- Oct 17, 2011
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A listener-supported radio station in North Carolina, WCPE, is planning to withhold the broadcast of six contemporary operas this season from New York's Metropolitan Opera, because of the station management's objections to the operas' content. It is a classical music controversy that echoes larger, nationwide culture war debates.
In the NPR interview, Proctor called WCPE's programming "a safe refuge from the horrors of life." Repeatedly, Proctor also appealed to the sensibilities of any children who might tune into her station or come across it online and said that her personal values were integral to her decision-making. Breaking into tears on the phone, Proctor said: "I have a moral decision to make here. What if one child hears this? When I stand before Jesus Christ on Judgement Day, what am I going to say?"
In speaking to NPR, Proctor called Jake Heggie's 2000 opera Dead Man Walking, which is reportedly the most performed opera written in the 21st century, a "shock opera" that had not proven that it could withstand "the test of time." Dead Man Walking was already known as a popular book by Sister Helen Prejean and a movie before Heggie and the late librettist Terrence McNally turned it into a stage work. The opera has been produced more than 70 times worldwide over the past nearly quarter century.
In her conversation with NPR, Proctor contrasted Dead Man Walking with other, much older operas in which sexual violence, rape, suicide and murder are major plot points. Dead Man Walking, she argued, is based on a true story, while other operas that are canonical repertoire but violent as well, are fictional and therefore less potentially traumatizing. Such operas — all scheduled as part of the Met's 2023-24 broadcast season, and all of which Proctor still plans to broadcast — include Bizet's Carmen and Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, as well as Puccini's Turandot and Madama Butterfly.
In the NPR interview, Proctor called WCPE's programming "a safe refuge from the horrors of life." Repeatedly, Proctor also appealed to the sensibilities of any children who might tune into her station or come across it online and said that her personal values were integral to her decision-making. Breaking into tears on the phone, Proctor said: "I have a moral decision to make here. What if one child hears this? When I stand before Jesus Christ on Judgement Day, what am I going to say?"
In speaking to NPR, Proctor called Jake Heggie's 2000 opera Dead Man Walking, which is reportedly the most performed opera written in the 21st century, a "shock opera" that had not proven that it could withstand "the test of time." Dead Man Walking was already known as a popular book by Sister Helen Prejean and a movie before Heggie and the late librettist Terrence McNally turned it into a stage work. The opera has been produced more than 70 times worldwide over the past nearly quarter century.
In her conversation with NPR, Proctor contrasted Dead Man Walking with other, much older operas in which sexual violence, rape, suicide and murder are major plot points. Dead Man Walking, she argued, is based on a true story, while other operas that are canonical repertoire but violent as well, are fictional and therefore less potentially traumatizing. Such operas — all scheduled as part of the Met's 2023-24 broadcast season, and all of which Proctor still plans to broadcast — include Bizet's Carmen and Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, as well as Puccini's Turandot and Madama Butterfly.
