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Classical crossover. A term that makes purists recoil, that defines a genre-less genre that has classical musical culture up in arms even while it has non-specialist charts in its thrall. Yet crossover\u2019s essential philosophy isn\u2019t as separate from classical ideology as purists might like to think, and neither is it as genuinely open-hearted in its crossing of genres as its fans might suppose. <\/strong><\/p> Crossover is about turning the ambition of the operatic into the glamour of the poperatic, fusing the emotional scale of classical music with the marketing and soundworld of pop. The result ought to be records, performances and careers that appeal to the biggest possible audience with the greatest possible impact. <\/p> And it works: it\u2019s not only that Ludovico Einaudi<\/a><\/strong>, Andr\u00e9 Rieu<\/a><\/strong>, Katherine Jenkins, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe usually sell more records than musicians who confine themselves to the un-crossed-over classical; they\u2019re only the latest manifestations of a phenomenon that goes back to the start of the record industry. Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba were doing something similar in their recording careers, singing operatic offcuts, folk songs and popular tunes in new arrangements to sell millions of 78s; and between those recording pioneers and today\u2019s crossover artistes is a chain of connection from Mario Lanza to the Three Tenors, from Kenneth McKellar to Andrea Bocelli.<\/p> And there\u2019s another sense in which the snobbery directed at crossover is both misplaced and ahistorical. Without crossing popular musical theatre with masonic ritual and operatic virtuosity, Mozart\u2019s The Magic Flute<\/i><\/a><\/strong> (one of the best operas for beginners<\/a><\/strong>) couldn\u2019t have been composed; without crossing Renaissance polyphony with Baroque counterpoint and Romantic sublimity, Beethoven\u2019s Missa Solemnis<\/i> wouldn\u2019t have been written; and without fusing oratorio<\/a><\/strong> with song-cycle, symphony and opera of the imagination, Mahler<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Eighth Symphony couldn\u2019t exist. <\/p> The weirdness of the music in today\u2019s classical crossover charts is that it\u2019s less likely to cross genres than contemporary \u2018classical\u2019 music: crossover is now a separate genre of production, product and performance that\u2019s defined by and cosseted in its own realm of poperatic sheen, which doesn\u2019t \u2013 ironically \u2013 cross over with anything other than itself. <\/p> It used to be so different. And if you want to experience the true power of what\u2019s possible when opera meets pop, a place in which the crossover equation \u2013 more+more=most \u2013 really does shake the foundations of the sky, you need to hear Freddie Mercury\u2019s album with Montserrat Caball\u00e9: Barcelona<\/i>. The meeting of those voices crosses the streams of musical genres to produce something irresistibly excessive that flies into a new musical dimension: prepare to travel with Freddie and Montserrat to crossover and beyond\u2026 to Barcelona! <\/p>