Taste in opera: a window to the soul | Patrick West | spiked

Taste in opera: a window to the soul | Patrick West | spiked
http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13316/

There remains something irredeemably teenage and 'emo' about Wagner, with his adolescent belief that there is something glorious and romantic about death. There's enough self-pity and death worship in modern society as it is. The spate of public figures boasting their wish to be euthanised is but the most recent example. There's a surplus of self-important anger in the Twittersphere. There's too much emphasis on 'meaning' in the art world, in that works 'pose difficult questions' and 'raise important issues' at the expense of producing something pleasing for its own sake. Clichés about 'relevance' and 'meaning' are invariably a defence against well-founded charges of mediocrity and narcissism.

(via Instapaper)