2b: Performance, in particular singing. Some of the same people ask me, still earnestly, often pleadingly, and usually without malice: “You mean you can’t name a single singer of dramatic roles, in any voice category, that is satisfactory by past standards?” and I must reply, “That’s right, with possible occasional exceptions” (e. g., in the season just ending, Rachvelishvili as the Principessa in Adriana), I am again setting a standard that no critic could continue applying on a regular basis without threat to life, limb, and paycheck. Yet the truth of the answer is self-evident to any person with ears and experience, and the collapse of critical standards is itself a marker of opera’s predicament.

These facts cannot be repeated too often. As for the natural follow-up question (the tone now sometimes edging from earnestness to incredulous pugnacity), “Well, so what do we do about it?”, the answers, though not their implementation, also seem obvious. With respect to production: Make it a condition of employment that director/designers accept their place in the world as interpreters, not auteurs. And with respect to singing: Re-introduce classical music, as both heard and practiced, at appropriate age levels, along with languages and high culture in general, to the elementary and middle-school curriculum. Reintroduce a public speaking requirement (no mikes) at the same levels, for all students. Begin serious voice training for those interested earlier, certainly by the high-school years, and defend it against popular-culture activities. In order to accomplish these things, work politically to gain recognition of the high-culture arts as public goods. These would be some of the required changes, whether they seem plausible or not.

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NEXT WEEK: The third and final installment of “Chaliapin, Phenomenon.” And COMING UP: “Siegfried of Siegfried,” projected as a two-part article, comprising first what we learn from several outstanding recordings, then what we find in the Met’s current offering.

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