Wolf Trap Opera

Thanks to our Best Opera Recording nomination for Volpone, we were in the slightly surreal and truly wonderful position of being able to attend last Sunday’s GRAMMY festivities in LA, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t file some sort of report.  So…

Wolfie Goes to LA!

80% of Success…

Yes, the classical music industry is marginalized, along with over 90% of the rest of the GRAMMY categories.  We joined our colleagues in jazz, R&B, country, world music and many other genres at the pre-telecast ceremony on Sunday afternoon.  Some of the bigger pop music names who were prepping for the evening telecast were unavoidably absent in the afternoon, but some of them (Taylor Swift, most notably) managed to make an appearance. 

And yes, it was Woody Allen who said that “80% of success is just showing up.”  In such a scenario, we probably would’ve taken home the statue, for almost none of the other classical music nominees were there.  The winners sure weren’t.  It’s no secret that our part of the industry has a complicated relationship with the GRAMMYs, though.  We decided to attend because it really was an honor for us to be nominated, and we wanted to acknowledge that.  (And we figured there was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience to be had in the process )  But after seeing how alone we were, we figured that the whole thing should work on a “must-be-present-to-win” premise, kind of like a door prize.  That way, if those folks from London and the Mariinsky and the Hague and the Netherlands couldn’t show up, we’d get lucky!

And I Thought We Were a Niche Market…

It’s amazing (even for someone like me who works for a presenting organization that covers many many genres) how many different kinds of music there are out there.  Electronica, gospel, alternative, R&B, rap, country, new age, jazz, Latin, Americana, traditional folk, Hawaiian, Native American, children’s music, reggae, zydeco and more.  And the long tail is growing every day, even as the public face of the GRAMMYs (via the telecast) gets more and more mainstream.

Pink as Deus Ex Macchina

Speaking of the telecast, I thought that Pink’s performance felt a lot like the early days of opera must have.  The atmosphere at the Staples Center that night bore a lot of similarities to what we know of 18th-century opera.  Lots of people socializing during the boring parts, only paying attention when the famous acts are on stage, watching highly sexualized performances by big name stars, some of which fly in from the sky and make the audience gasp.  Sadly, the GRAMMY folks don’t agree, because the two tips of the hat given to opera that night were in the form of a stereotype-reinforcing setup to the rap number and a weird presenting assignment to Placido.

Behind… er… Above the Scenes
or
In the Gallery with No Peanuts

Attending as representatives of the record label (Wolf Trap Recordings), we were lowest of the low on the totem pole.  We sat in the nosebleed section of the arena, which had its pros and cons.

On the plus side, we had a bird’s-eye view of scene shifts and changeovers (during the commercial breaks), and it was comforting in a Schadenfreude sort of way to see that the big boys screw things up occasionally, too.

On the other hand, if you have to sit for 7.5 hours of ceremonies with only one 30-minute break (1:00-4:15 and 4:45-8:30), someone should at least be going up and down the aisles with peanuts and hot dogs…

While It Was Snowing Back Home…

…we enjoyed the always-generous hospitality of friends in Malibu, with long walks on the beach in sunny 70-degree skies.

And now that our 15 minutes of fame are over, we’re back at our desks, getting ready to announce our summer season next week – see you then!

We have the great privilege of going to LA for the GRAMMYs this weekend!  The Volpone recording nomination (one of 5 in the category of Best Opera Recording) meant that Wolf Trap, as the record label, was able to get a few tickets for the ceremonies.  (GRAMMYs are for artists on the recording, and even though we commissioned and premiered this work, then produced and distributed it on our label, we’re sort of just hangers-on:))  So we’re going to go and celebrate.  We’re not particularly good at strutting our stuff (we tend to fly under the radar and plug along), but we shall try!

I’ve always thought that the words “It was just an honor to be nominated” were 1) a way of being gracious when you won or 2) an attempt at not feeling bad because you lost.  But I am here before you now to witness that it is possible to say it and mean it.

I am proud to bursting of our little company and our maiden voyage in the recording world.  And I think that it’s amazing – almost inconceivable, actually – that we did it so well on a wing, a prayer, and very little money.  But at the same time, I don’t think there’s even a remote chance that we will win.  (In case you don’t already know, I am the Queen of Low Expectations.  It’s a way of life and a title I bear proudly.)

Yes, we did good.  But to believe that we bested the LSO, or Ian Bostridge & Nathan Gunn, or Valery Gergiev, or the Hague Philharmonic etc etc, well, that’s more hubris than I can typically muster. 

But see, the thing is that it really doesn’t matter. The recognition that comes from this nomination will pay off in so many ways, and I intend to celebrate that.  I want to go to LA and be so proud that someone somewhere thought we belonged with the big boys.  I want to celebrate that we didn’t give up on the idiotically rocky road to completion of this project.  There shall be people-watching and beach-walking and general jubilation.

So there.

January is WTOC Alumni Month

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, 2 of the other 4 nominees in our category feature Wolf Trap alumni (Nathan Gunn, Billy Budd; Charles Workman, Marco Polo)!

Brain Drain.

All sorts of things interfering with blogging.  This week included a trip to New York for preparations for our upcoming workshop of Musto & Campbells Inspector opera.  And the little remaining office time was clouded by fumbling attempts at writing marketing copy for our 2010 shows. (You’d think that struggling with Twitter would have given me some practice at being simultaneously clear, intriguing, detailed, and entertaining in 140 characters.  But it seems to have just made me dumb and inarticulate.)

The other clog comes from struggling to write a post on the recent Pro-Am discussion that’s been going on at various places on the interwebs.  I’m fascinated by this subject, and I’m of at least three different minds on it.  I have written and rewritten a blog post on it so many times that I could’ve filed a dissertation by now.  Sadly, little of it is coherent. 

So, if it intrigues you, here’s the pertinent linkage.  Take a few minutes to read and discuss, and I promise I’ll be back shortly with some sort of take on it!

Newsweek’s Welcome to Amateur Hour

The Mission Paradox on Creating Scarcity
On one hand it is easier then ever for work to be created and if you believe (like I do) that a world with more art is a good thing . . . then that’s a good thing. On the other hand, this incredible increase in both the number of artistic producers and the amount of artistic content has made it much more difficult for any individual artist to make a living through their art.

Butts in the Seats on Outsourcing Creativity to the Rich
…as people acquire competence and are willing to perform a task for less money, or have the resources where they don’t care about their losses, starving artists ended up starving more.

Create Equity on Arts and Sustainability
If the only way to earn money is through exposure, and the only way to get exposure is to spend thousands of hours making (and marketing) art that you could otherwise spend earning money, the people who need to earn money now are at a major, perhaps definitive, disadvantage. As a result, over time, you would expect to see more and more people who were lucky enough to have a cushion early in their careers (if not on an ongoing basis) persist to become professional artists, and fewer and fewer who have had to do it completely on their own.

January is Alumni Month

I love productions that contain a critical mass of Trappers.  Last summer’s Huguenots at Bard Summerscape came up in a conversation yesterday.  7 alums, representing two decades of WTOC excellence

And, in the Canadian Opera Company’s announcement of their 2010-2011 season, we discovered this fabulous pairing in Cenerentola!

I wear my Marketing and Box Office hats a lot in January.  (Good thing, too, for it’s bloody freezing around here.  I need all the clothing I can find.)  All of the music that surrounded us during the audition and casting process has temporarily disappeared to make way for writing copy and selling tickets.

So, in thinking of ways to describe, promote and create enthusiasm about our upcoming season, I found this. And I’m of a million different minds about it.

And, as we address the thorny topic of ticket prices, it’s serendipitous to find one of my favorite podcasts discussing the Psychology of Pricing.  Unfortunately, our thinking has to go far beyond this discussion.  We have obligations not only to our bottom line, but to our donors, our current and potential patrons, and to our art form.  Raise prices to attempt to keep pace with expenses?  Hold the line in sympathy with the economic challenges of patrons?  Cut deep and low to eliminate obstacles in expanding the audience base?  Yes, yes, and yes?  Hmmm.

January is WTOC Alumni Month!

I was doing some surfing to see what our summer festival colleagues are offering for 2010, and I came across a performance of the suite from Candide with WTOC alums Anna Christy and Nick Phan.  Ravinia also features former Trappers Nathan Gunn and Lauren McNeese in Figaro, and Tanglewood’s roster includes Stephanie Blythe (Mahler #2), Dawn Upshaw, and Morris Robinson (Mozart’s Abduction).

The happiest of new years to one and all!  Strictly speaking, I know it’s not a new decade, but it feels like it is.  And that’s good.

I’m back at my desk after a miraculously restful 11 days away from work.  (Thank, you Wolf Trap Foundation, for the immensely sane and merciful act of shutting down between Christmas and New Year’s!)   By last night, I was calm, centered, and full of hope and energy for a fresh start.  This morning, just a few hours chipping away at the mountain of pre-season tasks has rendered me slightly panicked.  (I completely forget to breathe when I’m at my desk. Does that happen to anyone else?  What’s that about?!?)

It didn’t help that I spent my lunch break digging through the NEA’s 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.  (Go ahead, click through, but not on an empty stomach.)  I don’t believe that the sky is falling, but this news is complicated.  We’re embarking on a new business plan for 2011-2015, and I’m trying to spend more time than usual wrestling with these facts and figures.

As we move out of the audition season, I welcome back my casual readers whose eyes glazed over while reading endless aria lists and other technical jargon.  Over these next few months, the focus will be slightly broader and more varied.  There will be another Met audition trip (North Carolina) and a trip to LA (for the GRAMMYs!), and I keep posts short to give you more time to keep those New Year’s resolutions.

January is WTOC Alumni Month!

A shout-out to WTOC alum Michael Maniaci and his new recording of Mozart Arias – releasing in a few weeks and available now for pre-order.  (Do it – you won’t be sorry!)  Michael sang Nero in Poppea and the title role in Xerxes at Wolf Trap, and he is a truly amazing artist.