspiration.
But unlike Joyce, Elina Garanca has a young family, with two small children, and I think she is primarily saying that she wants to keep that part of her life private and separate from her professional life. She’s surely entirely right about that, and it’s to her credit that she does so and wants to protect her family, rather than use it for some kind of “touchy feely” marketing benefit. She comes across as a thoroughly sane, grounded, straightforward person, as well as a remarkably talented one, whose privacy is to respected.
I guess the counter-example to the twittering celebrity culture would be Kate Bush. The less she reveals of herself, the more interested people seem to be. Of course, it’s quite different for someone who’s not a composer or writer but solely a performer.