Covent Garden head comments on the ‘right’ stuff in singers – or lack thereof

Antonio Pappano, the director of music at the Royal Opera House has commented that newer generations of oepra singers doesn’t have the mettle to deal with the demands of a career in opera.

“Singers don’t have to submit to exploitation. Karita Mattila doesn’t have a brand of perfume or a dessert named after her, or appear on talk shows, or sashay down red carpets; nor does she sing all that often, which is why she manages always to be superb. She, however, is the glorious exception. I can’t imagine many of her contemporaries calling music a holy art…..They are tempted to see it as a fast track to wealth and celebrity, and the falsity of their values is becoming clearer all the time”, says writer and critic Peter Conrad in The Guardian.

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