[further remarks moved to Padded Room. One round on this is digression enough for topic which is introduction to opera per se.]

I’m wondering: wd the PC crowd hire a honky to portray Malcolm X? Maybe they wd say, “that’s too historically concrete to abstract it.”

Then: wd they hire honkies to act a generic story based in tribal Africa?

Try this question. What do you think about a Japanese soprano singing Butterfly? Assuming you answer that you would have no problem, this shows that the question that you ask is more subtle than you realize.

But the real problem with your question is its extreme formulation. Don’t get me wrong, it is a question worth asking, but I don’t think western civilization is what is at stake here.

Your question calls for a lengthy reply, but I will try to be brief and risk coming across haphazard.

1) Specifically on Kathleen Battles, I find her voice clean and lovely. And she is feminine, even for a diva (which tend to be quite feminine), and more feminine than most other American sopranos. This is a real plus in my book. The problem with Battles is that she lacks heart; she is not “into” the part she is singing and often appears to dislike the other singers (esp. male) around her.

As for Norman, I like her voice for some roles, but not for Wagner (even though she does a decent job of Elsa). And while she has personality and heart, she does not seem to identify with her Germanic roles. She sings with passion, but with the passion of Jessye Norman not the passion of Sieglinde or Ariadne.

For some, these observations, even if their truth is granted, will not move them. It is the singing that matters. For me, identification with the role (esp. in German opera) is almost as important as the singing; at times, more important. I’ll take a B-level heldentenor who is a dramatically great Siegmund over an A-level singer who is a stiff. (Of course, my preference would be to have the best of both worlds.)

What does all this have to do with your question? Well, for one, and I don’t want to build a theory on race on this, it seems that somebody with heart such as Norman cannot really get into the role of a German heroine. Race or culture may play a role here. And, if true, this is likely because her background (race and culture) is alien to such roles. If true, this would give some basis for casting whites and perhaps even Germanic whites in these roles.

(Like most, I’m a fan of Placido, but his Lohengrin is too romantic for the part. This despite the fact that Wagner envisioned an Itialianate singer for the role. German heroes call for German singers.)

2) Opera is like theater in that you have to be able to to suspend disbelief — only more so. My colleague addressed this issue briefly in the above post.

Casting parts has been problematic for a variety of reasons. Take Siegfried. Siegfried has always been a difficulty. He is 17 years old, with all the naivety and spunk of such a youth. Add to this that he has never had human contact. Playing him convincingly would be a tall order for a good stage actor. But opera singers are primarily trained in voice and secondarily, if at all, in acting. Add to this that tenor who can sing this grueling part cannot be anywhere near 17. What we end up with is a chubby 40 year old with mediocre acting skills running around stage trying to look and act young, heroic, and naive. Amazingly some are able to pull it off fairly well. But not most. And even with the best Siegfrieds, it takes some effort on the part of the audience to suspend disbelief.

Take Tristan. The Met recently did Tristan with Ben Heppner and Jane Eaglen in the principal roles. Many opera singers are big (fat), but Heppner and Eaglen are enormous and Eaglen borders on the obscene. It is difficult to watch the two heifers alone on stage, but when they sing together, it is painful. I would take a black and think Isolde over a white and obese one.

But here the role is important. I don’t think I would be bothered if Eaglen sang, say, Tosca or even Violetta.

(Speaking of Eaglen, there was a rumor that a concert tour consisting of Deborah Voight, Sharon Sweet and Jane Eaglen wa going to be launched. The name was to be “The Three Tonners”.)

Now let’s take race. It takes tremendous effort, for me at least, to suspend disbelief when Siegfried is white and Sieglinde is black. And I confess that it does not work for me. A recording is one thing, but not on stage and not on a DVD.

But when I think about this, I think the opera being performed is critical. Negroes do not really work in Wagner. And the same is true of Fidelio and perhaps some Mozart. When it comes to Strauss (with the exception of Rosenkavalier), race is not nearly as important. To use your examples, a black Ariadne or Zerbinetta is not nearly as bothersome as a black Brünnhilda. And as for Italian or French opera, race is almost a non-issue. These operas are, for me, mostly about the music. Nothing about these touches me on a primal level or at least not on the most primal levels.

To conclude these rambling thoughts, race is important, but so are other things. In most cases having blacks sing the roles does not bother me (although, all else being equal, I would probably prefer whites for staged performances). But in some operas (Wagner in particular) black singers are distracting and makes it much more difficult for me to become absorbed in them.

And though they won’t admit it, even the PC types recognize this. Opera companies seem to go out of their way to cast black sopranos as Aida. The reason for this is obvious and I think their motivation is right.

But even with this said, I would not turn down tickets to Die Valküre just because a Jessye Norman sang one of the parts.

Inquiring minds want to know…
“Fanget an!” (from Meistersinger)

Reading the translation during the opera is distracting. The more you know about the story, the more you can pay attention to what is being sung and what is happening on the stage.

Like everything else, the more you put into it, the more you will get out.

I think that one of the most winsome aspects of hearing great opera is that it is a great teacher of foreign languages. In the 60’s and 70’s, before the advent of supertitled performances, it was an unalloyed joy to listen to a scene in a foreign language and understand almost every word. Follow the libretto included with the disks, and try to make sense of the words in the original language as you follow the translation. With most languages, aside from Russian, this will be easy because of the cognates. If the performance is good, soon you’ll be singing along with the cast. It’s surprising how many of the top singers do exactlty that. The singers themselves do not speak all the languages in which they regularly sing. After a short time, you will acquire a wonderful passive vocabulary, and will be picking out the same words again and again in other operas. The only thing that you can’t overcome is a second rate performance and, unfortunately, there are a number of them on recordings these days. A short google search will produce many lists of “best” recordings. Start with one of them and soon you’ll be pulling swords out of Earth Ash trees with Melchior and loving it.

I would probably pick bohème three nights out of four over Tristan, but this is not because I think it is greater. More is involved with Tristan. One has to be in the right state of mind; it is draining and leaves one numb. Bohème does not. Fill your pipe with tobacco and uncork a good bottle of wine and you are ready for bohème. Approach Tristan in the same way and you will not make it through the first act.

The paradox of this is that if we rated opera as we do movies (it is safe to assume both would rank on the BI), bohème may get a higher score. Yet Tristan would still be the greater. Perhaps this means that we need another index if we ever get around to rating operas.