What do $7000-dollar opera tickets, a filled-out Berlin stadium, paparazzi mania, and Nouveau Riche have in common?
Anna Netrebko: a 36-year-old Metropolitan Opera soprano with old-school Hollywood glamour who manages to outsell both Beyoncé and Britney Spears.
Netrebko is the new popularizer of opera, apparently. Or such is the hype, at least. But as many critics and hard-core opera lovers say, if a soprano is too popular maybe she is not that technically good, perhaps?
We'll see how she will continue to fare. However, I suspect that if she is good enough for the Met, she might just be that: good enough.
graph per ny times
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4 comments:
Would her 'soprano-ish' ways be classified as performatve? Why are sopranoes usually referred to as
'divas?'
because the artistic temperament is a bit temperamental, tal vez?....
and naturally, this is a stereotype!
I find the lexeme 'diva' too marked. The original NY Times writer employed that term and since, stereotypically, opera performers are, at times, identified as 'divas', I would read her identification choice as a play on 'cultural stereotype. Anyway, the article spoke to me on a pure aesthetic level: Nebtrenko does not look muck like a soprano, stereotypically, that is.
I would say, to answer Ed's question, that everything about a performer is, de facto, performative ie, the reliance on aesthetics being one of the very first things to reach the realm of recognition.
Right?
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