Re: RAT what is forward thinking now...

[brad rothbart <scrdchao@nni.com>]

>I am beginning to wonder about Opera. Twenty first century opera. Ruth
>Margraff and the Opera Project at HERE and Erik Ehn with Tenderloin.Is anyone
>listening to poetic drama? Maybe song and music will wake their other senses
>and get reception out from the audiences' eyes.
>Mitchell
>Does it have to do with the audiences' self-centerdeness? Can we help the
>audience lose a bit of their selfishness by helping them hear more?

Mitch, ya can lead 'em to theatre but you can't make 'em think.  Seriously,
though, I think that audience's selfishness  might be the best thing  we
have going for us. The problem is  that we don't listen to the
self-centered audience. If we creared pieces based on their  clearly
elucidated needs, bigger audieces might appear.  Screw being an artist,. Be
a craftsman. Use your talent and insight to be as useful as Bob Vila, and
we'll all have bigger audiences. The equation seems simple to me- when we
don't give an audience what they want, they punish us by opting  next time
for the new Jackie Chan film.If you wanted to take this to its absurd
point, why not commission an opera about the audience....

 Much more to say about the Alisa Solomon review, since I count her as a
fellow traveler, but that will have to wait for another day.

namaste,

b the ar