One sentence stuck out:
"Now, more than 100 years later, with a severe lack of music education in our schools and competition from an ever-expanding array of streaming entertainment options, opera faces its greatest existential challenge."
In the early 1970's, I student-taught music in the public schools in all three economic/social category areas: lower income/higher crime, middle class, and higher income/experimental. Yes, this was in the early 70's when NYC was struggling with its education system and we student teachers were mostly used as unpaid reading teachers, but even then teaching music - real music appreciation - was a nightmare.
In the lower income/higher crime neighborhood junior high school, trying to open the door to the amazement of Gershwin - hell, even the Beatles - to kids who were too terrified to take the bus home from school was impossible, especially for someone who was just a few years older than the students and clearly not part of their world and had been unceremoniously dumped into their school.
The middle income high school kids were bored to tears. "Music Appreciation" classes had the interest-factor equivalent of having a Chemistry substitute teacher.
The upper income/experimental high school classes were completely different because they were ... well ... experimental and trying new things was absolutely in their wheelhouse. (At least I didn't have to teach these kids how to read.)
In the 90's/00's/10's/today, listening to music - not just hearing it through headphones - has become a huge struggle.
Part of the problem is that students are not taught to listen to music together, something that became a serious problem during/after the pandemic.
[Forget singing together; they can't even read out loud together. For some students singing together is an invitation to be humiliated especially if they happen to have pleasant voices. While it used to be the 11-12-13 year olds who hesitated to sing out loud, now the age of refusal is down to 6 year olds. What on earth is happening?]
The idea that students can be quiet and listen to an artist perform makes no sense; not when the in-studio audiences of shows like American Idol and The Voice hoot and holler and wait for the high note and scream and carry on throughout the whole thing.
Plus music/arts/culture have always been on the chopping block (certainly in public education) because they are considered elitist, unnecessary money pits.
There's much more to say about Peter Gelb as the Met's GM, but for right now, unless we get music - serious music - into the schools, the future of serious music is in serious jeopardy.
