DON'T SAY "ACCESSIBLE": "OPERA WARS" AND THE FIGHT OVER WHAT OPERA CAN BE
Nine pages before the end of the new book Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for its Future , author Caitlin Vincent quotes a more than 40-time contemporary opera librettist about the stigma against accessibility in modern opera. "Librettist Mark Campbell recalled being confronted by a composer collaborator after Campbell described his music as ‘accessible’ in a public forum. ‘He took me aside and said, Don’t ever use that word again. Critics will use that against me. And I said, I didn't mean it was dumbed down. I meant the audience will connect with it.’" When I read Opera Wars , I thought of an opera aria that managed to crack this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Song, beating out eligible pop luminaries like Ed Sheeran, Brandi Carlile, Miley Cyrus, Sara Bareilles and Stephen Schwartz to the coveted nomination. It was the first classical number to win such a nomination in a decade, according to the entertainment publication The Wrap . The aria, “S...