Throughout the entire history of opera, from its beginning in the Francophile 18th century to the American 21st, there have been numerous moments which stand out as having been controversial of their time and controversial even today due to the contentious nature of the events. If one looks to contemporary issues like Anna Netrebko’s alleged blackface while participating in Verdi’s “Aida” at the Arena Di Verona, Jonas Kaufmann’s historical legacy of cancelling concerts , Angela Gheorghiu’s inter-performance outbursts , or even further back in time like the Berlin Deutsche Oper cancelling their 2006 production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” the premiere of John Adam’s “ Death of Klinghoffer “’ or the recent ordeal with the Korean Broadcasting System’s choice to air Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” on the Korean “Day of Liberation,” there is enough activity to fill a lifetime and then some. However, certain events stand out as having had far-reaching impacts on the trajectory of opera than others, with some being more controversial than others, more adventurous than disquieting, or even more progressive than traditional.
In fact, the legacy of concerts where fights and other audience quarrels broke out is something of a historical constant, from the 18th to the 21st century, from Berlioz to Stravinsky to Steve Reich! Not only that, from having an all-female cast of Mozart’s ‘ The Magic Flute ,’ to Tobias Kratzer’s “ Tannhäuser” in 2019 at the Bayreuth Festival, artistic choices sometimes do not have the impact as once thought, nor are they exceptional in design. Safe to say, there many good choices but there are as many bad choices which end up turning off audiences from opera. Of course, dramatic budget cuts to opera funding throughout England, Bayreuth’s recent reduction in their paid opera choir size, and the Metropolitan Opera’s endowment reduction , all speak to an exceptionally precarious future for opera, one where funding is becoming an increasingly difficult topic of discussion but one which must be talked about regardless.
Despite the many controversies plaguing the artform, opera has generated great change throughout the world, and without your support , the future of opera cannot be so easily guaranteed. In this article, we’ll take a look at three notable controversies in opera history, beginning with one of the biggest from the Francophile 18th century to one of the (many) biggest of our time in the American 21st century. The ‘Querelle des Bouffons’ (Paris, 1750s) What opera looks like today could have been much different had the fight between the Italian “opera buffa,” or the more everyday humorous type, and the Francophile “tragédie lyrique,” or the more serious variety, and the implications of the choice to let Italian ‘comic opera’ gain a Francophile presence.
Dubbed the “ Querelle des Bouffons ,” or “War of The Comic Actors,” this debate between those preferring the opera descending from the “ opera seria ” versus those who were for opera of the lighter, more entertainment, and working-class oriented variety, was contributed to by many of the great French philosophers of the day, each with their own position. Jean-Jacques Rousseau , author of the famous 1753 “Letter on French Music” (“ Lettre sur la musique française” ), supported Italian opera, “ I confess that French musicians are in a state of feeling beauty, and I would willingly say of [Giovanni Baptista] Pergolesi..
.that he has already made a lot of artistic progress,” referring to the opera, “ La serva padrona .” By the 1750s, the debate was largely over as Italian ‘opera buffa’ was successfully integrated into the Francophile operatic context, and with the rise of composer Jean-Philippe Rameau and his usage of comic opera as early as the 1740s in his opera, “ Platée ,” those who didn’t like the style were forced to back down on the matter.
During the 20th century, however, the quarrel’s legacy could be felt in the French operas produced which took from Italian lyricism and French harmonic richness, Pauline Viardot’s “Cendrillion” (1904), Ravel’s “ L’heure espagnole ” (1911) and Poulenc’s “ Dialogues of the Carmelites ” (1956) two examples. Contemporary French operas like Kaija Saariaho’s “ L’Amour de loin” (2000) carried the debate through, however conceiving of the lyricism-harmony debate in greatly developed ways thanks to the sheer amount of possibilities now available. ‘The Children of Rosenthal’ (Russia, 2005) With a libretto written by famed Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin and music by Ukrainian composer Leonid Desyatnikov , a great controversy emerged around this opera whose central story is that of an attempt to revive the existence of many great composers like Wagner, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Verdi.
However, the controversial part of the story was its premiere in 2005 at the Bolshoi Opera House in Moscow, Russia. On its face, the opera is considered to be of the ‘postmodern’ quality given its numerous meta-level allusions to itself as an opera and the construction of its form, a series of operatic vignettes featuring different composers. Given that the Bolshoi is a place of exceptional art, having an opera like this performed at the house was not a small venture nor an inconsequential one either.
As one 2005 CNN article put it, “ Russia’s Bolshoi Theater has sparked outrage by putting on an opera that some lawmakers and a pro-Kremlin youth group say is pornographic.” Whether the opera actually was or was not lude in its content is not the point as most of the controversy was around the defamation of character of music history’s great names, or at least that is what Russian Duma member Sergei Neverov would have us believe. At the time, Desyatnikov and Sorokin’s opera was the first new opera to be premiered by the house since the performance of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” in 1979 .
However, most of the animosity towards the opera can be seen in the satirical, borderline absurdist, view of Stalin’s Russia by the composers, with Mozart wedding a prostitute being the cherry on top which led to the opera’s castigation among the elites. Sorokin’s comment , “All this in parliament is simply a manifestation of savagery and ignorance,” in the decades after the performance have unfortunately become reality. As Valery Gergiev has announced , the Bolshoi has no plans on performing anything new for a very long time.
It’s a shame, as there is so much from the late-Soviet and early post-Soviet period to perform and no one to listen to it. Maybe one day, this will change but the odds are slim to none. Netrebko v.
Metropolitan Opera (USA, 2023) An unfortunate incident that resulted in the severing of ties between one of the world’s greatest dramatic sopranos and one of the world’s most important opera houses, in 2023 Russian soprano Anna Netrebko sued the Metropolitan Opera House and Peter Gelb, its current General Manager, for wrongful termination. It cannot be forgotten that after February 2022, Russian culture was seen in a vastly new way. As a result, Russian repertoire and performers of every kind were transformed, with the latter required to make political public statements.
The plaintiff (Gelb and the Met) argued that Netrebko was closely associated with Vladimir Putin, whereas the defendent (Netrebko) argued that this was not at all the case stating she is “not a political or ideological supporter of Putin, is not a huge Putin supporter.” This case had a serious impact upon Netrebko’s standings with American audiences, opera houses, and colleagues alike, and whether one likes or dislikes her, Netrebko’s career was temporarily harmed as a result of her termination. In August 2024, her discrimination case, arguing that male Russian singers were more political than her yet remain in working relations at the Metropolitan, was advanced.
It’s rich, however, as Netrebko has spoken out against the actions of Putin many times yet these have seemingly been forgotten in the torrent of news after February 2022. Nevertheless, as the many countries of the world continue their disagreements , condemnations , and defense of Netrebko’s performance career, it should be remembered that this case represents more than Netrebko but the borderline criminal treatment of singers by institutional heavyweights. In no small way, Netrebko’s censorship represents the contemporary state of the Metropolitan Opera House in all of its glory.
It remains to be seen whether that lost glory will return. Categories.
