The loosening of story-telling boundaries has happened, but again I am befuddled as to how it can be seen as cause for celebration, except perhaps as a soothingly democratic tall tale we like to tell ourselves. From the single, redundant protagonist-couple narrative of the E-19 canon with its social justice story: some fifty or sixty demonstrable masterpieces and a substantial number of very good, only slightly less repeatable and renewable, additional works. From the “broadened,” “expanded” (beware such adjectives) range of stories in our American operatic century, one arguable masterpiece (Porgy and Bess), and the handful of operas of our postwar Little Canon—and we might throw in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All—which are at least enjoyable and singable. Taking a gander at the section of OA’s Field Report devoted to the annual count of productions of North American operas, we find this Top Six for 2023: Floyd’s Susannah, Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Menotti’s The Medium, Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit, Zach Redler’s The Falling and the Rising, and William Grant Still’s Highway 1 USA. Regrettably, OA gives us only the standings, not the raw figures. Researching the ’23 winner, Susannah, I was able to find five productions, three of which were professional, the other two at colleges or universities. If OA counted more, that would be nice to know; in any case, the numbers decline from there, till I think we must assume that beyond the odd cutoff point of six, no other American opera received even one professional production in 2023. It is only just to note that everything in these OA reports reflects the tail of the Covid pandemic. 2023, however, was the season of which we could say that opera was up and running pretty much as it had pre-2020, though still with nervousness about the change in audience habits, which may have influenced repertoire choices in a conservative direction.

A few observations: Except for Susannah and The Falling and the Rising, these are all short operas, not meant to stand alone. ^(I) Redler’s work (at 1:26, also short as full-length operas go) has “contemporary relevance” attraction—it’s about a female soldier recovering from a grave combat injury—and, co-commissioned by seven performing entities, racked up productions quickly after its premiere in 2018. Otherwise, the shared appeal of these works is audience-friendly, voice-friendly music. Hoiby’s Bon Appétit is a 20-minute morsel—no more than a skit, based on Julia Child’s cooking show—rustled up for the actress Jean Stapleton, and it’s really stretching things to include it in The Mighty Six. The remaining four (Floyd, Menotti, Still) date not from the 2000s, the ’90s, ’80s, ’70s, or even ’60s, but from the 1950s, that unreformed decade that preceded both the growth of our regional opera system and the many social enlightenments of the following 70 years.

As for the non-North American rep, OA’s rankings for ’23 show Tosca, La Traviata, La Bohème, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Carmen. Without going to my trunk to consult the Central Opera Service bulletins of, say,1960-’65, I’m pretty confident in asserting there’s been no change there, save for the possible substitution of some other opera by Verdi, Puccini, or Mozart for one of these in a particular season. Again, no figures accompany the listing. But if it were to be revealed that the American champ, Susannah, received more productions and performances than the E-19 canonical tailender, Carmen, I would be astonished. And not sharing the figures strikes me as an example of the above-cited wishfulness, hoping we’ll assume an equivalence between these two rankings.^(II) Of course, we are discussing only popularity. That’s a different ranking, though with fair overlap, from one of artistic significance as determined by distinguished musicians, scholars, critics, and connoisseurs. We are also talking about those works that are most practicable (i. e., affordable and within production capacities) for the run of American opera companies. But those considerations—popularity and practicability, with a boost from high reputation—are precisely the ones that determine repertory survival. So it appears we’re stuck, and have been for quite some time. I don’t really mind being stuck with the Euro- Canonical leaders—those are five splendid operas, and there are plenty more to tap. But our American listing (and look, I’m fond of Susannah) has a worn, bedraggled look, with, at least for 2023, not a hint of the flourishing new rep. Perhaps the survey of audience newcomers will cast some light.