What do we mean by 'high culture'?
Jay Doubleyou: high vs popular culture
Jay Doubleyou: high culture > popular culture --- high register > low register
Jay Doubleyou: romeo + juliet and west side story
And what do we mean by 'dumbing down'?
Jay Doubleyou: dumbing us down [and school]
Jay Doubleyou: education: dumbing us down [and Prussia]
Jay Doubleyou: brexit, trump and dumbing down [the cult of ignorance]
What about opera? Does it have to be 'dumbed down' to make it 'popular'?
I'm a young opera fan - we don't need them to be dumbed down for us (March 2024)
Daily Research News Online no. 8123 - Research 'Dumbing Down' Opera? (March 2008)
But what a snob! Or is this critic criticising with tongue firmly in cheek?
What’s so good about young people? I only ask because English National Opera seems so desperate to entice the yoof that it is willing to let them through the door in their pyjamas and slippers, and possibly in nothing more than their birthday suits if that whole dressing-up lark feels like too much effort.
This week, ENO enlisted the help of Blur’s Damon Albarn (well into middle age) and Terry Gilliam (old enough to start resembling a badger) in an attempt to woo a younger audience. Albarn and Gilliam, who both dress like 14-year-old boys, launched the Undress for the Opera initiative, which invites newcomers to turn up in their jeans and trainers instead of the usual suits and frocks. The London Coliseum will also offer beer promotions, “club-style bars” and “specially themed cocktails”. Come to the opera and get as drunk as you like, kids!
If you don’t like the music, Gilliam (hopefully) joked that you could “wear your earphones”. Meanwhile, the ENO’s artistic director, John Berry, said that “there are lots of people who are put off by the way opera is presented…We’re going to greet you when you come through the door, look after you and make sure you have a really fantastic evening.” Eeww! Please don’t!
Why are we so obsessed with courting young people? They’ve got no money, and when they do they spend it all on super-strong alcohol, rolling tobacco and condoms. The few young people who do want to spend their savings on Don Giovanni hardly need the promise of hooch as an incentive. Does this craven appeal to young folk make an institution look cool? No. It just makes it look like a sad teenager trying to attract the focus of their unrequited love.
I have never been to the opera – not because you have to dress up, or because, in the words of Gilliam, I think it is “for a bunch of old farts – the bourgeoisie in dinner jackets”. I haven’t been to the opera because it generally costs a small fortune. So while it’s great that ENO will be making 100 seats available for 25 quid, it would be even better if we could sit in those seats in our finery, without the threat of a pint of beer down our backs. You don’t need to lure people to The Magic Flute by turning it into The Pig and Whistle.
Dumbing down won't attract the young to the opera
Finally:
Jay Doubleyou: register: populism, culture wars and woke [how Trump speaks, defining populism...]
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