ANTHONY TOMMASINI ESSAY

It had to happen. Nudity is coming to opera.
In recent years, with all the talk from general managers, stage directors and bold singers about making opera as dramatically visceral an art form as theater, film and modern dance, traditional boundaries of decorum have been broken. Opera productions have increasingly showcased risktaking and good-looking singers in sexy, explicit productions.
How explicit- In September the soprano Karita Mattila returned to the Metropolitan Opera in New York to portray the title character in Strauss’s “Salome,” a revival of the modern-dress Jurgen Flimm production created for Ms. Mattila and introduced at the Met in 2004.
I cannot think of a performance in New York right now that tops Ms. Mattila’s Salome for courage, intensity and emotional nakedness.
As before, her portrayal culminates in a fleeting moment of real nudity, during her gender-bending performance of the 10-minute Dance of the Seven Veils,” choreographed by Doug Varone. Appearing in a Marlene Dietrich-like tan tuxedo, she shimmied along with two male dancers who twisted and lifted her. Toying with King Herod, her lecherous stepfather, she removed item after item of her costume until in a moment of delirious triumph she stood, arms aloft, completely naked.
For the Los Angeles Opera’s American premiere production of Howard Shore’s new opera “The Fly” on September 7, the young Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch bared all. During the crucial final scene in the first act of the opera - based mostly on the 1986 David Cronenberg film and directed by Mr. Cronenberg - the scientist Seth Brundle impulsively decides to use himself as a test subject in his invention, which molecularly breaks down a human body and transports it through space. Mr. Okulitch stripped naked, climbed into one brightly lighted telepod, closed the door, and moments later emerged from another telepod, facing the audience with his arms spread, looking transformed, a moment of radiant self-benediction.
It could be argued that since opera is theater, anything goes. Opera fans have seen plenty of alluring sopranos in skimpy dresses and handsome barechested baritones. Is actual nakedness, if the dramatic situation justifies it, such a big leap?
Maybe not. Still, if opera ventures increasingly down this path, it will have to grapple with the same questions of relevance, gimmickiness and sensationalism that have dogged theater, film and dance.
There has been nudity in opera, of course, mostly involving extras or dancers. But it is another matter to ask opera singers in leading roles to disrobe onstage, artists who, after all, have much else to do.
Opera may soon court trouble if things get too cavalierly explicit. First and foremost, opera is a vocal art form, with its own visceral dramatic impact. A great voice can be very sexy. Listen to Birgit Nilsson’s recording of “Salome.” For sheer sensual power, it’s hard to match Nilsson’s incandescent singing.
What opera fans have always valued about their beloved art form is that so many excellent opera singers look like everyday people . There is no reason that Rodolfo and Mimi have to look like supermodels. They need only convey that they are beautiful to each other. The music, if sung with tenderness a passion, does the rest.