The Call of the Tradizionalisti.

In the operatic world, to be controversial is to be per tutte le stagioni. Who cares if it's great art? Does it sell? Peter Gelb may be mad, yet there is method in't: the new Tosca got boos and he says, "Get over it." He's a risktaker and I like that. Even so, there are lessons to be learned from rowdy "traditionalists." Iconoclasm has always been en vogue, but when did traditionalism get lumped in with the GOP? All right, so they boo. Maybe the production stinks. I mean, c'mon, nobody's gonna riot. This isn't the WWE. Let the snobs have some fun! Booing is a misunderstood and sadly underrated artform. To boo isn't merely to say, "I paid money for this, jerk!" It is to proclaim, "I think, I care! Blood's rushing through my veins, for chrissake!" (Besides, our American cultural predisposition for the standing ovation is already embarrassingly unrefined.) Apparently they're booing the production, not the singing. See the trend? There was a time when conductors sat with their backs to the orchestra; beautiful singing was non plus ultra . Has the pendulum swung too far the other way?

Gelb suggests that all classical music used to be pop, which is not completely inaccurate (meanwhile Mozart is rolling in his markerless grave). Pop is new; for us it's gotta be hip, too. Does controversy accompany the hip factor? Not necessarily. In fact, if your aim is to be hip, then you may be inciting the wrong kind of controversy. Audiences don't know what they want, though, and Gelb is right, even if he doesn't know it. What we crave is theatricality: concise storytelling, told with conviction. Truly, it should be our only "tradition." Not to be clever and cool, but to be relevant. Opera's been dead for a long time; so has God, Philosophy, Capitalism, and all my hopes of ever scoring with Zack Morris. Was it always fiction? We want so badly for the Holy Grail to be literal. There's nothing new, kids; there is only now.

These days we want to "update" the arts -- the design, in particular. Appropriately, the verb does not imply improvement, but restoration. Freshness cannot be forced. The process is organic; indeed, many operas lend themselves to it naturally. For instance, Andalusian frills may be fun for Figaro, but they aren't indispensable. The major events of the drama are class conflict and power struggle-- ubiquitous themes, always relevant. The territory becomes murkier, however, with an opera like Tosca: Napoleanic Wars, a Bernhardt-esque diva, a passionate revolutionary, etc.--specific constraints that may seem anachronistic to us. The setting, too, is a little less generic. Nineteenth-Century Rome actually plays another character in Sardou's drama; the opulence of the age gives Tosca grandeur without making the singer-actors do extra work. A modern setting also robs the opera of its inherent sexiness. And sex sells. What's sexy about brick? Folks get frisky around brick every day. But an ornate church?--the forbidden Sant'Andrea della Valle? All that Catholic guilt and lust? It should stage itself. Perhaps Zeffirelli's version remained popular because the audience accepted the decadence readily and focused on the singing, which is of course opera's raison d'être. Admittedly, the title isn't Roma, circa 1900. It's Tosca's show, and she is a modern woman for every age; she is an individual, three-dimensional. Production design isn't unimportant, but it is supplementary.

Want something really fresh? Commission new work. Nobody'll care about the design. Don't upset the "traditionalists"-- they donate the moolah. Tread lightly: we're meddling with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale.