An Opera For Our Times

Stacey Tappan sends us this note from Chicago:

Dear Planet Money,

I'm an opera singer in Chicago, covering the title role in "Lulu" with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and I thought you might like to know about a line in the show that's been getting enormous laughs.

Act 3, scene 1 of the opera takes place at a party where everyone's talking about shares in the Jungfrau Railway company. Everyone owns or wants them, as they're going up and up. There's an exchange between a bank director and a mother at the party.

Mutter: "Meine samtlichen Ersparnisse bestehn jetzt aus Jungfrau- Aktien. Wenn das nicht gluckt, Herr Generaldirektor, dann kratze ich Ihnen die Augen aus," which she delivers with a laugh. It means: "My entire savings are in Jungfrau shares now. If this doesn't succeed, Mr. Bank Director, then I'll scratch your eyes out!"

 

Generaldirektor: "Ich bin meiner Sache vollkommen sicher, meiner Teurste." Translated in the supertitles as: "We bankers know our business, dear lady."

Huge laughs and sometimes even applause from the audience. Of course, the shares tank by the end of the act, and everyone is ruined. The opera was written in 1935, and stock market crashes, needless to say, were very fresh in the public memory.

Also interesting to note that the last time Lyric presented "Lulu" was in 1987, which was the year of the "Black Monday" stock market crash.

The effect the economic crisis has had on the opera world has been in the news more and more lately. The incipient new director of the New York City Opera, unable to get the funding he needed for his ambitious new revitalization program, resigned, and they've had to cancel two new commissions.

Opera Pacific in Orange County, CA, has cancelled the rest of its season and looks like it's gone under for good. Washington National Opera has just announced that they're postponing their Ring cycle. And the Met has cancelled a remounting of The Ghosts of Versailles, which was to have had Kristen Chenoweth in the cast.

Of course, it's hardly a surprise that opera, which depends on funding from banks and other businesses and individuals that are likely to have been hit hard by the mortgage crisis, is feeling the pinch. I suppose many people see opera as a luxury, and that it's no great tragedy if opera companies suffer, but since I make my living at it, it hits me a little more personally. I think we need art and beautiful music in these troubled times, don't you?