HIS SAY: HUFFING BUT NO PUFFING…IN AUSTRALIA AN OPERA IS CANCELED …..
Here is a note from my most witty and erudite e-pal and friend Professor Edward Alexander:
Opera-lovers draw the line: “Klinghoffer” OK, “Carmen” bad.
“Here is a bulletin from Down Under: “The West Australian Opera has dropped
‘Carmen’ from its scheduled 2015 run because the 140-year-old French opera
depicts smoking.” The Aussie prime minister, Tony Abbott, characterized
this as “political correctness gone crazy.”
http://dailyreview.crikey.com.au/where-theres-smoke-carmen-cancelled-due-to-smoking-concerns/13400
Where there’s smoke: Carmen cancelled due to smoking concerns by Ben Neutze
Sponsorship has been the hot topic of the Australian arts world ever since a group of artists withdrew their works from this year’s Sydney Biennale in response to the organisation’s relationship with a company involved in offshore detention centres.
But a sponsorship arrangement between West Australian Opera and some “good guys” is proving to be particularly bizarre. While the Biennale artists objected to their sponsor’s activities, this time the sponsor looks like it’s objecting to the arts organisation’s activities.
A WA Government agency called Healthway, aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles and discouraging smoking, has come on board as a major sponsor for WA Opera in a $400,000, two-year arrangement. WA Opera subsequently ditched its upcoming season of Georges Bizet’s Carmen because it contains onstage smoking, the West Australian reports. The opera, which is consistently in the top five most-performed in the world, will be replaced by another yet-to-be announced piece.
WA Opera says the decision is voluntary, to keep in line with Healthway’s position on cigarette smoking, while a Healthway spokesperson told the West Australian that smoking on stage, TV and film normalises smoking, and presents it as being attractive. Healthway also has a sponsorship policy that requires all sponsored organisations to remain “smoke-free”, but doesn’t explain if it extends to the non-harmful herbal cigarettes that are usually smoked on stages in Australia.
It’s clear why the conflict of interest might have occurred here — the first act of Carmen is set just outside the cigarette factory where Carmen works. The workers emerge in a waft of cigarette smoke and sing alluringly to the soldiers and townsfolk.
But is WA Opera right to change major artistic decisions because of their relationship with a sponsor? Carmen is one of the most important works in the operatic canon, but do these concerns outweigh the work’s artistic merit?
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