Economically Speaking.

I’ve been working for a company this week that gives money to incredible justice and human rights projects around the world, so my head’s been ticking a bit about money.  This place is amazing because it doesn’t think “there isn’t money, how do we get some?” rather, “there is money somewhere, so let’s consider infrastructure”.  Meanwhile, I have this rather dire conversation with one of my favorite coaches in which he looks at the roles I sing and says, “Okay—let’s say you sing these better than any single other person—companies already know who they’re going to hire for these parts.  And who does any of these operas anyway?”  Now, I could vaguely blame America for that conversation.  Or the recession,  Or my 18 year-old self.  But, brilliant economist that I am (ahem.), it made me wonder: does this tightening of the job opportunities in opera benefit the actual quality of the market?  Let’s take me out of it (who knows if I’m good—who knows who is).  Let’s look at this like Darwin:

Fewer jobs = only the best get hired = better productions = those singers are paid an overall more sustainable wage as a whole??

Throw in a few entitled, a few conductor-darlings, and you have yourself an evolved industry!  Included or not, I would actually be all for that.  And in this hypothetical system, instead of appealing to the masses, we do the opposite: we embrace opera’s learned nuance, its weirdness, its gender and race dysmorphia, close it off to everyone but a small insider’s club and call it what it has been for audiences and what it threatens to be for singers: elite.  Gasp!  Horror!  Forget these words ever existed on Questaway!! 

But understanding this as a possibility is actually really interesting… I don’t think it would better society, but it would create the sustained system everyone has been craving.  Because, unlike theater and modern dance and jazz, broke singers (on the whole) aren’t creating work that is provoking and unconventional—they are scraping by to pay for more training.   In fact, they are scraping by to make breaks at companies that are scraping by.  In this, they are creating a secondary market that is exactly the same as the first (enjoyed and supported by just an elite club—I’m sorry, it’s true).  Yet, there’s a distinct sustainability problem with this second market: it’s funded for and by scrapers (read: there’s no money).  So instead of this under-employed mass putting pressure on the larger institutions or helping to grow the mid-level institutions (yep, I do love Gotham), they slowly drop out.  That may be honorable, but is it responsible…

Hypothetical drunk uncle at Thanksgiving: “…to yourself?”

Real Questie after reading about George Soros:  “to the industry?”