Here are two essays well worth your time if you’re looking for something excellent to read.

The first is Garth Greenwell’s recap of his time at the Des Moines Metro Opera’s summer season. While most of the piece centers on King Roger and its distinctly queer presentation, it also dives into a larger question about what is possible in opera today. Greenwell argues that the Des Moines Opera stands completely apart from its peers — even giants like the Metropolitan Opera.

For instance:

“Often during the evening I thought to myself The Met could never. Could never commit so much to a niche, risky, unapologetically queer opera; could never be so transgressive; could never dare to bring its audience to such uncomfortable, exciting, transformative places. Could never trust its audience so much, could never—and this is the saddest thing I feel too often about the Met these days—trust theater enough. One of the remarkable things about the Des Moines production was how absolutely committed it was to opera as a theatrical experience; you never felt, as you feel almost always at the Met in recent seasons, that it was aspiring to be something else, something Hollywood, something IMAX.”

The longer I sit with my own time in Des Moines, the more convinced I am that other companies could learn a thing or two from their administrative team. Hopefully someone, somewhere is taking note of their accomplishment beyond those who love the art form.

The second recommendation is a lengthy essay by Joseph Horowitz exploring the state of American orchestras. Horowitz’s main thesis is that despite a massive increase in technical ability, American orchestras just aren’t as good as their European peers right now. He argues that they have lost their grip on the traditional styles originally imported by European musicians — for instance, Boston no longer boasts its signature French sound — but they haven’t established a distinct American sound either. The result is that America’s orchestras are often left playing music without a clear point of view.

“American orchestras, in comparison, have never enjoyed a stylistic base linked to native repertoire because there is no adequate American canon. Might there have been? Two possible progenitors were our two supreme concert composers: Charles Ives and George Gershwin. But Ives exerted no influence during the decades he was composing, and Gershwin was sidelined as an interloper from the tainted precincts of Broadway and jazz – the very influences that might have fostered a distinctive New World swagger (at times detectable in various Leonard Bernstein interpretations).”

For me, the shift became evident when I visited the Concertgebouw last year. Although the performance itself didn’t totally blow me away, the legendary golden warmth of the hall was undeniable. The depth of the orchestra’s sound truly enhanced Andrew Norman’s Play, giving it a distinct shape that transformed it into a genuine symphony, rather than just a collection of musical effects. This experience made me realize how much my ears have been conditioned to the specific style of American orchestras, such as those in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Minnesota, and Cleveland.

If you aren’t in the mood to read a long essay, Horowitz and conductor Kenneth Woods also spent over an hour diving into the topic in a great, friendly discussion you can listen to instead.