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Symbolic Significance: A Grand Opera and a Grand Prix (Skip McGoun) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  Brake Fix's History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part
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  by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the
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  Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
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  Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.
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  In the late 19th century, cities built opera houses the way nations today
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  build Grand Prix circuits, as monuments.
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  Back then, an opera house wasn't just a place for music, it was a declaration
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  of cultural sophistication, a stage where the elite could see and be seen,
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  and a symbol that a city had arrived.
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  Fast-forward to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and
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  that symbolic mantle has shifted.
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  Today, a Formula One Grand Prix carries the same weight.
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  When a country hosts a race, it's not just about speed.
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  It's a statement of global presence, ambition, and identity,
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  and once again, a place where the fashionable, the famous, and the
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  aspiring gather under the spotlight.
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  So what does this transformation tell us?
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  What can the evolution from grand opera to Grand Prix reveal about the future
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  of motor racing and the cultures that build their identities around it?
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  To explore those questions, we're joined by someone uniquely
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  equipped to connect these worlds.
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  Skip McGown, emeritus professor of finance at Bucknell University and
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  a longtime visiting professor across Europe, is a scholar who has spent his
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  career examining the history and culture of both finance and the automobile.
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  He's presented, published, and even chaired the Vehicle Culture section
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  of the Popular Culture Association.
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  And today, he helps us unpack the symbolism behind the spectacle and
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  what it might mean for the road ahead.
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  Okay, well, speaking of cueing the music, I'm really glad that this is an academic
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  conference as opposed to a music festival.
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  First of all, it would mean that there are a lot more people in the audience now than
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  there would be under those circumstances.
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  And second, starting out on a Saturday morning at a music festival
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  would probably mean I'm the least desirable act on the program.
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  The other thing is, looking at this title, you know, you might think
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  that Mark and I had a contest over who could come up with the least
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  likely connection to motorsports.
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  This isn't true.
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  This was purely by accident.
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  Take a look at these images, and what I wanted to do was try to come up
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  with what I felt were maybe the sorts of mental images that people might
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  have for grand opera and Grand Prix.
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  Looking at grand opera, we have an opera diva wearing what I suppose now we
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  would consider a kind of absurd costume.
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  And looking at that image, you can also hear her singing becoming
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  progressively louder until she finally dies at the end of the performance.
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  On the other hand, we have the driver.
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  And I was listening to Paul's presentation yesterday, and the way
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  he was describing, I think it was the futurist ideal of the Italian man.
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  You know, could certainly imagine the qualities in our heads
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  when we see an image like that.
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  And not only that, it is connected, I think, to Mark's presentation because
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  that could be the astronaut image.
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  For that matter, you could probably put a cigarette in his mouth, a hat on his
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  head, and he could be the Marlboro Man.
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  Okay, so this is, this is a very familiar image to Americans.
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  So we have one image that's very, very positive, very, very attractive.
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  We have another image that I wouldn't s- necessarily say is a negative image.
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  It's, it's also kind of a, almost a disparaging image, not something
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  that we really can identify with.
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  It's a very different mental images of grand opera and Grand Prix.
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  But I think there are some similarities as well.
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  First of all, when you consider opera, I would expect that a lot of people,
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  if not most people's image of opera, is something that people don't attend unless
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  they're otherwise compelled to do so.
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  Sadly, this I don't think is unusual for cultural events.
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  Now, I don't know what the n- numbers are for opera, but at one point I did
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  read 90% of the people who are visiting an art museum are not there for the art.
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  They're there for some other reason.
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  Opera is really not most people's idea of entertainment.
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  I'd also like to make a statement here that might be considered
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  somewhat heretical in this context.
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  But if I had to imagine a less spectator-friendly event than a
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  Grand Prix, it would be difficult.
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  But we have one event that's really avoided by a lot of people,
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  and we have another event that I would argue is not necessarily at
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  the apex of entertainment value.
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  So that's one similarity.
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  Second similarity is that putting on a Grand Prix or a grand
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  opera is ferociously expensive.
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  And I believe that neither of these could possibly cover all
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  of the costs of the event simply on the basis of entrance fees.
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  Even if you're filling the stands or filling the, uh, auditorium,
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  it's not gonna pay for everything.
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  So if you're looking at these two, what I would say is that society or
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  the economy or whatever you call it, is expending considerable resources Against
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  the amount of entertainment returned.
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  So the conclusion from that is that somehow both of these are supplying
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  something that society wants.
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  In effect, they're performing some sort of social role, satisfying some
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  sort of need society has in order to justify really kind of expending more
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  resources than the entertainment that the attendees are getting in return.
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  So what are those two needs?
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  The first need is kind of associated with place, is places have to
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  or want to have a there there.
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  Now, the phrase there there comes from Gertrude Stein, who in her autobiography
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  had returned to Oakland, where she grew up, and was disappointed to
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  discover that there was no there there.
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  And since then, that phrase has just begun to pop up all over the place.
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  The way I like to think of it is for there to be a there there,
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  it's kind of like a brand image.
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  A place has a brand image, and places want to create a there there.
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  I would assume this is... And that's the one social role that I believe
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  Grand Prix and Grand Opera both satisfy.
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  The second one is the idea of there there.
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  Obviously, okay, I'm playing on the words.
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  People want to associate with people they want to associate with.
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  There has to be somewhere for people to hang out with the right kind of people.
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  And I believe that, again, Grand Opera and Grand Prix both provide
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  us with that sort of venue.
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  We want to go to those because they are there.
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  Who's they are there?
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  People we want to associate with, people we want to be like,
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  people who want to like us.
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  Now, what I'm going to do is first look at Grand Opera.
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  Does it satisfy those two social needs in order, again, to justify
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  the resources that are being expended in order to put it on?
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  Opera got its start in royal courts for obvious reasons.
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  It was very expensive, again, to put on even back then.
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  It was a way for royalty display its wealth.
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  It was a way to display its culture.
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  Okay, opera is, I think, especially interesting in that it combines
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  music with art, with literature.
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  And of course, the courts had to employ Or hire experts in all of those areas.
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  But in some cases, they actually participated in the operas themselves.
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  So you had this royal beginning.
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  What happened over a period of time was commerce increased.
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  Merchants became wealthy in trade.
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  So the wealth wasn't necessarily concentrated in the aristocracy
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  anymore, it was getting diffused out more into the population.
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  You know, so how do these newly wealthy merchants display their wealth?
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  And how do these newly wealthy merchants display the significance of the place
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  where they're living, you know, to kinda give their city a there there?
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  They built opera houses.
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  So opera had this historical connection with royalty, so when other common
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  folk became wealthy, this was how they displayed their wealth.
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  So this was a way of saying, "Our city is someplace. There's a there there."
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  Now, this is one of the earliest civic opera houses that is still there.
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  This is the San Carlo in Naples.
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  Probably, though, the most famous is, uh, Charles Garnier's Paris Opera.
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  Honestly, it's... I don't know about you, I cannot look at that image
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  without thinking wealth and culture.
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  This was kind of the epitome of creating a there there.
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  And if you look at really cities all over the world, and even smaller, most of the
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  cities in Europe, like if you look at the opera houses, one in Budapest, there's
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  one in Vienna, there's one in Frankfurt.
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  Cities built these really grand opera houses.
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  Other cities weren't quite so wealthy.
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  They constructed opera houses as well.
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  Opera was a way to say, "There's a there here." Okay?
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  And that there is associated with wealth and culture.
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  So why is this a good thing?
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  Well, it kind of reflects on the people who live there.
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  You know, people are proud to say, "I'm from Naples," or, "I'm from Paris."
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  And it, of course, reflects on the people who might come there.
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  There's ways of monetizing that brand image.
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  Are we still doing this?
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  Yep.
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  This is obviously one of the more famous uses of architecture in
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  order for there to be a there there.
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  I mean, this has become Sydney, no question.
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  And it's still being done.
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  Relatively recently, much more recently than this, Oslo built
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  an incredible new opera house.
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  Hamburg built the Elbphilharmonie.
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  So opera is still a way to kind of create a there there, a brand image
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  that has the right connotations.
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  Of course, when you have a grand opera house, you attract celebrities.
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  And there were international celebrities, performers in the past, and
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  international celebrity performance now.
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  You had celebrity conductors in the past, you have celebrity conductors now.
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  The idea is there's a there there, and that brand image is created, at
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  least in part, with an opera house.
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  Now, I want you to take a close look at this.
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  This is, this is a drawing or an illustration of one of the earliest
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  grand opera houses, and there are three things that I'd like to point out.
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  First of all, you notice the tiered boxes, and you notice how they're shaped.
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  They're clearly designed with a better view of the people across the way
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  than whatever's going on onstage.
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  This was an excellent way to see and be seen.
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  But at the same time, you notice there are floor-to-ceiling partitions
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  between each of these boxes.
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  And the idea was that people would go to the opera, to the same
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  performance night after night.
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  Because the reason wasn't there to be entertained by what's going on
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  onstage, it was to be entertained by what was going on everywhere else.
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  People would go, and they would have dinner there.
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  I think there were facilities behind the boxes for preparing meals.
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  People would sit in the boxes and read the newspapers.
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  One thing that you can't really see all that well is that these boxes
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  had curtains so that there were other forms of entertainment that could
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  be indulged in in the boxes as well.
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  Now, the other thing that's a little unusual about this is notice there are
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  no seats here in the pit, because the pit was an area where people could wander
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  around, you know, where they could meet their friends, they could gossip, and
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  no one was concerned that all of that talk was somehow interfering with the
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  pleasure of the performance, because that really wasn't the point of it.
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  The point was to see and be seen.
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  And of course, there was kind of a presumption that at least right
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  people of a certain sort were there, because you couldn't just
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  walk in off the street, okay?
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  So these had to be people that were able to afford the entrance
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  fee, the price of the ticket.
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  Let's take a look at the Paris Opera House.
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  You notice a couple of differences.
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  First of all, the partitions between the boxes are not floor to ceiling, so
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  there's less privacy than there was.
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  You'll notice that there are seats in the pit, you know, so there wasn't this
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  wandering crowd during the performance.
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  But of course, we still had boxes facing boxes.
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  And this very clearly shows the traditional horseshoe shape, you know,
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  of an auditorium, which obviously is much more effective at looking across at people
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  on the other side and looking across at the, um, VIPs who had boxes at the very
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  end, as opposed to watching what was going on on the stage Notice here that the area
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  for circulation is no longer available.
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  What fascinates me about the Paris Opera House is that if you look at the plan,
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  it's in three pieces of the same size.
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  One piece is the stage and the backstage area, one piece is the auditorium, and
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  the next piece is the entrance lobby, which is as large as the auditorium.
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  And you can see from the design that this is an excellent place for
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  people to display themselves, to walk around, to see and be seen.
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  And as much space was devoted to this as was devoted to the auditorium.
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  That hasn't necessarily changed.
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  This is from the inside of the Sydney Opera House, and we still
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  have seating, again, on the sides facing across, and very open.
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  And you don't have quite so large a lobby, but you do have
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  a very fine restaurant and bar.
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  So if you're interested in seeing and being seen, this
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  is the place here to do it.
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  Opera can be used in more dramatic ways to create a there there.
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  Okay, this is the Roman Colosseum in Verona, where they stage
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  a performance of Nabucco.
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  Probably not the best place to hear the music, but obviously a great place to be
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  able to tell people that you were there.
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  I don't know if you're familiar with this.
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  This is from the Bregenz Opera Festival, where the extraordinarily
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  elaborate stage settings are constructed in Lake Constance.
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  Again, is this the best place to hear music?
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  Is there a best place to see performances?
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  Although they're, they're shown on screens, so you can watch it that way.
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  But it's to be there, and certainly put Bregenz on the map.
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  Bregenz also, I think, has an excellent contemporary arts museum.
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  But this is Bregenz.
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  The Colosseum with the performance of Nabucco is Verona.
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  And not only is it a great place to see and be seen, it's a great
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  place to kill and be killed.
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  I, I don't know if you remember the James Bond film that opened at the Bregenz
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  Festival, where a number of people were shot, one of whom was not James Bond.
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  What I'm trying to illustrate here is that grand opera was, and I believe is still,
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  an internationally recognized expression of wealth and cultural sophistication.
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  It creates a there there for places, and it creates a, an appropriate venue
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  to see and be seen by the right people.
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  Now, let's take a look at Grand Prix.
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  What I'm going to try to do is make the argument that Grand Prix is an
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  internationally recognized expression of wealth and, in this case, technological
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  sophistication It wasn't always that, but I'd like to make the case
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  that within the last, I don't know, 30, 40 years, it has become that.
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  So we're gonna look first at whether or not there is a there there, where
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  the Grand Prix kind of create this brand image, now, in this case,
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  not for cities, but for countries.
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  This is a little difficult, and, you know, you can disagree
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  with how I've gone about this.
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  But what I did was I looked at the dates when countries first hosted a Grand Prix.
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  So these were the charter members at the first one in 1950.
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  What we're looking for is, is there some evidence that holding the Grand
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  Prix was kind of a deliberate attempt at brand image management, either
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  image creation or maybe a rebranding to augment or alter the image?
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  First of all, I would argue that every one of these has a story as to how
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  it ended up on this list when it did.
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  All you had to do is attend the film on Thursday night, you know, to see the
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  story of how racing came to Watkins Glen.
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  So I don't know all of these stories.
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  I don't know how many of these stories have even been documented, and I suspect a
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  lot of what went on is not something that anyone would ever want to have documented.
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  But this is the original batch, and there's nothing
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  on there that's surprising.
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  These were all European countries that had long histories of racing, okay?
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  They had established venues for it.
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  No surprise.
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  Now, let's look at the rest of the 1950s.
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  Again, you know, a number of familiar countries.
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  They did expand into the United States, but again, large market, history of
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  racing, large automobile industry.
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  Goes without saying, it wasn't trying to rebrand the United States.
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  The interesting one to me is Argentina.
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  This, I think, was a consequence of Fangio's fame at the time.
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  So that was really the motivation to create a Grand Prix in
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  Argentina in the early 1950s.
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  Again, not having anything to do with the country itself.
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  1960s, not necessarily any surprises, although, uh, you know, South Africa,
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  we're talking about the essentially European part of South Africa.
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  We're not talking about the much broader population there.
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  And again, a history of racing.
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  This, to me, is where it starts to get interesting.
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  Brazil, kind of following on with the fame of a driver, in
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  this case Emerson Fittipaldi.
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  Okay, so they can kind of capitalize on that by holding a Grand Prix there.
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  The one I find most interesting, now sincerely, you can
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  disagree with any of these.
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  As I said, I have no idea what the real story was behind.
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  I'm only trying to kind of infer it from what happened where, when.
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  Japan, I think, would be interested in rebranding itself.
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  You know, it didn't want to be seen as this just tradition-bound culture.
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  It wanted to be seen as an industrial power, particularly
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  in the area of automobiles.
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  You know, this was when they were, you know, starting in the process
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  of making big pushes to export their automobiles abroad, you know,
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  including to the United States.
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  So I would argue that in this case, this may be one of the first
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  examples we've seen of a Grand Prix's effort to kind of rebrand a place.
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  Moving on to the '80s, I find a couple of these curious.
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  San Marino, that's pretty small.
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  And of course, the race was not held in San Marino.
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  It was held in Italy.
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  I think Italy wanted to have another Grand Prix, but at the time
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  the tradition was to label Grand Prix with the name of a country.
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  So San Marino steps up to the plate and puts their name on another Grand
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  Prix that's being held in Italy.
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  So th-this was not an effort to rebrand or create any sort of image for San Marino.
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  Europe, a little odd.
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  Europe isn't a country.
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  At the same time that this was going on, Europe was creating Europe,
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  the European community, you know, subsequently to become the European Union.
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  So a way of enhancing that image of Europe as a unit, you create
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  a European Grand Prix, which was actually held at the Nürburgring, which
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  hadn't had a Grand Prix since 1976.
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  This was kind of a way to, for Germany to take another bite at the apple.
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  The real rebrand here was Hungary.
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  Even though I was alive and reasonably cognizant of what was going on in the
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  world in 1986, I'm not sure people had much of an image of Hungary.
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  Hungary?
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  Um, I don't know.
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  So Hungary's trying to kind of take a step into the international
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  spotlight by hosting a Grand Prix.
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  I think that was probably the first step in using Formula
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  1 as creating a there there.
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  Japan was kind of trying to create the idea of a different there there.
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  This is like a there there from ground zero.
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  1990s, Pacific Grand Prix was held in Japan.
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  Again, I've got to wonder if Japan wanted to, uh, have another race, but this time
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  they called it the Pacific Grand Prix.
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  Luxembourg, this race was also held on the Nür-- at the Nürburgring.
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  You tell me, was it- A way to hold another race in Germany and Luxembourg
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  tagged along, or was it a way to, for Luxembourg to kinda take a step up and
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  maybe get a different image other than a place to park your money and then tap
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  into Germany to actually hold the race?
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  I don't know.
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  Again, Malaysia, I believe, is kind of similar to the idea of Hungary.
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  Malaysia wants to begin to appear on the world stage, and
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  they do that with a Grand Prix.
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  After that, it all broke loose.
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  We have at least two of these countries that have been, are of course, very
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  familiar to Americans, but not with images in America that they would've wanted.
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  So this was, I would say, a rebrand.
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  I suspect most Americans had heard of Singapore, but had no idea where it was.
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  Bahrain and Abu Dhabi would've been very challenging.
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  So here, clearly for, I think all five cases, it's a way of saying there's a
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  there there, or at least the kind of there we would prefer you to think of.
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  Same here.
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  Three countries that I think would want a different image.
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  Russia clearly would've wanted a better image than was
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  circulating in the United States.
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  India would kind of want a certain better image than was
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  circulating in the United States.
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  Korea, again, was looking to sell a lot of cars, and this again, would be a way
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  of associating the automobile with Korea.
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  Azerbaijan, I'm willing to bet that there were very few Americans
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  that could put their hand on a world map and cover Azerbaijan.
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  I'm not so sure too many Americans would've known
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  how to pronounce Azerbaijan.
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  Clearly, they're looking to step up.
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  And finally, in the 2020s, again, Saudi Arabia, not a very good
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  image in the United States, as we are seeing in the news.
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  But by holding a Grand Prix, well, you know, maybe people
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  will look at it differently.
• 25:02
  Qatar again.
• 25:04
  Rwanda.
• 25:05
  You know, just as I was preparing this presentation, I'm reading a news story
• 25:10
  that, you know, Rwanda's in discussions with the FIA to hold a Grand Prix there.
• 25:16
  I think that even beats Azerbaijan in terms of rebranding.
• 25:21
  I would argue that like we saw with grand opera being used to create a
• 25:28
  brand image for cities, F1 now is being used to create a image for countries.
• 25:35
  I think it started with Hungary in 1986, and then once Malaysia
• 25:39
  in 1999, then the dam broke.
• 25:42
  It was all a process of creating or altering, rebranding a country.
• 25:48
  The expense of putting these Grand Prix on was covered by the benefits
• 25:56
  that these countries hoped to obtain.
• 25:59
  By holding the event.
• 26:00
  And of course, this is way beyond entertainment.
• 26:03
  It was a much different motivation, which was why they felt it was worth doing.
• 26:08
  Again, has a Grand Prix become a place to see and be seen?
• 26:13
  Okay, so this is a tough one.
• 26:15
  So I'm trying to figure out a way to kinda get at this without trying
• 26:19
  to look at celebrity photos of Grand Prix to see who was there.
• 26:24
  So what I figured was that if companies are advertising luxury, fashion, and
• 26:32
  technology, they must expect that there are people in the audience,
• 26:39
  or spectators, who have an interest in luxury, fashion, and technology.
• 26:46
  In other words, those are the they, as in they're there.
• 26:51
  I presented on this topic a, a couple conferences ago.
• 26:55
  You know, and when it started out, it was all automotive products,
• 26:59
  tobacco products, alcohol products.
• 27:03
  So I think when these items began to be advertised, it was a signal
• 27:09
  that the firms doing the advertising suspected that those sorts of people
• 27:15
  would be out there in the stands.
• 27:17
  They would be there.
• 27:18
  Keeping in mind, too, this again, a very, very complicated issue, and
• 27:22
  not one that's necessarily, you can necessarily get at with this approach.
• 27:27
  But I thought that a lot of reason that companies advertise is not necessarily
• 27:32
  to reach the people in the stands.
• 27:35
  They're to get the access so that they can take their best clients and
• 27:40
  customers, and they can go to those back areas and get close to the stars.
• 27:49
  Same result.
• 27:50
  So let's take a look.
• 27:52
  First thing I notice, and what I've really-- what I've done here is gotten
• 27:57
  all of the examples of a certain product category that I could find.
• 28:03
  It, it's hard to be too specific about what was accomplished because
• 28:08
  notice, you have some ads that are very large and clearly visible from
• 28:14
  the stands, some that may be marginally visible, or some that hard to imagine
• 28:20
  someone there actually seeing this.
• 28:23
  You know, in a lot of cases, I'm thinking the, the smaller ads here are
• 28:27
  associated with kind of a barter deal.
• 28:30
  Longines provides timing, equipment, and services to, I think in this
• 28:35
  case, a longtime sponsor of Ferrari.
• 28:38
  And in exchange, Ferrari puts the name on the car.
• 28:42
  Not necessarily so the public can see it, but it's there They're a sponsor.
• 28:48
  So this was really one of the first uses of luxury fashion technology sponsorships.
• 28:56
  And I can't help thinking that a lot of those had something to do with
• 29:00
  providing services to the teams.
• 29:02
  This, I think, was a major, major change for a sportswear company to
• 29:09
  actually become a title sponsor.
• 29:11
  It's very significant, very innovative.
• 29:14
  Again, the idea being that there were people out there who were interested
• 29:19
  in clothing and what they were wearing.
• 29:21
  Obviously, I wouldn't have kind of fallen into that category.
• 29:25
  The only r-real fashion advertiser here was Ted Lapidus, which actually
• 29:32
  was in the same year as Benetton.
• 29:34
  And there are all sorts of backstories to these that, you know, I stumbled across.
• 29:39
  Kilimato was a cosmetics company, and I believe had some sort of either business
• 29:45
  or personal affiliation with the team.
• 29:49
  And in exchange for, you know, providing a lot of money to the team, painted the car.
• 29:55
  This one's very fascinating.
• 29:57
  Red Bull decides to branch out into clothing, so they rename Toro Rosso
• 30:04
  to AlphaTauri and paint the car.
• 30:08
  I don't know that that's ever happened before and whether it'll ever happen
• 30:11
  again, but that's how we got a sportswear company as a title sponsor.
• 30:17
  There were a lot more examples of wearables that really
• 30:22
  weren't title sponsors.
• 30:24
  You know, they just appeared.
• 30:26
  I recognize a lot of those.
• 30:27
  I don't recognize-- I think for the most part, it did kind of fall
• 30:31
  under the sportswear category.
• 30:34
  You know, we're really not talking about high fashion here.
• 30:36
  Although I think either Ellesse or Annabelle.
• 30:39
  I had to look up a lot of these.
• 30:41
  More upscale.
• 30:43
  You know, but the names that are familiar, Nordica, Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger,
• 30:47
  Russell Athletic, are sportswear.
• 30:50
  Notice that some of the names are relatively large,
• 30:53
  some of them are smaller.
• 30:55
  I was just excited to learn that my new glasses are Carrera.
• 31:00
  That was not intentional, okay?
• 31:03
  Somehow I managed to avoid fashion altogether, but the person who was fitting
• 31:07
  my glasses said, "These look pretty good on you." So I said, "Okay." Now, my
• 31:11
  old glasses, I had someone tell me that I looked like an Italian philosopher,
• 31:16
  especially when I was holding an espresso.
• 31:19
  That, that like made my day.
• 31:22
  So I was kinda shooting for a similar look, okay?
• 31:25
  Now, take a look at the dates They all seem, you know, they, they all
• 31:29
  seem to kind of, you know, fill... In the '80s and '90s was when
• 31:33
  this sort of sponsorship peaked.
• 31:36
  Then technology began to emerge.
• 31:39
  So what we had was advertising by companies that I've, I've labeled
• 31:44
  m- mainframe computing, computer services from a centralized location.
• 31:49
  And notice that these were pre- pretty large.
• 31:53
  Then not surprisingly, following up on that, we had
• 31:56
  personal computer advertising.
• 31:59
  You know, and I'm not lingering on these slides, and it's like kind of
• 32:01
  Where's Waldo is trying to, to find where the ad is somewhere on the car.
• 32:07
  Electronic components, computer-related services, other business services.
• 32:12
  Notice, you know, we're no longer in the automotive products,
• 32:14
  tobacco, and alcohol era.
• 32:17
  So this is how I would sum it up.
• 32:19
  The idea that this was a place to see and be seen, to me, I think started to
• 32:25
  emerge in the, the '80s, and then in terms of wearables on into the '90s.
• 32:32
  And then the association with the technological sophistication started
• 32:37
  out again around the same time, but then really exploded into the current century.
• 32:42
  Now, early in my career, I would be talking with a colleague.
• 32:47
  His comment to me was always along the lines of, "This is a kind
• 32:51
  of an interesting idea, McGowan.
• 32:52
  So what?
• 32:53
  Why should anyone care about this?
• 32:56
  Why should it matter?
• 32:57
  What can we do with it?" Can't get up here and say, "Well, yeah, you
• 33:00
  know, I shown this cool connection between grand opera and Grand Prix.
• 33:03
  Any questions?
• 33:04
  So what?" I would argue that peak opera occurred in nineteenth century Italy.
• 33:11
  This is when opera was its most popular, the stars were the biggest, the tunes
• 33:18
  were the most familiar, and I would say, sadly, this has remained the core of
• 33:24
  the opera, uh, repertoire ever since.
• 33:28
  You know, there are others, but this is what shows up in the Roman Colosseum.
• 33:33
  This is what shows up at Bregenz, Peak Opera.
• 33:36
  What happened?
• 33:37
  How did kind of opera fall off its peak?
• 33:41
  Remember, opera is entertainment, and still is entertainment, but at
• 33:45
  the same time, it was the place to create a there there for a city,
• 33:51
  and it was the place to go and see and be seen by the right people.
• 33:56
  Okay, this is the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, designed by Wagner.
• 34:02
  And one thing that happened, and I think kind of Wagner was certainly
• 34:06
  instrumental in it, that the opera became less entertaining.
• 34:10
  You know, you couldn't hum the tunes anymore, and it became more esoteric.
• 34:14
  But looking at the design of this, first, what do you notice?
• 34:17
  There are no side boxes Wagner said, "Look, you go to the opera to hear my
• 34:23
  music and watch the activity on the stage. You don't go for any other reason." Okay?
• 34:29
  Seeing and be seen just kinda fell off the map in terms of opera or, you know, film.
• 34:35
  The other interesting thing about this is, what's interesting about the pit here?
• 34:40
  There are no aisles.
• 34:42
  There's an aisle on one side, there's an aisle on the other side.
• 34:45
  So if you didn't have one of the world's strongest bladders, you are going to
• 34:50
  see and be seen in a not very nice way.
• 34:55
  Okay?
• 34:55
  So you're trying to get from here all the way around to the end.
• 35:00
  So his idea was, "Look, no one interrupts my performances.
• 35:04
  You sit there, you watch it, you pay attention.
• 35:08
  That's it." But as we saw, that really wasn't the point of opera.
• 35:13
  It wasn't just entertainment.
• 35:14
  Opera is still alive.
• 35:16
  It's alive with new venues.
• 35:18
  Okay, the open-air opera in Santa Fe.
• 35:21
  Glyndebourne, again, still a place to see and be seen, but not with
• 35:27
  the cachet that it had before.
• 35:29
  It still creates a there there.
• 35:31
  Again, for Santa Fe, it's more than a place to get an authentic burrito.
• 35:35
  And what could be a better way to see and be seen than here
• 35:40
  on the lawn at Glyndebourne?
• 35:42
  We're talking serious cachet here.
• 35:45
  So those old rationales are still in play, and they are trying to
• 35:51
  introduce contemporary themes.
• 35:54
  This is John Adams's Doctor Atomic.
• 35:57
  This is Turnage's Anna Nicole.
• 36:01
  You know, I, I was reading the New York Times this morning, and
• 36:03
  they're talking about another new opera that's being performed.
• 36:06
  But these operas just, they don't enter the regular repertoire.
• 36:10
  Okay?
• 36:10
  It's really kind of frozen in time.
• 36:13
  Now, Formula 1, it doesn't get any more associated with fashion than this.
• 36:19
  You know, LVMH is the largest, wealthiest fashion conglomerate in the world.
• 36:25
  Arnault is one of the wealthiest people in the world.
• 36:28
  If there was ever any doubt about the connection between Formula 1 Grand
• 36:33
  Prix and fashion, luxury, there you go.
• 36:38
  I just saw that article in the Financial Time.
• 36:41
  Now, my understanding from the article is what Apple's interested
• 36:44
  in doing is acquiring content for their virtual reality equipment.
• 36:51
  That's the connection here, so further cementing the idea of an association
• 36:56
  between Grand Prix and technology.
• 36:59
  So here's the question I'll leave you with.
• 37:02
  Have we now reached peak Formula 1?
• 37:06
  Looking back over what happened to opera, in retrospect, we can look back and
• 37:10
  we can see that there was a peak opera where things more or less got frozen.
• 37:15
  And the relevance of grand opera and its effectiveness at
• 37:22
  performing those necessary social functions didn't disappear.
• 37:26
  It's still there, and it's still entertaining, but it shrunk.
• 37:31
  And Formula 1 now is riding the crest.
• 37:35
  So have we reached peak Formula 1 in satisfying those social needs?
• 37:42
  If not, how much longer does it have to go?
• 37:45
  Where can it go?
• 37:46
  Or do we already see signs of atrophy and something else out
• 37:51
  there emerging to take over?
• 37:54
  Thank you very much.
• 38:02
  Skip, I'm wondering, as a, as a NASCAR fan, to go back to the opera houses,
• 38:06
  would my parallel be the Grand Ole Opry?
• 38:11
  Sorry, just kidding.
• 38:13
  Anyway.
• 38:14
  Anyway, that was, that was terrific.
• 38:15
  We have people with microphones in the audience.
• 38:18
  Does anyone have questions or comments for Skip?
• 38:21
  I really want to reply to that.
• 38:22
  You know, that's a really excellent observation.
• 38:25
  And as I was going through here, I realized that there are other, I
• 38:29
  don't know what I should call it, institutions, events, whatever,
• 38:32
  that also perform these functions.
• 38:34
  It's just that at the times, these had really reached kind
• 38:38
  of the apex of, of visibility.
• 38:41
  But no, I agree, I agree completely.
• 38:43
  Uh, before I hand off the mic to everybody else, uh, I finally get to
• 38:46
  play in my wheelhouse as a musician here.
• 38:48
  It's interesting to look at the sliding scales of both of these, and it's a
• 38:52
  great comparison and a great talk.
• 38:54
  But I would say they've kind of gone diametrically to each other, where
• 38:58
  opera at one point in time, again, like it was the seen and be seen.
• 39:01
  It was the, "Oh, we hope people will pay attention." And now, again,
• 39:05
  like you were talking about, you kind of gloss over the celebrity
• 39:08
  and all of that of Formula 1 now.
• 39:10
  But I mean, you look at Martin Brundle's grid walks, they're
• 39:12
  all just people that are there.
• 39:14
  They have no care in the world other than, "I'm rooting for Mercedes today
• 39:18
  because they paid me to be here."
• 39:19
  Wait, why... Okay, let me ask.
• 39:21
  Why did you say they were there?
• 39:23
  Effectively invited and paid to be there just to be, to be seen.
• 39:26
  I mean, there's the real fans in the, the grandstands and all of that.
• 39:29
  But you have all of these people that, you know, like 17th century
• 39:33
  opera, where it was walking around and having a conversation.
• 39:36
  They're on the grid just to be seen and to have their celebrity out there.
• 39:39
  Or, I mean, Louis Vuitton is now sponsoring all the trophies this year.
• 39:43
  Well, I didn't want to overdo it, but at the same time, there was a large popular
• 39:46
  f- following of opera at the time as well.
• 39:49
  You know, people would l- kind of line up at the, at the entrance to the
• 39:53
  theater, you know, to see people come in.
• 39:55
  It's like, you know, every night there was something like Academy Awards.
• 39:59
  So it's kind of... I kind of glossed over- Yeah ... the fact that, yeah,
• 40:01
  it was much broader than just that.
• 40:04
  Thanks, Skip, for that wonderful presentation.
• 40:07
  As a connection to my talk yesterday, Giuseppe Campari was an opera singer, and
• 40:12
  he was actually a, not so much an amateur.
• 40:14
  I think he performed in some of the bigger theaters at the time.
• 40:18
  Just to fill, fill in one thing with Hungary, I think you're
• 40:21
  correct that it was trying to build up the image of that country.
• 40:24
  But it was also significant because it was the first Grand
• 40:27
  Prix behind the Iron Curtain.
• 40:29
  Hungary was still part of the, the Soviet, uh, world at that time, so.
• 40:33
  In- interesting.
• 40:34
  Okay, short personal story.
• 40:36
  I broke through the Iron Curtain once, going from Austria to Yugoslavia, and I
• 40:41
  didn't notice any difference, that I had been fed this Eastern European stereotype.
• 40:47
  And I'm looking around, it's like, "Okay, where are the bread lines?" You
• 40:50
  know, "Where are the depressed-looking people, you know, wearing ugly clothes?"
• 40:55
  So, you know, it's obvious that Hungary and many other countries like that
• 41:01
  really needed, uh, needed the rebrand.
• 41:04
  I thought that was really very, very interesting because the
• 41:07
  parallels are, are fantastic.
• 41:09
  However, couple observations being still involved in the industry today.
• 41:13
  One is, it's my opinion, having been on FIA commissions and things
• 41:17
  before 2000, a lot of Formula 1 races had nothing to do other than
• 41:22
  how much money Bernie Ecclestone was gonna make by having another race.
• 41:25
  Okay?
• 41:26
  Okay.
• 41:26
  Two- Yeah.
• 41:26
  See, this is- After 2000, after 2000, I wonder what your thoughts
• 41:31
  are, this is the question, of the percentage of failures of this process.
• 41:36
  Turkey, India, China, Korea, they all failed.
• 41:40
  Yeah.
• 41:40
  No, that was- So there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that I think
• 41:43
  you're making a point, but I think there's gonna be more to it to your
• 41:46
  endpoint, which in our world here in the US, I mean, we have massive partnership
• 41:51
  deals with people like AMD and Lenovo.
• 41:53
  It's all business to business.
• 41:55
  It has nothing to do with the consumer.
• 41:57
  They don't put their stuff on cars.
• 41:58
  It's all about enticing people to use their products on a business-to-business
• 42:03
  level, which I've seen as a fascinating development of what you're talking about.
• 42:08
  I agree with everything you said.
• 42:09
  Don't get me wrong, and don't be critical.
• 42:10
  Oh.
• 42:10
  But there's a lot of stuff going on out there that potentially in five years,
• 42:14
  Formula 1 on television will be gone.
• 42:17
  It won't be there.
• 42:17
  That, you know, it's- It will be every other way, easier, better.
• 42:20
  Might have to pay for it more.
• 42:22
  Yeah.
• 42:22
  But you're gonna get better content through other ways, I think.
• 42:25
  That's just my opinion.
• 42:26
  But I am, I'm interested in your thoughts on at least the part about
• 42:29
  the- Seriously, I mean- ... the shift in the economics and where it
• 42:31
  goes ... that's an excellent point.
• 42:32
  Yeah.
• 42:32
  I, you know, I would love some time to make a presentation, you
• 42:35
  know, on just one of those cases.
• 42:39
  We're at that point Yeah, well, I'm at the point where I'm kinda
• 42:42
  reaching my sell-by date, so.
• 42:45
  At, at any rate, when, when I was listening to your presentation
• 42:49
  yesterday, you know, you were talking about that the, you can get a car now
• 42:52
  and get it on the track for only, only three-quarters of a million dollars.
• 42:57
  You know, so the idea is that you're right.
• 42:59
  I'm, I've thought about that, is there are people who are
• 43:01
  clearly making money on this.
• 43:03
  But they're also highly subsidized by the folks who are willing
• 43:06
  to kick in three-quarters.
• 43:08
  It would- Yeah ... kinda like an NFL player buying their own
• 43:11
  equipment and then playing for free.
• 43:14
  Sure.
• 43:15
  Yeah, I know I might get a concussion and ruin my life, but
• 43:18
  heck, I'm there for the fun of it.
• 43:19
  Yeah.
• 43:20
  So the, if you look, if you look at the whole cost- Right
• 43:23
  it's not even close.
• 43:24
  But yeah, I'd like to do what you were suggesting.
• 43:26
  Yeah.
• 43:26
  Really would.
• 43:27
  So another perspective on this.
• 43:30
  A year ago, I was at a N- paid barbecue.
• 43:32
  I met some people at the table who were Formula One fans.
• 43:37
  I'm a Formula One fan, it goes back to 1960 or whatever, the first year here.
• 43:42
  These people, I tried to talk to them about Formula One.
• 43:46
  We had nothing in common because their Formula One was all drive to survive.
• 43:54
  Yeah.
• 43:54
  And nothing else.
• 43:55
  Yeah.
• 43:56
  And I don't know what that means, but that's a whole other
• 43:59
  perspective on this thing, that there's another universe out there.
• 44:03
  On the internet, our British friends have been a flurry of comments.
• 44:07
  Some of them overlap with things that have been said in the room.
• 44:10
  But one that stands out specifically is in remark to what you were talking
• 44:14
  about, countries using Formula One to basically symbolically represent
• 44:19
  themselves in a better light.
• 44:21
  There is an opposing point here, and I think it's very valid,
• 44:23
  which is why I'm bringing it up.
• 44:24
  It's the flip side of this argument, is the South African Grand Prix
• 44:27
  being taken off the calendar in the '80s when the world was pressuring
• 44:31
  South Africa to end apartheid.
• 44:33
  So any comment on that?
• 44:36
  I don't know if that's inconsistent with anything here.
• 44:41
  Diametrically
• 44:43
  opposed organization.
• 44:44
  W- well, no, you're s- you're saying it was, th- you know, it
• 44:46
  was taken off the calendar because of opposition to apartheid.
• 44:49
  Yeah.
• 44:50
  Well, it was kind of like rebranding in a negative direction.
• 44:52
  It's still, Formula One was a key component in brand image.
• 44:57
  Its absence was as significant as its presence.
• 45:01
  Perhaps even more so.
• 45:03
  I wanna bring this back to Watkins Glen.
• 45:04
  Okay.
• 45:05
  Watkins Glen has an opera house.
• 45:06
  Or did.
• 45:08
  It, it's gone.
• 45:09
  Yeah.
• 45:09
  Well, F1 was in Watkins Glen, and it's gone.
• 45:14
  What happened during that time when the rich and famous came to the Glen for, uh,
• 45:21
  natural beauty reasons, and they had an opera house because it was a there there.
• 45:26
  They had to have a place to go.
• 45:28
  And lots of small towns had opera houses- Oh, yeah ... where drama
• 45:32
  and music and speakers came.
• 45:34
  N- not of great note, but it was a place- That small rural places
• 45:39
  aspired to be like the grand places of Europe- Mm-hmm ... and have an
• 45:44
  opera house- Yeah ... even here, so.
• 45:48
  Well, that's the thing.
• 45:49
  Opera kind of fell off the wagon, you know, in terms of providing
• 45:54
  for those social needs, and replaced by something else.
• 45:59
  Movies.
• 46:01
  Movie, you can't mingle or gossip.
• 46:06
  You know, it's more like the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth.
• 46:08
  All right, Jim Ellis, the last piece we got.
• 46:10
  Uh, thank you.
• 46:12
  So to, uh, first, a couple of quick things.
• 46:14
  One is to underscore Paul's remark about the Hungarian race being behind what, in
• 46:19
  those days, was called the Iron Curtain.
• 46:21
  Uh, that's worth looking into.
• 46:23
  I, I don't know much about it, but it's only three years short of its
• 46:27
  becoming an independent country.
• 46:29
  Uh, the second thing, more important, is w- where can I get a
• 46:32
  pair of glasses that will make me look like an Italian philosopher?
• 46:37
  Oh, that's- You'll have to ask Carol.
• 46:40
  Okay.
• 46:40
  Uh, and, and lastly, Herbert von Karajan, who led the Berlin Philharmonic for
• 46:47
  forever and recorded numerous operas, was a major Porsche driver and owner.
• 46:53
  And I think as an Austrian, he was buddies with Ferry Porsche.
• 46:57
  The glasses question sounds like a coffee break discussion to me.
• 47:00
  Skip, that was wonderful.
• 47:01
  Thanks very much.
• 47:02
  Always thought-provoking as always.
• 47:02
  Thank you.
• 47:12
  This episode is brought to you in part by the International
• 47:16
  Motor Racing Research Center.
• 47:18
  Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history
• 47:22
  of motor sports, spanning continents, eras, and race series.
• 47:27
  The center's collection embodies the speed, drama, and camaraderie
• 47:32
  of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world.
• 47:37
  The center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories of
• 47:42
  race drivers, race series, and race cars captured on their shelves and walls, and
• 47:48
  brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events.
• 47:54
  To learn more about the center, visit www.racingarchives.org.
• 48:00
  This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians.
• 48:06
  They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history.
• 48:10
  The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers, organizational
• 48:17
  records, print ephemera, and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and
• 48:22
  deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through
• 48:27
  the modern age and into the future.
• 48:30
  For more information about the SAH, visit www.autohistory.org.
• 48:39
  We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast, brought
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  to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
• 48:46
  If you'd like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure
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• 48:53
  And if you'd like to learn more about the content of this episode,
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  be sure to check out the follow-on article at gtmotorsports.org.
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  And remember, without you, none of this would be possible.