Volume 26 Issue 8 - July and August 2021

REAR VIEW
MIRROR
ROBERT HARRIS
MICHAEL COOPER
Thomas
Hampson as
Hadrian and
Isaiah Bell as
Antinous, 2018
Alexander Neef
and the
relevance of
excellence
ROBERT HARRIS
E. BAUER
Alexander Neef, at the
Opéra national de Paris
One of the more
unfortunate
things about the
pandemic, in my biased
opinion, has been the lost
opportunity we Canadians
have had to say a proper
goodbye – goodbye and
thank you – to Alexander
Neef. Neef, who ran the
Canadian Opera Company
for 12 years, actually slipped out of town last fall during
the pandemic and officially took up his duties at the Paris
Opera in February. Since then, he has emerged as one of
the boldest artistic directors in the world.
First, he shocked the intellectual complacency of France by daring
to set the companies and administration of the Paris Opera on a thoroughly
modern course of social equity and inclusiveness.
Then, he surprised the world again, this time in the artistic sphere,
by hiring Gustavo Dudamel to be the music director of the Opera for
the next five years, the expected choice of, it seems, no one. Both were
provocative acts of artistic gutsiness and bravado, part and parcel
of a man we hardly got to know while he was here. Hardly got to
know, and (gauging by some of the chatter I’ve read and heard about
Neef over the years) weren’t entirely sure we approved of. I guess it
shouldn’t surprise me anymore, because this is Canada after all, and
artistic success, especially our own, seems to enrage us. But honestly,
am I the only person in Toronto who thinks that Alexander Neef was
one of the best things that ever happened to us?
I’m beginning to think I am, based on the many critical commentaries
I’ve read about Neef over the years, and the damned-with-faintpraise
evaluation of his tenure in the announcement by the COC of
his successor, Perryn Leech. Maybe I’m overreacting, but if all I hear
in regards to the COC’s future is talk about accessibility, community
involvement, partnerships and fundraising, someone’s ideas about
opera are different from mine – and, I’m guessing, from Alexander
Neef’s as well.
Neef reinforced for me the idea that the goal of the arts should be
excellence, not accessibility; relevance, not outreach. Excellence and
relevance earn you accessibility and outreach, make those goals something
easy and natural. Excellence ensures the arts shine, stand out
with clarity; relevance cements the arts to their community. Both
together ensure healthy audiences, financial stability, artistic worth. It
is a trap laid by the non-artistic to make us think that the arts should
be judged by the same criteria as other public spectacles – that art is,
in the end, just another form of entertainment in a modern, pluralistic
society.
It is a trap because the arts do not truly belong in that world. Once
lured into the marketplace of entertainment, the serious arts will
always be seen as elitist interlopers, and hated more, not less. That’s
because the serious arts have different goals than the Blue Jays or
Drake. Or should have. The arts sell value, to put it crudely – they
traffic in meaning, in worth. Not in tonnage, audience involvement,
clicks per thousand, bums in seats. Of course, art is useless if no one
experiences it – but audience involvement is a means to an end in the
arts, not the be-all and end-all of it.
That’s what I think Neef was striving for here in Toronto – excellence
and relevance. If we were willing to listen, he taught us how the
two could be made compatible and complementary. And he taught us
something else as well – he showed us what it is like to play near the
top of the heap in international artistic enterprise. It wasn’t always
pretty – Neef was single-minded in his quest for international excellence;
he could be autocratic; he wasn’t the schmooziest person you
ever met; I’m told he could play favourites among his staff members.
But that’s how it’s done if you want the world’s finest singers, directors,
set designers and conductors to adjust their schedules and make
Toronto, Canada one of their new international stopping points. That’s
what it takes to be at or near the top of a tough, competitive, international
artistic world.
It also explains why Neef leaned heavily on new and controversial
productions during his time here, a constant source of friction during
his tenure. He unashamedly challenged audiences to the breaking
point, demanded the best of his artists and directors and musicians,
pushed his audiences into constantly new territory. There was a singlemindedness
about Neef that didn’t always translate well to amicable
relations with the rest of the Canadian opera and musical community.
58 | July and August 2021 thewholenote.com