Music education is a broad topic, but there are two things I want to focus on here. One: music education appears to be dwindling, at least in the States. Joseph Pergola’s article, though somewhat outdated, summarizes the issue quite well. Less music education results in fewer children being exposed to classical music, which in turn decreases interest and investment in the genre. Opera, already a niche subgenre within that, likewise receives less and less attention over the years. As the number of people within opera’s audience dwindles, it’s only natural that the number of people who like opera AND our holy trinity of genres also dwindles. And if the interest is limited to such a small subset of people, it doesn’t make financial sense for the people with moneybags to fund it.

But there’s one other way that I think education ties into this issue, and that’s through how opera is taught. Most people think that opera is about the singing, first and foremost. Whether that’s true is its own debate, but regardless, opera singers practice singing. I’m not an opera major, but I’m pursuing voice performance at the oldest music conservatory in America, and I can graduate without taking a single course in acting, dancing, or stagework. From what I’ve seen of my peers pursuing opera specifically, this applies to them as well. Singing is treated as the top priority.

This prioritization of singing results in two things. First, it means that if you think something chalk full of stage combat and stunts like The Matrix is a prime example of sci-fi, horror, and dystopia… well, opera singers are literally not trained to pull that off. And that ties into the “incompatible mediums” argument I brought up several posts back. But, there’s something even bigger I think this results in. If we’re taught that opera is about the singing first and foremost… does the story really matter?

Not too long ago, I went to see an excerpt from a Wagner opera live for the first time. Wagner’s music is notoriously difficult to sing due to sheer scale; in fact, the singers who have big enough voices to pull it off are called ‘Wagnerian.’ After watching the scene, which was sung by a man and a woman, I told a friend that, while I thought the man was undeniably the better singer, I found the man’s acting to be stiff and less convincing. My friend replied: “But do his acting skills matter, when he has a voice like that?” Based on the man’s illustrious career as an internationally-renowned Wagnerian singer, no, apparently not. What if this idea expands not just to acting, but to storytelling?

This probably sounds like a scandalous idea to singers. Many, myself included, pursue vocal music specifically because there are words, so we can tell a story. But, audiences don’t necessarily think that way. How many people learn to love a song without knowing the text? How many people enjoy a song even when they don’t understand the language?

We let tons of bizarre, completely illogical stories dominate the opera stage; if you think Mozart’s Magic Flute makes sense as a story, you’re lying. So maybe this is a chicken-or-egg conundrum—maybe the illogical stories that have historically existed in opera make us prioritize high-quality singing, or maybe the way we’re taught to sing in opera lets us turn a blind eye to illogical stories. Either way, it doesn’t make a particularly welcoming environment for new and daring operas about sci-fi or horror or dystopia.

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What does this mean for future opera? Will sci-fi, horror, and dystopia never exist? I doubt it. Although it may be a small group, there will always be people who want this particular mix of genres to appear in opera. If those people shout loudly enough and back themselves with the right connections and funds, they’ll make it happen. It may not become a trend or world-wide phenomenon, but odds are it will happen someday, somewhere. So until then, thanks for joining me on this extended thought experiment.