WE'VE RUN A NUMBER OF articles over the past several issues about the quite radical changes digital technologies are making to the availability of opera, driven to a large degree by the Metropolitan Opera through its HD movie broadcasts and its use of alternatives for radio transmission such as

the Sirius satellite network. We haven't said too much about the changes to classical programming on CBC Radio yet, in part because we're waiting for the other shoe to drop in September, when new programming schedules take effect. On the surface, it doesn't seem that the Saturday afternoon opera broadcasts are in play, though just about everything else classical is. The CBC wants us to believe that classical music will remain the significant genre on Radio 2, though changes wrought thus far and half-hearted attempts to persuade its existing classical audience that it really does care about classical music do not auger well. Despite a clear outcry about the proposed changes, invitations to parliamentary committee hearings to explain them, intense public lobbying that's turned the issue into a debate about cultural identity and even live protests outside CBC headquarters in Toronto, the people who decide (have decided) these things remain largely silent about the course they've embarked on. If anyone has seen a clear and convincing justification of the changes, send me the citation (actually, I'd settle for "clear"). If somebody at the CBC would like to supply one, I'll happily provide space to share it with readers--though, sorry, not without some commentary. A good debate on what is an important cultural issue is one of the things the CBC seems to have avoided at all costs so far. Indeed, the strategy seems to be "Sit tight and wait it out until the fuss fizzles."

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One might feel a little more confident if things didn't seem to be unfolding according to the rules of serendipity rather than intelligent strategic planning. Have you noticed how things and people are just disappearing, some as if victim to the CBC version of a knock at the door in the dead of night? To my mind, this started at Saturday Afternoon at the Open last year. when long-time host Howard Dyck was pretty well left to announce his own departure on his last show. This season, as I write, the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts have come to an end and the CBC is into its own roster of opera broadcasts. If you're a listener, you probably noticed that the opera quiz and its longtime host; Stuart Hamilton, are missing now, too. Host Bill Richardson did finally announce that the quiz was just off the air until producers could figure out what form it might take in future, though why Hamilton couldn't carry on as usual in the meantime wasn't explained. You'll also see in our Opera in the News section in the issue that Saturday Afternoon at the Opera Executive Producer Robert Cooper is leaving at the end of August. There have been other changes. You have doubtless read about the disbandment of the Vancouver-based CBC Radio Orchestra, and while CBC Records says it's definitely still in the business of classical music, there's currently a hold on new classical projects pending the changes coming to English radio.

I'm not arguing against change here, just the lack of transparency or a rationale for how programming and personnel changes are for the better. That slew of ads in which musicians tell us what their CBC Radio 2 includes doesn't do it. I'm glad jazz singer Molly Johnson's CBC includes classical, but I'd be more convinced if. for example, another ad I saw with dozens of Canadian musicians' pictures had included at least one classical artist. OK, so the East Village Opera Company, a group we featured in our last issue,was included, but that was it (let's not get sidetracked by noting that some musicians in the East Village picture were American sidemen). These attempts to reassure are unconvincing because they're not saying anything specific. At worst, they suggest that the classical genre has truly lost much of its currency at Radio 2; at best., they're a sign that things are drifting, with the hands on the rudder still searching for a direction.

A couple of years ago, this magazine was proud to present the CBC with an Opera Canada Award to recognize its seminal support of opera and the vocal scene in Canada in so many ways and over so many decades. Nothing Radio 2 management does now or over the next few years will in any way undermine this rich history, except perhaps to expose what has been lost. As a public rather than a commercial broadcaster, the CBC has always had a responsibility to be a creative force in the country's culture. These responsibilities must change as society changes, of course, and economics certainly play a role in what's possible and doable. But this is all the more reason for the current regime to give what so far it has denied us--a clearly articulated rationale of how the proposed cuts and changes will enrich rather than impoverish our musical life.