1. The biggest factor in my mind is the waning cultural relevance of classical music/opera in our society and its transformation into a “niche” art form and sound aesthetic. This has led to the extreme diminishment of the talent pool from which we identify and encourage potential operatic performers (especially among males, for various cultural reasons, but also broadly across the population as a whole). If before (back when classical vocalism was essentially synonymous with “singing”) our culture singled out, say, the top 2% of youngsters with promise as singers from the mainstream populace and encouraged them toward classical vocal training and performance opportunities, we’re now taking those same top youngsters from a much diminished pool of proto-aspirants—those who have somehow come into contact with this “esoteric” art form and manner of vocal production and find it aesthetically appealing or culturally relevant to them. All those other talented kids who in a different era might have  pursued classical vocal training are instead developing their voices and their mode of artistic expression after the mold of more modern popular music, and our niche field is poorer for their not being a part of it. The net result, I believe, is a much lower baseline level of talent we’re working with at every stage of the educational pipeline and business—despite the surface appearance of larger-than-ever absolute numbers of students entering academic vocal training programs.

2. If the first item was demographic, this next one is psychographic: Those aspirant singers who do enter the training environment often find it a restrictive one, marked by a “dos and don’ts” culture of conformity ingrained from an early stage so as to shut down natural curiosity and spontaneity and to cultivate an anxious form of risk-averse rule following. In this world, singing is treated as an academic pursuit where compliant followers who excel at executing the instructions of authority figures down to the most minute level of “pre-programmed artistry” receive the best grades and most encouragement. And singers routinely receive judgmental “advice” from those in the business who seem (from the advice given) to care more about what a singer wears to audition than the depth and quality of the artistic product. This results in bland artists through shaping them in that direction and through weeding out those who are more willful and less dutiful rule-followers (and possibly also more likely to be interesting artists).

3. Related to but distinct from the above: The power relationship in professional operatic production has shifted away from singers and toward regie-oriented stage directors and urtext-enforcing conductors as the assumed most important elements of what makes a worthwhile night at the theater. Even though it remains clear that audiences continue to respond most enthusiastically to the charisma, personality, and vocal prowess of individual artists, the administrative gatekeepers of the field seemingly delude themselves that it’s a form of progress that we’ve moved on from the “bad old days” of the 19th and early 20th centuries when the balance of power favored star singers.