SERVING AND DESERVING STUFFED CLICHÉS

I'm watching TV. In the Danish context, that's bad. Especially if you watch bits and pieces that are supposed to enlighten you about this or that. I'm afraid to say that apart from one journalist who does gardening programs - and I hate gardening - everyone else is utterly incompetent. Tonight I'm watching Louise Wolff and Jens Blauenfeldt pose questions to the new, 'made in England' - that is, made by the public - star Poul Potts - who has just flown in straight from London to give a public appearance and sing the number that catapulted him to fame in the context of the English equivalent to the American Idol, Brits Got Talent. Louise is excruciatingly bad, going from one totally insignificant question to the next. After the cliché question: "what does it feel like when you see him, that is you, on the stage" (in bad English and worse accent), she moves randomly to the next out of context question: "were you mobbed in school?" I would change the channel if only I weren't on the floor doing my regular session of Iyengar yoga before dinner - so I concentrate on that.

The event sparks some thoughts apart from sheer indignation at the Danish journalists' stupidity. It occurs to me that it is completely unfair that Potts cashes in on an opera number, while thousands of talented and serious artists in the genre can declare themselves satisfied if they ever get to sing with the Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester as a consequence of winning a major competition that pays nothing compared to what Potts has just earned. Potts's newly found luck is due to the incompetence and ignorance of the jury that let him go ahead in the competition that otherwise caters to the needs of teenagers suffering from the urge to express themselves. Potts is enjoying his 5 minutes of fame and history due to the sentimental tears that were shed by the female member of the jury, when he first sang Nessun Dorma. The first rule of melodrama, cry at the right moment, provides Potts with unbeatable publicity. Never mind the motivation.

While Potts has a good voice - at least he stays in tune, which is something 99 percent of pop singers can't do - his technique is far from what it takes to call yourself an opera singer. But this subtle difference between voice and skill escapes the British judges. I suspect that what hits them as unusual, and therefore ensnaring is this fact nr 1 (voice in tune) along with fact nr 2: opera is capable of something pop music will never achieve. So Potts wins, because the judges are incompetent and the public has no critical sense. This perpetuation, if not of stupidity, then of mediocrity, can be seen in the Danish context, when at a national level, we are made to feel the excitement of our televised encounter with Potts in the same way that the two interviewed old ladies in their 60s experience it while waiting for Potts to materialize in the flesh (and less voice as it turned out, alas).

Where audiences are concerned, we all want to express ourselves in one way or another - this is part of our realization that life is short - but while some are satisfied with looking at the cake, others want to eat it too. Looking at the cake is however easy, as it involves no effort, while eating the cake involves training the palate so that you can taste different flavours. It would be good for gate keepers, such as judges in competitions, journalists, and the uneducated public to start listening to Pavarotti's Nessun Dorma, Mario del Monaco's Nessun Dorma, or Jussi Björling's Nessun Dorma, so that the rest of us would not fall asleep from boredom and from eating too much air. One has to remember that in music in general, and opera in particular 'seeing and then believing' goes first through the stomach and then the ears. Meanwhile, I hereby dis-kvellify the gushing hoi polloi.