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Commentary

Why I quit as opera critic of The Age

by •
ABR Arts • 14 August 2017
Commentary

Why I quit as opera critic of The Age

by •
ABR Arts • 14 August 2017

There was a time not that long ago when the arts pages of quality daily newspapers were regarded as essential reading as much for those inside the arts industry as outside it. Just as these newspapers were themselves papers of record, their arts pages existed primarily to record and sustain strong and informed critical opinion. Considered criticism has always been and will always remain the vital final link between creativity, performance, and public appreciation.

I have been associated with The Age for more than thirty-six years in various capacities, especially with its arts pages – for the past seven years as the paper’s opera critic, a role I continued after my retirement from full-time journalism three years ago. Through the arts pages, as with the wider paper, I have worked with a changing cast of fine writers and editors, among them, some of the most inspiring and intelligent and witty journalists it has been my pleasure to know and to hold in respect, if not awe. It was also an extended learning experience. In hearing or reading what my colleagues thought or wrote, was to realise, with gratitude, that one’s own knowledge, and perhaps one’s expertise, increased accordingly. As Joan Sutherland once remarked to a fellow singer, ‘School’s never out.’ And it wasn’t.

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Michael Shmith

Michael Shmith is a Melbourne-based writer and editor. His latest book, Merlyn (Hardie Grant, 2021) is a biography of the widow of Sidney Myer.

Leave a comment
Michael Shmith

Michael Shmith is a Melbourne-based writer and editor. His latest book, Merlyn (Hardie Grant, 2021) is a biography of the widow of Sidney Myer.

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Comments (15)

  • Obviously it's been tough on you to give up the reins in the arts editorship but, sir, your day is over and you are now no more important than any other arts journalist. In other words, get over yourself. Learn to pitch earlier. Learn what the editors you pitch to actually want. Or else accustom yourself to not publishing any stories. This is the profession at the moment, and it's not going to get better.
    Posted by Pamela Freeman
    16 August 2017
  • Why do people think that small companies want to become large? This idea of so called "major organisations" as opposed to "small-to-mediums" has created a class system in the Arts here. Small companies usually choose to be small and it's to do with the art they produce or present.
    Posted by Brendan Joyce
    16 August 2017
  • Any organ that rejects the chance to avail itself of his brain and
    experience, and adorn itself with the writing of Michael Shmith, is poorer for it.
    Posted by Kaz
    15 August 2017
  • However who critiques the critics I wonder. Besides a love of opera, what credentials did Michael Shmith have to feel he even deserved this job in the first place? Good riddance I say, and now can we please have opera reviewed by someone who understands technique, artistry and artistic invention? At lease someone with a Bachelor of Music....please??
    Posted by Sally
    15 August 2017
  • I suspect this all says more about the future of Fairfax than it does about the future of Opera in Victoria. Unfortunately it also says a lot about what now passes for journalism, which is doing its level best to live up to Oscar Wilde's 1891 observation in "The Critic as Artist": 'There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.'
    Posted by David Rainey
    15 August 2017

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