music theatre in flanders - Muziekcentrum Vlaanderen

without moulding it for the market as ‘entertainment’?
Truly visionary audience recruitment certainly implies an obvious
development of public relations on the one hand, and the use
of unorthodox methods for aesthetic-communicative promotion
of programmes on the other. But providing quality stage productions
and organizing promotion campaigns will not be sufficient
to reach new audiences and to accomplish the cultural ‘opera for
all’ mission. Creative ideas, programmes and actions also need to
be mobilized to communicate the artistic process: direct confrontation
with the public in argumentative and playfully interactive
lectures, rehearsals and workshops in proper productions with
amateurs (the public) and professionals.
Most subsidized opera houses should, before all, pave the way
for new educational concepts. They should fight for a programme
in which a substantial part of their subsidies is invested in creative
and educational projects for young and new audiences. Ideally,
they would establish their own opera ateliers (as was already
tried at some opera houses, including the Staatsoper Stuttgart)
with professionals and amateurs, organizing workshops and
making own creations on the basis of theatre education theory.
Conclusion: opera is alive, the audience is there and it is
younger than is usually assumed. Building a future audience
means: act now, mobilize more resources, more creative vision,
and set up more aesthetic or social-educational projects. Only
then can we reach today’s children and youngsters and send
them on an exploration trip of music theatre. For theatre makers
it means what Voltaire’s Candide once summarized as: ‘Il faut
cultiver notre jardin’.
ute haferburg has been head of drama at the Flemish Opera
Antwerp/Ghent since 2008-2009.
Music as fellow driving force
TWo condITIons For MUsIc THeaTre coMPosITIon
Petra Vermote
I remember a time, not so very long ago, when commissions
and cultural policy makers spent a lot of – and artistically useful
or otherwise – time and energy on discussion about what was
called ‘functional music’ and whether or not such music could
qualify for subsidies for commissioned compositions within the
framework of the former Music Decree. I also remember my
irritation about the fact that the subsidy directives for commissioned
compositions for music theatre only mentioned the three
‘archetypes’: opera, operetta and musical, and, what’s more, provided
they were full evening programmes. Is ‘music theatre’ only
these three archetypes? And what does this – to me very confusing
– term ‘functional’ precisely mean? Is music for music theatre
‘functional’?
Fortunately, the recent Flemish Parliament Arts Decree (2006)
has largely given short shrift to these discussions, justly responding
to the tendency that partitions between the various arts disciplines
are becoming increasingly blurred. The Arts Decree is
a regulatory framework for all arts disciplines (except literature
and film). Multi-disciplinary works of art, of which music theatre
is a very particular exponent, less and less often slip through the
net of subsidy regulations, and music theatre in Flanders is thriving.
The blending of genres and artistic disciplines has become a
well-tried recipe. And that raises questions about each individual
artistic practice’s role in the multidisciplinary work.
Even the term ‘music theatre’ causes some confusion: which
cargo does it cover? Is there a difference between music thea-
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