Last week, we at MTA had an ongoing -and sometimes heated- discussion about what dance is at its essence (and what it does not need to be).  This week we turn the same question on opera!

This weekend, Ryan Tracy brings his Collective Opera Company to perform his new opera, Scarlet Fever. Ryan is one of the most interesting thinkers about contemporary opera (and performance) that we know.  In addition to being a composer and singer, he writes for newspapers and his own blog CounterCritic. Here, in an email exchange, he offers some ideas on what opera is and what it does not need to be:

Hi Ryan,
You sparked a long discussion tonight about what opera is and how traditions evolve. And so we were curious about what you'd offer as a definition of opera. (I think I've read your writing before in which you discuss the difference between it and musical theater for instance...) What defines it enough to be opera but leaves room for growth and contemporariness? -aynsley

Hey Aynsley!

I'm glad I had something to do with your conversation! It's a subject I enjoy weighing in on.

And the question is very apropos of the project we're bring to MTA.

If one is interested in maintaining a semblance with the form they are working in, then definition becomes very important. Not that one definition of anything will fit all things that fall within that category. But I like working within traditions, and I like pushing traditions to shift, develop, change, move forward; to question the tradition.

In terms of opera, there are things that I look for, but again, do not always need to be present in order for me to call something opera.

Let me offer, then, a few ideas of what I believe opera does not need to be:
Long.
Big (in physical size and resources).
Sung all the way through.
Set to an orchestral score.
Performed on a stage.
Live.

So, right away, as I "don't" define opera, there are already five or so awesome areas for growth/change. Think of any standard opera (and any standard opera company), and most likely you will find that almost all of these categories still fit the old definitions of opera. So, if you want to make a new opera, still in the tradition of opera, a good place to start is with these ideas: making opera shorter, smaller, include spoken dialogue, score the music for smaller instrumentation and electronic instrumentation, perform the opera outside or in a barn or in a dance studio or at an art gallery, or create an opera specifically for the medium of film (i.e. Matthew Barney's "Cremaster V", or R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet").

But then, there are always those things, those qualities that I look for that can't necessarily be added up. A lot is aesthetic. Sometimes it just comes down to a read on whether I feel the artist knows what medium/genre they're working in.

A new idea that interests me, and that, I believe, has manifested itself in this new work, is getting opera to feel more like theater. Opera, it seems, has developed over the last hundred years into a theatrical form that feels distinctly unlike the theater or plays. I'd like to experiment with getting opera to have that immediacy/urgency one feels in non-musical theater (and even in some works of "musical theater"). Why does going to opera have to feel esoteric and alien?

So, these are just a few thoughts. I look forward to sharing more, and exchanging ideas.

Can't wait to see you! - Ryan