Well, Ed, Eva and John.
C.E.O. T.J. Rodgers of Cypress Semi-Conductors has testified before Congress on
many anti-government pro-private industry initiatives. The highly successful
Sema-tech venture with government and private silicone valley companies is one
of his favorite targets. Recently he has been lobbying Congress for a new
possibility. He wants to have Congress let down the barriers to technicians from
the former Iron Curtain countries.
Where Rodgers has been instrumental in cutting the budget for most government
ventures he can't wait to harvest the educational ventures of the most complete
government programs on the planet. The old Soviet Empire. His chief technician
is from Cuba. He claims American engineering schools can't cut it, although he
doesn't seem to have any guilt about being a part of that problem with education.
The same is true with the performing artists, scholars, teachers, and general
population pouring into the country. In Israel they are the most trained group
of immigrants in the nation and the Metropolitan Opera in New York has just hired
James Levine's replacement from the Kirov Opera.
I suspect that in Russia these groups seem all the same and without novel
creativity to outsiders who have never been welcomed into the Russian houses or
practice rooms. But like diamonds on the ground in a country where they are
common, no one notices them much and the tourists simply think of them as
trinkets. Their lack of wealthy peaks in their environment covered the eyes of
people used to judging economies by the highs and not by the averages.
But when put the Soviet workers in the environment in North America they shine
for the wonderful artists they are. I'm not being romantic. I work with them.
Their training is wonderful, as is their artistry. Their ability to improvise in
all of the styles is superior and their singing will take over the continent.
You should not forget that I am a voice teacher in the toughest market in America
and I know what I see.
It happened in England during Handel's time when the Italian singers and styles
destroyed the English musical culture. Everyone became a consummer of Italian
whipped cream and the wonderful Elizabethan composers just dried up on the vine.
It will happen here as well. Not because they are bad people or invaders, they
happen to be wonderful, generous people but 1.) they have had a better education
and a work life "training" that we cannot possibly match at the present given our
poor work training environment. 2.) The sheer number of people trained far
surpasses our schools. Just as in the last century, they are migrating because
all of that talent now has no work in their native land. Even the great
Stanislavsky Theater in Moscow, a world treasure, has been defunded by the
Russian government.
All of this political stuff you are arguing over is left over from the cold war.
I would suggest that we pay more attention. Unlike the previous groups that have
integrated into the culture, these Soviet technicians, artists, poets, singers
and yes great composers, are too well trained and too grounded in their culture
to do any less than make North America fit their images of reality. Your
description of them as second rate and lacking creativity is not in my experience
even a little be true. The side walk artists in NYCity are no more creative than
anyplace else and are not generally as skilled as their immigrant colleagues
painting beside them.
However, I do not believe that "cultural war" is a proper metaphor for this
coming reality. Instead I would suggest that we either decide to be a culture
and be big enough to develop a new reality together without all of this "poor"
economic victim stuff that is making us ravage our social fabric. The social
fabric that so many Americans moved North to live within, will be forever changed
without the sacrifice of North American financial input into the West European
heritage.
As a Native American I feel a very strong emotional tie to the Russians (maybe
the mongal shamans) and yet I would hate to think that the last 200 years of
American culture with its great sacrifices was lost because of an economic
religion that was just too cheap to be a culture. I would add to this that the
Russian artists don't want to "win" either. They are excited about this new
reality and its possibilities but without a huge input of insight and funding,
they WILL win by default. They are a very strong people with strong
personalities.
Regards,
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
