Chess, Sweden, and Diversity

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Well, I’ve been to a few Verdi operas and classical concerts… so it certainly isn’t just for the rich elite.

Funny thing though, I don’t think that Verdi chap was there himself.
Bit strange really. Springsteens always at his own concerts.

@averagejoe1 said
Jesus Duchess.....a man from Mars would regard you as the most racist-conscious in the forum

It would accuse a ham and cheese sandwich of being racist if the bread was white.

@teinosuke said

The notion, apparently advanced by kmax87, that classical music is entertainment for a wealthy elite is, however, a distinctly Anglo-American prejudice. In Germany you can go to the opera or the concert hall for little more than the price of cinema ticket, and many people from far from privileged backgrounds (including many young people) do so regularly.

I'm sure you can, but looking at the Berliner Philharmoniker website, great seats are generally over 200 Euro's for a good seat. That's if you want to listen to the full orchestra. The cheap seats range from 21 to 66 Euro and there is special seating/standing room, that will cost less than a movie ticket for sure. But I would argue that if you're heading off to the best concert halls of Europe, its not something you really want to do on a beer budget. Of course if its just for the music, yes you will find a cheap way to get in and sit in a nose bleed seat. But for those couples for whom a night out to the concert involves putting on some glad rags and dinner at a ritzy restaurant, you wouldn't get much change from 1,000 Euro. I'm sure there are classical music venues all over the place in Germany and other parts of Europe, that are relatively inexpensive to attend, but to reference my Anglo-American perspective, if that Concert Hall in Germany were held in similar regard as New Yorkers hold the Met, then I am sure that the ticket prices will reflect that stature.

"Tickets to the Met start at just $25, with more than a third of Met tickets available for under $100. Here are some other ways to get access to lower-priced tickets at the Met.

What its really saying is that 2/3rds of prices are over $100, and as I was saying, to really enjoy the experience, you ain't doing it on a beer budget.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I find it interesting that when Tom Cruise was cast as the protagonist in "The Last Samurai" he was condemned for cultural appropriation, but to make a comment about an ethnic group's embrace of a foreign culture's centuries long tradition of music and song its automatically lambasted as being racist.

@kmax87 said
I'm sure you can, but looking at the Berliner Philharmoniker website, great seats are generally over 200 Euro's for a good seat.

That's the Berliner, though, one of the absolute top orchestras of the world. Lesser but still good orchestras playing in provincial concert halls are much cheaper, chamber music cheaper still. Until last year I used to visit my local theatre about once a month - not always for classical music - and those €200 would pay for most of the year. Nor is that for bad seats - the theatre is too small to have those.

Sure, most of the elite orchestras' audience is probably also elite. But the world of classical music is much larger than just the top. I myself sing in our local amateur opera choir, and we normally get two very decent audiences a year. What is true is that those audiences are getting smaller, that we have problems finding singers, and that audiences for classical music in general tend to be smaller than those for modern music or other kinds of performances. But the people who do attend come from a variety of classes, not just the wealthy.

@kmax87 said
I'm sure you can, but looking at the Berliner Philharmoniker website, great seats are generally over 200 Euro's for a good seat. That's if you want to listen to the full orchestra. The cheap seats range from 21 to 66 Euro and there is special seating/standing room, that will cost less than a movie ticket for sure. But I would argue that if you're heading off to the best concer ...[text shortened]... over $100, and as I was saying, to really enjoy the experience, you ain't doing it on a beer budget.

Well, I do opera much more than orchestral music, and by way of comparison, top price at the Staatsoper Berlin is normally 130 euros on a weekend and 95 euros on a weekday; 65 euros for perfectly good seats with clear view at the back of the stalls or front of the upper circle; restricted view seats for 30 euros - that's in a top house. Berlin's other major opera house, Deutsche Oper, is normally no more than 100 euros for best seats, going down to 24 euros for seats at the back of the circle (which still by the way have a perfectly clear view and excellent acoustics; it's a relatively small house). Munich is more expensive (top tickets often more than 150 euros) - but these houses are easily the equal of the Met in terms of musical quality, where, by comparison, the average seat price is $150 and top prices over $300. Here in the UK, stalls seats at the Royal Opera House in London are often around £250 and rarely less than £150. So, with the exception of Bayreuth (a special case), the best houses in Germany are considerably cheaper than in England or America.

When you go down a rung, the difference is even clearer; Frankfurt or Leipzig are probably the equivalent in quality of, say, Chicago, where I once stumped up more than 50 dollars for a seat in the attic, so far from the stage that singers looked like ants; in Leipzig I've had good seats in the stalls for 40 euros, and in Frankfurt for 50 or so.

The glad rags and ritzy meal are, I suppose, an optional extra.

@teinosuke said
Well, I do opera much more than orchestral music, and by way of comparison, top price at the Staatsoper Berlin is normally 130 euros on a weekend and 95 euros on a weekday; 65 euros for perfectly good seats with clear view at the back of the stalls or front of the upper circle; restricted view seats for 30 euros - that's in a top house. Berlin's other major opera house, Deu ...[text shortened]... s, and in Frankfurt for 50 or so.

The glad rags and ritzy meal are, I suppose, an optional extra.

If I appear to have a jaundiced view of the classical music scene, then this may help. In the 90s I did a hospitality course that included tours through some of Sydney's top hotels including the Sydney Hilton and the Intercontinental Sydney. The Intercontinental is a stone's throw from the Sydney Opera house. I don't know if they still run it but back in the day they used to host an Opera Supper Club. According to the Food and Drinks manager conducting the tour, the Supper Club was a way for Opera lovers to spend an hour or so before the performance, having something light to eat and drink before being chauffeured down to the Opera House, to be picked up after the performace to resume the experience. The manager went on to explain how profitable the operation was to the hotel and among other things how the drinks menu could turn a $30 bottle of wine into $600. The wood panelled room looked very cosy repleat with lovely paintings everywhere and all the trappings of wealth and class.

Now I can hear you thinking, I hate the music possibly because of class antagonism. I am not a fan because of feelings of social inadequacy perhaps. Nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up around a very diverse array of musical styles and tastes. You could say I have a catholic taste in music. My parents and their generation were into jazz. Big band music, the rat pack, plus Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and Nat King Cole thrown in for good measure. Us kids were encouraged to learn an instrument. I was a middling talent but I had close friends who excelled at classical piano and in their final school years I would listen to them endlessly practice the Pathetique or the Moonlight Sonata's. Sunday nights on TV was the Berlin Philharmonic under the guidance of Von Karajan. I've watched countless concertos with Arthur Rubinstein at the piano, or Itzhak Perlman on the violin. I was a kid growing up. These were experiences that uncritically just seeped in.

But along with that I also enjoyed the music of the Jackson 5, Stevie, Doctor Hook, Donny and Marie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Boston, and Frampton Comes Alive. By my late teens I was really into Fusion. Miles with Bitches Brew and all the players that emerged from that seminal moment. Stanley Clark, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Jaco! And almost a world away, CSNY, Rodriguez, James Taylor, Janis Ian and Joni, while EWF simmered away with "Thats the way of the World" to "All in All", with the BeeGees and Staying Alive influencing everything to the point where even EWF put out Boogie Wonderland(oh the betrayal!). Then came Australia and Pink Floyd, Elton John, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC big hair and stadium rock....I could list for a very long time about the music that I grew up with and loved including the musicians and styles that I got into later and discovered long after their moment in the sun had passed. It would probably have been easier to say that the only genre of music that I truly hate is the death/thrash metal scene where the lead singer emits a guttural roar that seems to emanate from the bowels of hell.

But back to the discussion, do I hate classical music. No. There's a lot of it that I dearly love. However do I think that the classical music scene suffers from an overwhelming sense of snobbery and privilege that in part is hard-wired into its DNA, due to the way the rich and powerful in Europe patronised the art form and in stark contrast to that, the standing of the greatest composers of that era, representing little more than the artisnal efforts of hired hands to provide entertaining interludes between the movements of court intrigue and drama? Well yes I do think that. Guilty as charged!

Now if the artform has become more democratised of late and there's an everyman experience of it available at a reasonable price, then I'm all for it. In a city like Sydney however, that will never be. Apart from the Opera House there are very few venues that host any talent of note. This is where a lack of population density sucks. Plus the lack of a classical musical tradition means that the numbers of people willing to submit to years of training simply aren't there. So in Sydney unfortunately classical music, if you want to experience it live, is a rather elite pursuit.

So yes, my perspective is biased and has been moulded by my experience and location, and I suppose I am a little envious at the thought of living in a European city or town where the local concert hall can host a performance at low cost that rivals the quality found in some of the best concert halls in other parts of the world.

@divegeester said

So succinct!

@divegeester said

Not one to mince words!