还记得歌剧吗？

还记得什么是时间胶囊吗？把一大堆东西塞进容器内，密封后埋藏50年甚至100年，让后世的人一睹从前的我们是怎样生活的。我记得自己还是小学生时，适逢美国200周年国庆，我贡献了一张黑胶唱片，但到底是谁的唱片我现在忘得一干二净。我只希望到了2026年，当那些小学生打开那个时间胶囊时，他们会发现皇后乐队（Queen）的珍藏版《波希米亚狂想曲》（Bohemian Rhapsody）；但也许他们只会找到一张ABBA乐队的二流专辑。

今年国际歌剧大奖（International Opera Awards）典礼举行期间，这种感觉又在心里出现。这个国际盛会自创办以来，都在高档的场所举行，例如莎德勒威尔斯剧院（Sadler’s Wells，又称沙德勒之井）和伦敦大剧院（London Coliseum，即英国国家歌剧院的主场），与会者衣香鬓影、觥筹交错——以及，为歌剧艺术而庆祝。在过去的18个月里，这个庆典跟其他盛会遭遇同样命运：本应2020年举行的现场盛会宣布延期，等到差不多一年后才有机会在ZOOM平台亮相。

当我收拾心情准备观看颁奖礼时，心里犹豫着应该穿上什么服饰“赴会”——是按照伦敦时区举行宴会的黄昏时段穿上礼服，还是根据自己所在的时区做准备？——我一瞬间就发现，自己正面对一个完全不同的时代。我脑海里的疑问，跟各个“新生代”（next-generation）的奖项类别无关：入选“最佳青年歌手”（Best Young Singer）的有天赋的歌唱家们都以欧洲为中心，我完全不认识，因此在投票时我首次投了弃权票。我期待在未来的日子可以欣赏他们每一位大展歌喉。当我听到主持宣布该奖项的男女得主时——男高音泽比耶·安朵亚戛（Xabier Anduaga）与女中音瓦西里萨·贝尔占斯卡亚（Vasilisa Berzhanskaya）——这也是我第一次听到他们名字如何发音。

不，我上文所指的“完全不同时代”还涉及“最佳导演”“最佳新制作”，甚至“最佳乐团”“最佳合唱团”。当庆典开始表扬那些杰出贡献的艺术家于2019年的成绩时，我的记忆变得越来越混沌。一个一个项目按顺序公布的时候，我发现入选名单显得好陌生，于是把自己当初的投票文档找出来对照。

很奇怪，我发现我选中了不少最终获奖的艺术家。纽约大都会歌剧院合唱团获“最佳合唱团”实至名归。这么多年来，我经常看他们演出，大都会在每个晚上都保持高水准的演出，每年都值得我为他们投上一票。另一个意料之中的发现是，我投了马德里皇家歌剧院为“最佳院团”，而最终他们也赢得了这个奖项。去年在疫情初期，皇家歌剧院率先推行了一系列的防疫措施，且切实可行，让演员与观众都可以在疫情平缓期重返剧院。说真的，我很早就对马德里有好感，大概评审团中很多人都有同感。我也为马德里皇家歌剧院乐团投了“最佳乐团”一票（公平地说，今年的最佳乐团是巴伐利亚歌剧院乐团，他们是我投票上的第二顺位）。

那些与独唱家有关的重头奖项则是另一番面貌。得奖的挪威女高音利泽·戴维森（Lise Davidsen）与墨西哥男高音哈维尔·卡玛雷纳（Javier Camarena），可谓众望所归，没有人会质疑他们的成就；但他们的曝光度却不一样。戴维森在英国歌剧圈十分受人瞩目，但我从没有看过她的现场表演，在投票截止前还赶不及听她2019年为Decca唱片公司灌录的首张专辑。卡玛雷纳近年来在全球各大歌剧院与音乐节频频亮相，从伦敦、西班牙到纽约都备受追捧。他更是我毕生记忆中，少有的在大都会歌剧院舞台上返场演唱的歌剧明星。虽然我不能肯定那晚我究竟在哪里，但大概是在西班牙。我很高兴看到我投下一票的英国指挥阿尔裴舍·乔汉（Alpesh Chauhan）夺得“最佳新人”（Best Newcomer）奖。自从2016年开始，我就留意着他的发展动向。现在我们已经踏入21世纪的第三个十年了，乔汉在今天还算不算是“新人”就较难判断了。

从2021年的角度回望过去，萨尔茨堡赢得“最佳歌剧节”这个名衔一点都不令人惊讶。毕竟，去年夏天，当世界各地的演出团体都在苦苦挣扎时，萨尔茨堡国际音乐节成功地举办了一百周年庆典，尽管规模小了，但最起码没有缺席。但你要明白，我投票的时候，衡量的标准只覆盖了2019年的成绩，而第99届萨尔茨堡艺术节的表现算不上出色。任何值得尊重的艺术节除了回顾也要展望，我个人比较喜欢有前瞻性的艺术节。费城歌剧院（Opera Philadelphia）举办的“O19”歌剧节，可以追溯此前两年的“O17”，策划的演出彻底重构艺术格式，不单是艺术节本身，更包含歌剧的定义。舞台演出从非标准（非“古典音乐”）的作曲风格到演出场地与参演人员。各方面都在打破传统。

我跟其他评审的不同观点也延伸至歌剧作品本身。关于保留剧目，大家的分歧不大：年度“最佳制作”由比利时皇家剧院（La Monnaie）搬演里姆斯基-科萨科夫《萨尔丹沙皇的故事》（Tale of Tsar Saltan）赢得。这虽然是我的次选，它只仅次于在拜罗伊特搬演的、由托比亚斯·卡拉泽尔（Tobias Kratzer）执导的《汤豪舍》。我们对于新作品与经典新制的看法，差异更大。

这些年来，很多歌剧院已经存有演出制作的档案录像，而过去一年的疫情令歌剧媒体制作数量上升，无论质与量都有所改善，值得表扬。就算是几年前（前疫情时代），没有一位乐评人可以一人亲临世界各地的歌剧院，出席全部入围的演出（有一年我在三大洲看到了某个奖项六位提名演员中的四位！）。现在因为电子媒体的急速发展，乐评人之间也变得更平等，就像《留声机》大奖一样，大家要评选的都是媒体成品。说到这个，我投了高男高音雅各布·约瑟夫·奥琳斯基（Jakub Jósef Orlinski）由Erato唱片公司发行的《爱情的面貌》（Facce d’amore）专辑；这张专辑令我印象深刻，以至于完全忘记了入围的其他唱片。

国际歌剧大奖的“世界首演”与“经典新制”类别入围剧目要比其他类别更多（6个入围作品扩大至8个入围作品），筛选入围剧目的方针很明显包含了不同考虑，包括风格与国家派别。“经典新制”的作品中令我感兴趣的有华沙国家歌剧院重演波兰民族歌剧创始人斯坦尼斯拉夫·莫纽什科（Stanislaw Moniusko）于1869年创作的《帕里亚》（Paria）。《帕里亚》最终赢得奖项，但我同样喜爱另外两部歌剧：都灵皇家歌剧院搬演的费迪南多·帕尔（Ferdinando Paer）1809年的《艾格尼丝》（Agnese）以及布朗普顿古典歌剧团（Brompton Classical Opera）所发掘的，斯蒂芬·斯托雷斯（Stephen Storace）首部意大利歌剧《新婚之怨》（Gli sposi malcontenti），创作年份为1785年。这些剧目本来只属于历史注脚，却有机会在舞台上生动地呈现出来。

我认为引发最大疑问是“世界首演”类别。我不是不喜欢德特勒夫·格兰尔特（Detlev Glanert）为德国歌剧院（Deutsche Oper）创作的《海灵》（Oceane）。《海灵》比拉克尔·加西亚-托马斯（Raquel García-Tomás）的《我是自恋狂》（Je suis narcissiste）要好得多。（《自恋狂》可能是马德里皇家歌剧院近几年来唯一比较逊色的制作，影响了其一贯的一流水平。）但《海灵》比不上叶莲娜·卡茨-切尔宁（Elena Kats-Chernin）为澳大利亚歌剧院创作的《怀特利》（Whiteley），也不如西村朗（Akira Nishimura）为东京新国立剧场撰写的《紫苑物语》（Asters）的情节那样引人入胜，更不像艾伦·里德（Ellen Reid）那部赢得普利策大奖、探索性侵犯所带来心灵创伤的《棱镜》（p r I s m），或是费城歌剧院搬演的菲利普·费纳布斯（Philip Venables）与泰德·霍夫曼（Ted Huffman）合作的《丹尼斯与卡迪娅》（Denis Katya），描述偷窥狂与社交媒体，包含批判意识。

基本上，这些新歌剧可以归类于三个板块：欧陆（即“旧世界”）歌剧院与作曲家把“新酒倒进旧瓶”里；“新世界开拓者”把“葡萄栽在完全不一样的土壤里，并找来合适的新酒瓶”；还有一些已经“脱离了葡萄品种，选择一个新系列的水果去酿酒”的“酒商”。正如整个世界的很多人、事、物，疫情聚焦原来已经出现的反差——大歌剧院把目标放得高，它们依赖从前积攒下的商业积累与历史档案中的录音录像；小型歌剧院的目标则比较低，发掘新内容的时候，刻意运用少数演员和更为亲民的场地。

以上平心静气、捧杯交谈、彬彬有礼的讨论在未来的一天可能蜕变为激烈的论战。虽然我们现在只能留在家中喝闷酒，终有一天将有机会在演出盛会中大饮香槟。德国歌剧院全员出动演出《海灵》，从任何逻辑角度上看，跟费城歌剧院具有实验性、仅用了两位演员在空白的舞台上、由四把大提琴担任伴奏“乐队”的《丹尼斯与卡迪娅》参与同一档次的竞赛，显然不那么恰当。

未来几年举行的国际歌剧大奖可能要慎重地提出“我们所谓的‘歌剧’如何定义？”这个话题。但最起码，在明年的投票表格里，在演出剧目奖项里，应该加上一些新的类别。

Do we all remember time capsules？ Those sealed containers you fill with stuff so when people open them 50 or 100 years later future generations will have a better idea of what our life was like？ I remember offering a vinyl recording when I was in elementary school during the US Bicentenary， though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I hope when people open it in 2026 they’ll find a vintage copy of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody， but I’m afraid it’ll probably be a second-rate album of ABBA.

I had similar feelings during this year’s International Opera Awards. Since its inception， the annual London event has been held in fancy places like Sadler’s Wells and the London Coliseum where people get dressed up， drink champagne and—oh， by the way—celebrate opera. And like nearly everything else in the past 18 months， the live presentation of the 2020 awards had already been postponed once and finally migrated to Zoom， nearly a year after its original date.

So as I eased into viewing this year’s awards， still trying to navigate the dress code—do you determine black tie based on your own time zone or the hour of day at the source？—I soon felt I was also navigating a different era. I’m not talking about “next-generation”categories like Best Young Singer， where the original ballot was so Eurocentric that I’d punted. I do hope to hear all the nominees in the coming years， but as far as tenor Xabier Anduaga （the male winner） and mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya （the female champion） were concerned， this was the first time I’d ever heard their names pronounced aloud.

No， I mean major awards like Best Director or Best New Production， even Best Orchestra and Best Chorus. As the celebrations illuminated the individuals and institutions that fared best in 2019， my memory got increasingly cloudy. From one category to the next， the nominees became so unfamiliar that I actually had to pull out my own ballots to see how I voted.

Strangely enough， it seems I actually voted for many of the winners. The Metropolitan Opera won Best Chorus， but since I’ve seen the quality of their work night after night for ages， they would have my vote pretty much every year. I was also not surprised to see that I voted for Teatro Real as Best Company， or that it won. Fairly early in the coronavirus pandemic， Real had been one of the first companies to design workable Covid protocols and get both performers and audiences back in the theatre. But I’d been drawn to Madrid years before， and it seems many others had too. I’d even voted for Real in the Best Orchestra category （though to be fair， this year’s winner， the Bayerische Staatsoper， was my second choice）.

The major vocalists were a different world entirely. It’s hard to disagree with the results of soprano Lise Davidsen and tenor Javier Camarena； it’s mostly a question of exposure. Davidsen has a heavy British profile， having won the 2015 Operalia competition in London， but I’d never heard her perform live and hadn’t even gotten around to her 2019 debut Decca recording before the ballots were cast. Camarena has been making a splash at opera houses and festivals around the world， from London to Spain to New York. He was also the first rare singer to perform an encore onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in my lifetime. Not sure where I was that night. Probably Spain. I was happy to see that I did vote for this year’s Best Newcomer， the British conductor Alpesh Chauhan， but that was based on a career trajectory starting back in 2016. Now that we’re in a new decade， seeing Chauhan as a “newcomer” in anything is harder to imagine.

Looking back from 2021， no one could be surprised that Salzburg won Best Festival. After all， while the rest of the world last summer was floundering， the Salzburg Festival managed to celebrate its 100th anniversary， reduced but largely intact. But do remember， the original ballot covered the year 2019， during Salzburg’s much less auspicious 99th anniversary. Any festival worth its salt， so to speak， looks both to the past and the future， and my own choice skewed toward the latter. Opera Philadelphia’s“O19” began two years earlier （with “O17”） as a radical reboot in format， not just as a festival but in the artform itself， with new musical stage works often in nonstandard compositional styles and performed in alternative spaces by nontraditional forces.

My differences with the jury majority continued well into the music itself. Not so much in repertory productions—this year’s winner， La Monnaie’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tale of Tsar Saltan was second on my list， narrowly edged out by Tobias Kratzer’s Tannh？user for Bayreuth—but rather in new works and rediscoveries.

To their credit， most opera companies have at least archival videos of their productions these days， and with the vast surge in media in the past year both quality and quantity will certainly improve. Even a few years ago， no one critic could possibly have seen all the nominees live （though I did once have the advantage is seeing four of the six nominees—on three different continents！）； with advances in media， critics are more or less on equal footing， rather like the Gramophone Awards for recordings. （Speaking of which， not only did I vote for Jakub Jósef Orlinski’s Facce d’amore on Erato， it was the only nominee in the recording category I still remembered.）

Both the World Premiere and Rediscovered Work had more nominees （eight per category， rather than six）， falling clearly along stylistic and national lines. Amongs the rediscoveries， I was impressed by Teatr Wielki’s revival of Stanislaw Moniuzko’s Paria （1869）， which won the award， but no more so than Teatro Regio’s production of Ferdinando Paer’s Agnese（1809） or Brompton Classical Opera’s unearthing of Stephen Storace’s first opera Gli sposi malcontenti（1785）， each turning historical footnotes into vibrant living stage works.

It was the World Premiere category， though， that I found most problematic. It’s not that I detested Detlev Glanert’s Oceane at Deutsche Oper. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Raquel García-Tomás’s Je suis narcissiste—probably the only contribution by Teatro Real that I found less than first rate—but not nearly as interesting Elena Kats-Chernin’s Whiteley for Opera Australia or Akira Nishimura’s Asters for the New National Theatre Tokyo. Or as relevant as p r I s m， Ellen Reid’s Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of the traumas of sexual assault， or Philip Venables and Ted Huffman’s Denis Katya， a blistering commentary of voyeurism and social media staged by Opera Philadelphia.

Essentially， these new works fell into three camps： Old World companies and composers pouring new vintages into old bottles， New World pioneers planting their grapes in completely different soil and finding new bottles to fit， and American vintners who’ve pretty much traded grapes entirely for a whole new range of fruit. As with so much， the pandemic put this contrast in the spotlight. Bigger companies have mostly reached high， relying on commercial and archival recordings of past productions， while smaller companies exploring new content have aimed low， with fewer performers and more intimate settings.

These civil discussions will probably erupt into full-blown arguments once our quiet toasts at home finally return to celebratory champagne-quaffing in public. By no logical means should Glanert’s Oceane， with the full forces of Deutsche Oper at its disposal， be competing for the same award with Opera Philadelphia’s highly experimental Denis Katya， consisting of two singers on a bare stage， an elaborate projection design and an “orchestra” of only four cellos.

Future seasons of the International Opera Awards may even broach the question， “What do we even mean by ‘opera’？” But at the very least， next year’s ballots should have a few new categories where repertory is concerned.