Bookslut - a column from the website "The Smart Set" reviews a book about Opera fans or rather Fanatics.
The full review (found here) by Jess Crispin, is definitely worth the read even though it is from a personal rather than objective point of view.
Ms. Crispin writes: In The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession, Claudio E. Benzecry identifies four distinct types of the obsessed attendee: There’s the hero, who believes he is keeping the opera house open and the art itself alive and vital. There’s the addict, who is willing to sacrifice his families, friends, lovers, money, and sanity to attend multiple performances of the same opera, to listen to the records and attend lectures and travel to distant theaters. There’s the nostalgic, for whom everything was better when it was sung by Maria Callas, or Joan Sutherland, or back in 1965, or back when people took pride in knowing about opera. Then there’s the pilgrim, the devoted subject who treats the opera house as a religious temple.
I guess those groups make sense enough to me but I don't identify with any of those. I wonder if those of us that wear the hats of both performer/artists and fans don't really count as fans. There is something about being on the inside of an industry that changes your status but I would say that if you are in the industry (whatever it is) and not a fan then you probably need to be doing something else.
The book, incase you are wondering: "The Opera Fanatic: the ethnography of and obsession" by Claudio E. Benzecry
The full review (found here) by Jess Crispin, is definitely worth the read even though it is from a personal rather than objective point of view.
Ms. Crispin writes: In The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession, Claudio E. Benzecry identifies four distinct types of the obsessed attendee: There’s the hero, who believes he is keeping the opera house open and the art itself alive and vital. There’s the addict, who is willing to sacrifice his families, friends, lovers, money, and sanity to attend multiple performances of the same opera, to listen to the records and attend lectures and travel to distant theaters. There’s the nostalgic, for whom everything was better when it was sung by Maria Callas, or Joan Sutherland, or back in 1965, or back when people took pride in knowing about opera. Then there’s the pilgrim, the devoted subject who treats the opera house as a religious temple.
I guess those groups make sense enough to me but I don't identify with any of those. I wonder if those of us that wear the hats of both performer/artists and fans don't really count as fans. There is something about being on the inside of an industry that changes your status but I would say that if you are in the industry (whatever it is) and not a fan then you probably need to be doing something else.
The book, incase you are wondering: "The Opera Fanatic: the ethnography of and obsession" by Claudio E. Benzecry
