I’d like to tête-à-tête about arts writing for a moment if I may. More specifically, the overall state of health and reason of the classical music and opera blogosphere. And by reason, I mean the answer to a question. The question being, why are so many writers these days, spending so much time writing about other people writing about music? Recent articles, features and reviews discussing reviews of reviews, and sometimes even reviews of reviews of reviews is all so terribly meta, and very self-referential, isn’t it?
Recent articles or reviews put forward about the death of classical music, body-shaming in opera, and the ten-year old star Jackie Evancho, have generated large scale discussions on social media sites like Facebook and on important classical music blogs. Reading through some of these is like walking into a hall of mirrors trying to lead somewhere, but only seeing your own image reflected back at you.
There are a lot of people out there who are really clued into what is going on in classical music and opera. But comments on blog posts writing about a critical review are not writing about music. An article about Mark Vanhoenacker’s death of classical music in Slate is an article about a writer. Writing about Tim Page or Norman Lebrecht’s opinion of Jackie Evancho on America’s Got Talent is writing about writers. Writing about Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier is writing about music, but writing about someone’s opinion of Rupert Christianson’s opinion of Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier is not writing about music, that’s a writer writing about another writer’s opinion of Rupert Christianson’s opinion of Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier.
Facebook discussions seem to continue the loop ad infinitum. Maybe bloggers and Facebook commentators should spend the time they are spending talking about writers to actually talk more about the music?
Comments?
Michael Vincent