WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

JAMES MEENA ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EDITORIAL HY WE DO HAT WE DO W W

Ihave a pocket watch that belonged to my great grandfather, and which was passed to my grandfather, then to my uncle, then to my father, then to me. There is nothing exceptional about this pocket watch, other than this fleeting connection with the past.

The human desire to connect with the past is one of the qualities that make us unique as people. Perhaps we preserve relics of the past as a means of defining who we are today. As a family member, I treasure my great grandfather’s pocket watch. As an artist, I treasure the works of art that have been passed into my care from those who came before me. I believe it is the same equation on a different scale. Part of our mission as an Opera company is to be curators of this particular artform, while at the same time advancing the art form for contemporary society.

Not unlike an art museum, that will devote a portion of its collection to the past and a portion of its collection to contemporary art, so too the Opera house devotes a portion of its season to the past and a portion to contemporary works and unknown works of great masters. Who decides what is a masterpiece that is worth being preserved? Who cherry picks Puccini’s Tosca as a great work instead of his La rondine? Well, in a sense we all do over time. But just as we decide what food or drink we prefer through the process of trial and error, if audiences never hear La rondine, how are they to collectively decide it is not as great a work as Tosca?

There are numerous stories of masterpieces being ignored or vilified at their premiere, and an equal number of stories of patrons protesting the programming of new works. One of my favorite stories stars the great conductor Leopold Stokowski who argued that a particular new work he wanted to premiere was important and needed to be heard. Maestro Stokowski ultimately won and that work, The Right of Spring, by Stravinsky received its U.S. premiere with Stokowski’s Philadelphia Orchestra in 1922. Today, Stravinsky’s iconic ballet is an acknowledged masterpiece and an assured box office hit.

Unless audiences and patrons attend new works, even those they may not like, cultural institutions like Opera Carolina will shy away from programming them to avoid a box office disaster, and if new works are not performed, how will the best of them become masterpieces? So, as we continue to work to preserve and advance the Opera artform in this region, I hope the public will allow us to do so with one eye on our mission -- With one eye on our past and one eye on the future.

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