Nina Stemme: Opera singers haven’t seen a pay rise in a decade

Firing Back says:

Nonsense.

Stemme’s ‘logic'(?) and arguments are flawed.
The music industry is not a packing plant where people are in salaried employment.

She comes across as a self-entitled, clueless baggage.

Like other self-styled ‘activist’ singers, she’s a liability to the profession, not a help – and should stick to warbling, and avoid the commentary.

Nicholas Ennos says:

They don’t deserve any money at all until they learn to sing properly, not the diaphragmatic pushing and shouting and fake vibrato they use at the moment.

Saxon Pierce says:

The problem begins with so many Universities churning out ‘singers’ who mistake the academic credentials the earned as some sort of qualification for being on stage. Their CVs are padded with opera studio leading roles, festivals, competitions and other pay-to-sing activities; which include an array of faculty, coaches, and ‘directors,’ who use these pay-to-play events to generate leads for their own income streams from desperate singers; and as an opportunity to pay less for talent (while in the case of a not for profit co that might be lucky to have an endowment keeping their own salaries healthy). Then when a singer can’t make it as a performer they turn to coaching and teaching and pass along their own bad habits and technique; and start their own competitions and festivals.

That’s how the audience has ended up with lesser-than voices, wobblers and to the point of activist singers, why those voices stick around – because we can’t tell anyone their talent isn’t up to Opera for fear they’re made to feel bad. Never mind if they can’t emote, act or otherwise are just not pleasant visually. So the audience gets a sub-par voice from someone who is in no world even interesting to watch and they walk away with a mediocre impression of opera at best.

The desire of directors and singers alike to be socially relevant rather than put the music first is agreeably smothering the life from opera. They jam their agenda down the audiences throats with staging and even changing the endings, and 15 minute lectures before the curtain goes up, as opposed to leading the audience to reflect on how ‘things have not changed’ from the time the piece was written and modern times, and allowing them to come to their own conclusions.

Recently speaking with some people who enjoy opera but wouldn’t consider themselves aficionados, one commented that she knew all about one singer being part of the lgbt community, being horrible to watch as an actor, and correct;y observing that this singer artificially darkens their voice and isn’t truly the fach for the roles they sing, but otherwise couldn’t understand how this singer became popular.

There’s a collective misread by the opera world of what audiences expect, and an assumption that audiences don’t really know what they’re listening for anyway. But the reality is even if the audience isn’t particularly educated on technical aspect of singing, they have expectations, and when those aren’t exceeded they’re not likely to stick around.

So while some in the opera world wonder or think they’re saving opera from dying, in reality their slowly killing themselves with their own egos and agendas.