Last December, on a whim, my husband and I flew to Germany. We were fleeing the holiday season, with its tinsel and spangly cheer, because, frankly, we were not of good cheer. Instead, like many of our friends, we felt disoriented; the election, and the sophomoric rallies before and after, had blasted away our complacent assumptions concerning decency and common sense. Our society’s fabric was unraveling; economically, racially, gender-wise, the chasms were growing.

So we fled. We had no clear plans, but we’re opera buffs, so we checked the Internet and there they were, arrayed like a gourmet menu: dozens of operas and musicals for the booking, with good seats still available at reasonable prices (no thousand-dollar tickets!), and not just in cultural hubs like Berlin and Munich and Hamburg and Cologne, but midsize cities like Kassel and Nuremberg, and industrial centers outside tourist agendas, like Duisburg and Hagen.

Over the span of three weeks we gorged ourselves on a dozen performances, choosing our destinations and booking our hotels guided mostly by best seat availabilities and production reviews in local papers. In between we visited museums and Christmas markets, ate out and toured the colorful shops clustered along pedestrian malls. We contributed to the economy gladly, because each place we visited gave us something priceless in return: a feeling that, for the space of an evening, beauty overwhelmed petty differences.

There are over 80 opera companies in Germany (that’s nearly as many as in the rest of the world combined!), all with impressive theater buildings and resident troupes — actors, singers, musicians, administrators and stagehands, with firm wages and health care, who are part of the communities they serve. Audience attendance, much of it subscription-based, ranges from teenagers to grandparents. I saw frayed khakis and cocktail sheaths, Skechers and stilettoes. People smiled at strangers during intermission. This, of course, doesn’t come cheap to “the taxpayer” — but rarely is a fuss raised over the hefty subsidies budgeted into state and local revenues. Germans, across much of the political spectrum, consider supporting the arts a civic duty.

If I were allowed to rub the genie’s lamp, I’d ask for public support of theater, ballet and opera companies with resident troupes in our country. I’d establish art centers all over small-town and rural America and integrate them with school systems, making access affordable; high-quality live performances should not just be for the wealthy. Let’s educate our citizenry in the appreciation of beauty through artistic performance, which over time might allow us to connect on levels where differences in race, class and gender lose their insidious sway, where we can meet soul to soul. There is no greater empowerment than the awareness that one is not alone in one’s feelings. Once self-esteem and hope have been engendered, the work of redefining the future is well underway.

Rita Dove
Original Publication: The Washington Post