Opera Chic

Gérard Mortier: ummmmm

Although this article from The New York Observer was published last week, I can’t get the accompanying picture of Gérard Mortier (who is slated to become GM and artistic director of the New York City Opera in 2009) out of mind.

It looks like he’s either been promoted to a new police task enforcement that has been implemented over a gang of feisty graffiti artists bent on tagging the entire city (“we’re gonna clean up dees streets good and make them shine, boys”), or he’s trying to show how down he is; how close is to the pulse of “the streets”. The idiosyncrasies, the smile, the urban landscape. omg it makes me lol for so many reasons.

Gerard Mortier's first NYC interview: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Spanking (heh) New NYCO Chief Gerard "Monsieur Krankypants" Mortier spake with the Associated Press.

"The City Opera was created in '43. That's the same year I was born".

Uh, OK.

"I will try to present in New York a vision of opera that is something for nowadays, that it's not a museum. It's not something from yesterday. When we go to the opera, we can find something for today, answers on questions we are posing today".

"The Neuenfels in Salzburg was a typical protest against Haider," Mortier said, referring to right-wing Austrian politician Jorg Haider. "That I would never bring to New York."

Dude, it's the same thing you said in Salzburg almost 20 years ago, and then tenors started to mime pewping on sopranos onstage as half-n4k3d extras fondled farm animals, all in teh name of "opera that is not a museum".

Coming tomorrow: Opera Chic peruses (?!) 15 years of Mortier verbal fistfights with Liliana Cavani, Luciano Berio, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Madame Von Karajan and many others.