@teinosuke said
Well, I do opera much more than orchestral music, and by way of comparison, top price at the Staatsoper Berlin is normally 130 euros on a weekend and 95 euros on a weekday; 65 euros for perfectly good seats with clear view at the back of the stalls or front of the upper circle; restricted view seats for 30 euros - that's in a top house. Berlin's other major opera house, Deu ...[text shortened]... s, and in Frankfurt for 50 or so.
The glad rags and ritzy meal are, I suppose, an optional extra.
If I appear to have a jaundiced view of the classical music scene, then this may help. In the 90s I did a hospitality course that included tours through some of Sydney's top hotels including the Sydney Hilton and the Intercontinental Sydney. The Intercontinental is a stone's throw from the Sydney Opera house. I don't know if they still run it but back in the day they used to host an Opera Supper Club. According to the Food and Drinks manager conducting the tour, the Supper Club was a way for Opera lovers to spend an hour or so before the performance, having something light to eat and drink before being chauffeured down to the Opera House, to be picked up after the performace to resume the experience. The manager went on to explain how profitable the operation was to the hotel and among other things how the drinks menu could turn a $30 bottle of wine into $600. The wood panelled room looked very cosy repleat with lovely paintings everywhere and all the trappings of wealth and class.
Now I can hear you thinking, I hate the music possibly because of class antagonism. I am not a fan because of feelings of social inadequacy perhaps. Nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up around a very diverse array of musical styles and tastes. You could say I have a catholic taste in music. My parents and their generation were into jazz. Big band music, the rat pack, plus Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and Nat King Cole thrown in for good measure. Us kids were encouraged to learn an instrument. I was a middling talent but I had close friends who excelled at classical piano and in their final school years I would listen to them endlessly practice the Pathetique or the Moonlight Sonata's. Sunday nights on TV was the Berlin Philharmonic under the guidance of Von Karajan. I've watched countless concertos with Arthur Rubinstein at the piano, or Itzhak Perlman on the violin. I was a kid growing up. These were experiences that uncritically just seeped in.
But along with that I also enjoyed the music of the Jackson 5, Stevie, Doctor Hook, Donny and Marie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Boston, and Frampton Comes Alive. By my late teens I was really into Fusion. Miles with Bitches Brew and all the players that emerged from that seminal moment. Stanley Clark, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Jaco! And almost a world away, CSNY, Rodriguez, James Taylor, Janis Ian and Joni, while EWF simmered away with "Thats the way of the World" to "All in All", with the BeeGees and Staying Alive influencing everything to the point where even EWF put out Boogie Wonderland(oh the betrayal!). Then came Australia and Pink Floyd, Elton John, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC big hair and stadium rock....I could list for a very long time about the music that I grew up with and loved including the musicians and styles that I got into later and discovered long after their moment in the sun had passed. It would probably have been easier to say that the only genre of music that I truly hate is the death/thrash metal scene where the lead singer emits a guttural roar that seems to emanate from the bowels of hell.
But back to the discussion, do I hate classical music. No. There's a lot of it that I dearly love. However do I think that the classical music scene suffers from an overwhelming sense of snobbery and privilege that in part is hard-wired into its DNA, due to the way the rich and powerful in Europe patronised the art form and in stark contrast to that, the standing of the greatest composers of that era, representing little more than the artisnal efforts of hired hands to provide entertaining interludes between the movements of court intrigue and drama? Well yes I do think that. Guilty as charged!
Now if the artform has become more democratised of late and there's an everyman experience of it available at a reasonable price, then I'm all for it. In a city like Sydney however, that will never be. Apart from the Opera House there are very few venues that host any talent of note. This is where a lack of population density sucks. Plus the lack of a classical musical tradition means that the numbers of people willing to submit to years of training simply aren't there. So in Sydney unfortunately classical music, if you want to experience it live, is a rather elite pursuit.
So yes, my perspective is biased and has been moulded by my experience and location, and I suppose I am a little envious at the thought of living in a European city or town where the local concert hall can host a performance at low cost that rivals the quality found in some of the best concert halls in other parts of the world.