24 Februar 2011
Where Are They?
Comment about women opera composers.
Why is it easier for a woman to become an astronaut and fly into outer space than to get an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, or for that matter, almost any other major opera house in the world?
A lot of very fine operas have been and are being composed by women, but no one hears them. Today's world of opera composers is truly a Boys' Club.
Should women composers wait longer? What for? The first Italian opera performed at the court of Empress Maria Theresia in Vienna was by a woman composer. More than two hundred years ago! In the meantime, waiting doesn't seem to have brought much progress in this area.
Opera America laments the recent cut-backs in funding for the arts, as does the League of American Orchestras. But should women composers have to pay to hear only operas by men? As for orchestral music, the League reports that 1% of what is played in the US each year by its member orchestras is by women composers. Support in the arts should be a two-way street.