I suspect it was the socialist consensus of the Hippy generation that labeled ‘classical’ music (above all, opera) as ‘elitist’, and told us anyone who dared to make a distinction between good music and mindless drivel was a snob. They weren’t the first to have bad music, but they probably were the first to marginalise and actively spurn the good.
Ask an elitistist (can I say that – people who sneer at ‘elitism’?) now and they’ll tell you an opera is elitist while a football match is egalitarian, because educated people like one and working people like the other (as if that was an either/or distinction)! A bit of history, a brief look at the risorgimento, would highlight just how ridiculous that attitude is, but we mustn’t let reality get in the way of a good prejudice. Obviously those working people who pay, say £20 to watch a football match can’t possibly afford, say, £20 to see an opera.
If cost is a factor, today’s announcement of ticket prices for the London Olympics tells us where the real elitism is now. Maybe if you pay top prices at the Salzburg Festival you could find something comparable to a ticket for the Olympics. But I can’t imagine any UK public performance, including the world’s biggest names at the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), could come anywhere near Olympic prices.
Still, no matter. The Olympics is, by definition, an ultimately elitist event (and I say that’s a Good Thing, or would be if they’d dispense with the surrounding hype and the sequestration of huge amount of taxpayer funds and land in an area already under huge pressure). The masses will celebrate it in the traditional ways, one half in front of the telly, the other either making good profits supplying them with beer and pizza, or just grumbling and wishing to be far away.
I think this may be a peculiarly British thing. How many Americans or Asians would sneer at ‘elitism’ (let alone a strawman elitism)? How many Italians or Germans would sneer at distinguishing good from bad music, even if they love the latter? Come to think of it, we’ll surely find more Brits than anyone else to sneer at the Olympics, too.
