ABSTRACT
No better time to reassert the old truism that opera is drama than just after watching the relay from Pasadena of the Three Tenors doing their thing once more. Apart from the hype ... claims have again been made that this kind of event leads people to opera. It may lead them into opera houses, but it couldn't conceivably foster correct expectations of what they can, or should, find when they get there. The raison d'etre of opera has always been that it is drama rendered through music. That was the principle upon which opera's first genius, Monteverdi, created his masterpieces; and it has been indignantly stressed in the great series of manifestos which have punctuated the history of an art-form which is always in danger of collapsing into decadence. Though great voices are never unwelcome, they are not a sufficient condition for great opera, its creation or its performance. The operas which survive thanks to one or two hit numbers which require singing by stars are a luxury which almost none of the world's opera houses can afford. Works such as Adriana Lecouvreur or Fedora, may deserve a recording or two in which prima donnas and their admirers can be indulged, but every time they are mounted they exclude the production of a masterwork, one of those contributions to the genre which provide food for the mind and spirit (Tanner 1994:1).
