DAVID MICHELSEN |
|||
|
"Brutal" Critical Receptions John McCormick wrote: I have begun wondering about operas of the past that have gotten similar brutal treatment at their first exposure. I would like some help on this. I am sure there are many out there that can name several. I come to think of Carmen which wasn't well received. Here is what one critic wrote: "M. Bizet, as is known, belongs to that new sect that believes in vaporizing musical ideas instead of enclosing them within definite bounds. For this school of composition, of which Wagner is the high-priest, ... motif is old-fashioned, melody is superannuated; the voice is overpowered by the orchestra, leaving only a feeble echo. Such a way of composing must inevitably produce works that are confused. It is melody that is the design of music. If one takes that away, only educated noise is left..." This and other quotes at: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/music/NYCO/carmen/reception.html Karadar I do not think anyone has actually mentioned this but the Karadar Classical Music site is up and running again after a down period. Which is great news indeed! Perhaps this is the time to start downloading a copy of the whole site to one's own computer... I do, however, find that there are a few typos or errors here and there: I often use the site to check out things in Wagner. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know the good news. Ponchielli: La gioconda My mother is going to NYC and wants to see La gioconda at the Met next season. A few questions: — When are the general ticket sales opening? I can't find anything but subscription tickets on the site at the moment. — Which price categories are available? — Which recordings would you recommend to listen to in advance? Thank you for your help. Private replies are fine. Don Giovanni: What is in a Name? I have been thinking about why Don Giovanni is called Giovanni — as in the opera by Lorenzo da Ponte (Lawrence from the Bridge, right?) and Mozart — as well as in numerous other works. Don Giovanni which more or less equals Mr. John in English is a... sex animal and yet he bears a name which means "God is gracious" (Johannes from the Hebrew). Is that a coincidence or is there a higher meaning in this? Ring Literature I have been a Wagnerian for some time now and I should like to read about this composer in depth. I'd be glad to get suggestions for biographies, critical essays, or the like, preferably of a recent date. And not too heavy on technical musical terminology. I am listening to Der Ring des Nibelungen for the time being. Looking forward to your recommendations. Copenhagen 2006-2007 The 2006-2007 season in Copenhagen has been disclosed. Here's an overview: PUCCINI: Tosca, c Bellincampi, d Langdal. A new production of a work Copenhagen does not desperately need in my opinion. Kiberg will sing the Tosca. LORENTZEN: Kain og Abel, c Rasmussen, d Stig Fogh Andersen. In this world premiere, tenor Stig Fogh Andersen will try his hand at directing. This chamber opera will be interesting to attend. ROSSINI: Il barbiere di Siviglia, c Søndergård, d Holten. I have seen this before, and it was absolutely horrible. A director's smug take on Rossini, focussing rather on how directors work than on musical comedy. This ranks among my worst nights of theatre ever. JANACEK: Vec Makropulos, c Polianitjko, d Vick. A rare opera around these parts, but I think it will prove interesting. A strong local cast of singers to support it. NIELSEN: Maskarade, c Schønwandt, d Holten. This Danish opera premiered 100 years ago, so this will be the centenary production... Maskerade was played in London in 2005, I think. STRAUSS: Elektra, c Schønwandt, d Konwitschny. This is an opera I look forward to hearing. The parts are sung by Resmark, Johansson, Kiberg, Elming, and Byriel. MOZART: Don Giovanni, c Fischer, d Warner. This is only one out of two pieces to mark Mozart's 250th birthday, unfortunately. The production is a co-production with Theater an der Wien and the conductor is not my favourite in Mozart. WAGNER: Lohengrin, c Bernet, d Konwitschny. Stig Fogh Andersen will sing the Lohengrin, and Inga Nielsen the Elsa. This looks promising, and I am sure this will be a ... er, stimulating production. The action reportedly takes place in a class room (!) MOZART: La clemenza di Tito, c Mortensen, d McVicar. This one has become one of my favourite Mozart operas after years of Figaro, Giovanni and Così. And Mortensen is a delightful conductor, leading his own Copenhagen Concerto ensemble in these performances. DEBUSSY: Pelléas et Mélisande, c Kamensek, d Joosten. Starring Milling, Elming, and von Otter, this will be one of the highlights of the season. It only gets six shows so perhaps they don't count on it being a block buster? VERDI: Simone Boccanegra, c Schønwandt/Morandi, d Selimovic. Another highlight of the season to be sure. STRAUSS, J: Die Fledermaus, c Mayrhofer, d Langdal. This will be a revival. I will see it this season and may file a report later. Unfortunately, it is sung in Danish (I always prefer original language productions), and the concept production has not been met with rave reviews. LIGETI: Le grand macabre, c Boder, d Holten. The production is fashioned in a cartoon style and is sung in Danish... I remember trying to appreciate Ligeti's musical idiom, but found it hard. DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor, c Andretta, d Hoffmeyer. This piece returns to the Copenhagen opera for the first time in 140 years! Better late than never. I heard it some time ago in Sweden with a delightful Chinese soprano whose name eludes me at present. I look forward to hearing Inger Dam-Jensen as Lucia. Check out http://www.kglteater.dk/Forestillinger/Opera/06_07.aspx for further details. How Much of a Foreign Language Did Opera Teach You? Roberta Prada wrote: OK the truth. I studied French in school starting in the 6th grade (and Latin which I was dismal at). This reminds me of the fact that Stravinsky composed an opera to a Latin text: Oedipus Rex. I would like to have a go at reading it but cannot find it. Does anybody know if the libretto is online somewhere? Yet, it is strange he chose Latin. Why not ancient Greek? Sophocles' play was written in that tongue after all. However, I have only heard one piece of classical music in ancient Greek. It is a choral piece by Nikolopoulos based on the first seven lines of the Iliad. It's very nice: go to http://www.princeton.edu/~clip/ and select the third item under Homer to listen. How Much of a Foreign Language Did Opera Teach You? I don't think you can learn a language just from listening to opera. I say: Learn a language to enjoy the opera, not vice versa. Really learning a language is a lot of work: Dull repetitions of vocabulary, wearisome studies of word order, boring exercises on verb inflections etc. It takes years to become fluent in another language. I know because I have worked hard to learn French. I wanted to be able to do more than to throw in a quote like: "Carmen, sois gentille au moins réponds-nous!" (I have actually known a few non-operatic Carmens with whom I have spoken French). Despite my years of study, any French person will spot me as a foreigner the moment I open my mouth. I guess learning a language can be compared to singing: It takes years. But I do enjoy my Carmens much more from knowing French. Mark Twain and Wagner Listening to a lot of Wagner these days, I came to think of Mark Twain who is famous for saying: 'Wagner's music is better than it sounds'. I guess he said it tongue in cheek, but what was his stance on opera in general and on Wagner in particular? Did he ever attend an opera? Fasten your Seatbelts I am just home from my 2nd Götterdämmerung: Here are a few thoughts. I had a ticket for standing room today but was given the opportunity to sit. Which was nice considering the length of the opera. The standing room is on the 3rd balcony and so was my seat. The balconies have a horse shoe shape, and I sat on the edge of it, high above the pit. From this position I could easily overhear the orchestra and appreciate its sound. It was large, overwhelming, almost physical. Especially the timpani and the brass section. Wow! Sometimes, going to the opera, I wonder: Why don't they turn on the 'Fasten your seatbelts' from time to time? ;-) Stig Andersen hadn't fully recovered from his flu and his wife, who was to sing tonight's Brünnhilde, had been taken ill. So we only got 90 % from an important singer, but at least his voice is the more beautiful when compared to Franz' IMO. I definitely prefer Andersen's Siegfried, but the audience didn't seem as enthusiastic as on Sunday, the premiere. Perhaps people think that Franz brings international stardom to Copenhagen (a city far from the operatic centres of the world)? Iréne Theorin was the Brünnhilde, standing in for the indisposed Tina Kiberg whose debut in the role is now postponed. So now I have an excuse for attending yet another performance of this opera... :-) I particularly enjoyed Hagen tonight, especially in the first act. Peter Klaveness, a Norwegian engineer turned opera singer (sic!), is excellent, excellent as meanness itself. He looks like a bad guy from a Bond movie or a Nazi general or something. Good breath control and vocal stamina to go with it. The "Hier sitz' ich zur Wacht, wahre den Hof" was very sinister. Über Götterdämmerung hab' ich euch was zu künden I am sure you will enjoy Copen-HAGEN. The Copenhagen Hagen, Peter Klaveness is quite good, but let me expand my comments a bit here. The Ring project was commenced in 2003 with Walküre. Rheingold followed, and Siegfried was next, and now Götterdämmerung is up for grabs. Now: I think there are many really good, albeit not internationally known singers in the cast. There are, of course, Johnson as Wotan, Andersen as Siegfried, Theorin as Brünnhilde, and they are very good IMO, but you may also marvel at 'lesser' singers such as Byriel singing the Alberich and Morgny singing the Mime. The cast is worth hearing, sure. The production is modern with traditional touches, I'd say. Siegfried carries a sword, the valkyries have wings etc. On the other hand, one must accept that cell phones and sports cars are also part of the game. I can reveal that Fafner is not a dragon here... There are also some departures from the dramatic action as conceived by Wagner but I guess that is what 'interpretation' is all about. But do not fear: This is not Euro trash (as I understand the term). I do, however, think the stage director wants to do too many things at the same time in the final scene of Götterdämmerung but the very last image employed is very, very moving indeed. A great surprise is in store for you, you will see. There are tons of minute details to watch: The stage direction is very detailed. After hearing and seeing Siegfried many times, I continually found new little touches to the direction. This may be good, it may be bad: The acting makes the drama come alive, but it may also lead the attention away from die heil'gen Musik... You'll get to see the operas in the new house. I am quite impressed with the stage machinery. In the old house there were creaks and noises and pauses between scenes for changes of decorations etc. There's very little of that now and the Ring operas make full use of the technical advantages now open. This has definitely enhanced the quality of the productions. And to see the opera house in itself and enjoy the public areas with their view of the harbour and the royal palace are nice too. Speaking of the house, the sight lines are generally good though I haven't tested all positions... The acoustics are also ok, but some seats are better than others in that regard. I hope this helps. Do contact me if you want more information. PS Only 70 per cent of The Copenhagen Ring is sold until now, a Danish daily reported today. But this does not make the alarm bells ring with the management... They rely on international customers, they said. This is the first Royal Opera Ring in almost a century and then people stay away. Perhaps they had their share during the past few years, perhaps they just don't want to pay. It is, unfortunately, a rather expensive Ring: Despite this being a nice state subsidized European opera house. Ich hab' den Franz gehört... Yesterday I asked for opinions on Christian Franz who replaced Stig Andersen as the Siegfried today in Götterdämmerung here in Copenhagen. I received a few replies (thank you!): Some listers meant he'd be an improvement, others were mainly negative. So I approached the house a little nervously today, wondering what the performance would bring. It was a very mixed experience, but I must say, that I tend to agree with the criticism. First off, Franz' is not a big voice: At times he had a hard time cutting through the sea of sound swelling from the pit. Schønwandt, the conductor, knows how to turn up the volume. In my ears Franz' was a more, shall we say, 'lyric' interpretation of the role. He did ok in some spots, I suppose. However, I didn't like the general drift of his performance: For example the way he handled the part where he tells the men about his experiences in the forest with the bird and all. No, his voice lacked real beauty, IMO: It didn't have a 'ring' to it but was kind of 'flat'. He was, as I said, a replacement for Andersen, but he seemed secure enough in the role: He might have sung it elsewhere recently or in any event had enough time to rehearse it. Also, he seemed confident enough, acting the part. I didn't, however, like his act so much. When he was walking around the stage, you had the impression someone kept pushing his back. Staggering in this way, he kept having a stupid, but cheerful expression on his face: Well, I am not that familiar with this opera yet, but somehow this just did not seem appropriate. There were, fortunately, lots of other joys to behold and hear tonight, so I still had an excellent experience. Oddly, though, everyone else in the house cheered like mad when Franz took his applause at the end of the opera, so opinions really do differ! How often have you found yourself disagreeing with a whole house??? The applause tonight was the most overwhelming I have heard in years...! (The Brünnhilde took the most applause, though). And I've never experienced standing ovations at the Royal Opera... Anyhow, I am happy I am not leaving Götterdämmerung there: I shall hear it again on Wednesday, and I do look forward to it, indeed! More thoughts on Götterdämmerung, Wagner, the Copenhagen Ring, love, power, great opera etc. later. Christian Franz I just learned that Christian Franz will sing the Siegfried in the Götterdämmerung I'm attending tomorrow (Sunday) instead of Stig Andersen. Does anybody know about Christian Franz? Anyone heard this tenor? Opinions welcome. Re: Do you have a favorite unknown moment in Wagner? Siegfried is one of my favourite Wagner operas, too. One moment among many others may be where Mime goes: "Öffne die Ohren und vernimm genau: Höre, was Mime meint!" I can't help smiling to myself when I hear the way "was Mime meint" is sung, oftentimes through the teeth. Just before the end of Act II of Siegfried, there's a beautiful moment that never fails to move me, just when Siegfried says "unter der Linde". Benjamin / Montreal
Catching it on Video At today's Siegfried I saw a young girl with a video cam. Oh, she's going to record the performance, I thought. When I looked at her 10 minutes into the performance, she'd turned her camera off, apparently just catching snippets so that she'd be able to show family and friends that she'd been there. 30 or 40 minutes later — it was before the forging of Notung I remember — she left. Her loss. Staatsoper in Berlin Does anybody know when Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin unveils its repertoire for the upcoming season? I've been searching their home page in vain for a long time. Happy Birthday, H.C. Andersen! Today, 2 April 2005, is H.C. Andersen's 200th birthday. What was his relation to opera, really? He was a passionate theatre goer, and must have heard many operas in his day. Furthermore, I know he wrote at least one libretto (for Liden Kirsten: i.e. Little Kirsten, music by J.P.E. Hartmann). And thirdly, much music has been inspired by H.C. Andersen's work. What are your thoughts on H.C. Andersen and opera? Happy birthday, H.C. Andersen! Recording Internet Radio In light of the recent thread on iPods, I have another technical question. How does one go about recording internet radio broadcasts? What software would you recommend? I'd prefer that it be free of charge and compatible in one way or another with iTunes as that is my standard software for playing audio files on my PC. Private replies are fine. Many thanks. Ring Pricing The Copenhagen Ring is launched in its entirety in the spring 2006 and will cost app. 830, 665, 535, or 350 dollars in subscription. A 10% discount is given to subscribers; the actual prices are, therefore, somewhat higher. A limited number of standing room tickets will become available. The operas are, however, also run throughout the season, but with several months in between, thus not allowing you the "total" experience of all four operas in a row. On these nights the tickets are only half of the above-mentioned prices. The details on casting can be seen below (note: Domingo will only sing a single Siegmund here and not as part of the cycles). The Copenhagen Ring is my first Ring, and Der Ring des Nibelungen is slowly but surely getting hold of me ... :-) However, I am not sure I have even 350 dollars to spend, not in addition to my other expensive subscriptions (I consider the standing room for the cycles). So, I thought I'd get some international perspectives on this... opera-l, of course. — Do you believe it is much, much more expensive to run the operas in cycles instead of running them separately? — What are your experiences with pricing on Ring Cycles? — How much are you willing to fork out for a Ring Cycle and what do you consider important when attending a Ring? — Would any of you... consider going to Copenhagen? Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated. DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN IN COPENHAGEN 2006 Conductor: Michael Schønwandt DAS RHEINGOLD DIE WALKÜRE SIEGFRIED GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG SPRING 2006 Re: What is iPod Sound Quality? Click on "edit' and the click on "burning" and you will find a window that allows you to select the number of seconds between "songs". One of the options is "none". I have never tried to put an opera onto my iPod so I am not sure if this creates or averts the click sound that Jay refers to, but it certainly eliminates the pauses. Mark S. I have tons of opera on my iPod and I turn all the tracks from each act of an opera into a "song". This provides for a smooth listening experience. Using my iPod for opera, I have not felt any annoyance in this regard. Many of the features of the iPod are, unfortunately, not aimed at the classical music experience but at pop music: Its party mix, star ratings etc. Furthermore, I am not very fond of its display of information. It is not necessarily easy to organize three different Parsifals on an iPod... That said, I find the convenience of a portable music player with a large amount of hard disk space (using a standard compression a 40 Gb player can store almost 700 hours of music) quite amazing. I think the sound quality of the iPod is quite good: Even with the standard head phones and a 128 kbp/s compression. But I reckon this is a rather personal experience: For my part I have a hard time disregarding poor sound quality in historical recordings, say from the 40s. Inaugurating Opera Houses Posting my query about upcoming Rings, I learned that the Canadian Opera Company will open its new opera house with a couple of Ring Cycles... That made me wonder how to go about such a thing, inaugurating an opera house, I mean. Because, as it happens, a new opera house will also open here in Copenhagen. The opening ceremony is not far away: 15 January 2005 will be an occasion for honoratiores, probably not open for everybody to enjoy in loco. But the real opening will be a series of Aidas. It will be a new production by Mikael Melbye, and Roberto Alagna will sing the role of Radames on the first two nights. That's more or less it...! I must admit being somewhat disappointed. "What other way is there to open an opera house?", the marketeers ask rhetorically on the web site. Personally I could imagine other ways: — Not to recycle an opera that has already opened an opera house — To feature more than one super star — And to do so for more than only two nights... The new house did cost app. 500,000,000 dollars to build after all (donated by a rich ship owner, a local Vilar, and thus at no extra cost for the opera company: The government has actually risen its funding considerably). Why not spend just a little more on the opening shows to celebrate the fulfilment of such a huge investment? Having said this, I do not, I must admit, have any historical perspectives on this. I do not know how comparable houses were inaugurated, but perhaps some knowledgeable persons out there in listerland could enlighten me? PS This season the opera company features 13 productions out of which 5 are new and one is a world premiere; The new house holds app. 1,400 spectators. OOO Rings OOO Some listers have recently talked about Der Ring des Nibelungen and upcoming performances in Seattle (August 2005) and in Chicago (April 2005). There's one under way in Copenhagen, too, in the summer of 2006. Do listers know of any other productions in their making? It would be interesting to know — and if time and money allow — to go! I wish, by the way, I could've gone to see the Ring of the Met, but as I understand it, their old production has been taken down. PC Music Players and Labelling Music Since I got a PC with a larger HD capacity a year ago, I've been digitalizing my music (:operas...). There are, IMO, so many advantages in having digital access to one's collection... But. Playing a CD in Windows Media Player, for instance, the player connects to a database and recognizes the CD. This could be great, but the labels and other information given seem arbitrary at best. To give an example: I have a Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Leinsdorff live at the Met in 1943. Digitalizing it, CD 1 got one title, CD 2 another, CD 3 a third. Under artists WMP labelled them "Melchior", "Leinsdorff" and "Various Artists" respectively. And the tracks? Some get first lines as titles, others just the opera name, yet others just "Track X". This is so confusing if one is keeping a large music discotheque on PC. I have tried to change the settings of the WMP, which helps a bit — especially if I'm offline, so that WMP cannot access the database. But for the CDs I have already digitalized, I am stuck with these stupid labels. I have tried changing them under "Properties" but it does not really help. If these things were done in a consistent manner, by librarians for instance, they could be of great value, I think, but the way it is, it leaves your digital music library a mess. I have, by the way, a feeling that WMP and the like are aimed at pop music markets: How about rating all your arias with one to five stars... or playing files from the "party folder" of iTunes, like Parsifal Act II and La ci darem' la mano and a Rossini overture? ;-) Ave, Caesar! I am doing some research on Gaius Julius Caesar and thought it would be fun to include some references to operas featuring this notable personality in my essay. Therefore I consult the wisdom of the List. Thanks in advance! Rheingold Ravings and Educational Excellence I have now experienced the second part of the saga here in Copenhagen, and it is indeed great stuff. Whoa! The saga in case is Der Ring des Nibelungen, of course (not to be confused with the Lord of the Rings, note the plural, which has caused great mirth in my family: We're, like, on to completely different rings!), and the composer is Richard Wagner, of course. The second part is Das Rheingold here: I suppose they will put the operas in the right order, when the cycle finally stands complete in 2006 in Copenhagen's by then brand new opera house, which will be inaugurated later this year or in early 2005. I can't wait — perhaps I will "defect" and go to New York, London, Toronto, Seattle, or somewhere else before then... It was no star-studded cast, but the locals are doing quite well, and the team does have names that may ring a bell with listers out there: Stephen Milling was Fasolt and Poul Elming sang Loge's part. These were, I think, great, and I heard them last year in Die Walküre as Hunding and Siegmund, respectively. The stage design was not traditional but devised on some concept I am not sure I possess the intellectualism required to figure out. The Rhine Maidens were dressed up in 20s style robes and skipped about an empty swimming pool, where a drunk Alberich tried to get intimate with them. The mountain top had become a camping site with tents and all, and the dwarf's submarine regime had been translated into a Frankenstein style lab with strange contraptions and the works. The final scene opened in a kind of torture chamber and as the opera came to a close, the divine family was elevated through the roof on a red bridge against a back drop depicting a sky scraper. Updating operas has always been a controversial issue. I do not want to quarrel with the idea itself: I just do not understand the point of this particular one, to be honest. I reckon such updating is done in the name of the audience but very often, I find, they work in an implied dialogue with their "ancestors". Now, the thing is that Copenhagen has not seen a Ring since 1912. Of course, people go abroad and see it there and naturally, one listens to records and knows the work that way. But there'll most probably also be many first-timers in the audience (such as myself) and supposing that they cannot understand a tale about dwarfs, giants, gods and the like is... an insult, I think. I don't see why these disparate tableaux communicate better with a modern audience than traditionalism does... but there I go. On the other hand: Who am I to voice anything but an opinion? And one cannot demand that a traditional version is always done before experiments come our way. But speaking of experimenting, I had very much the opportunity to go through this work in less traditional ways thanks to a friendly co-lister in NYC. He sent me the "Ring Disc" six or eight months ago and I did not find out what it did contain till recently, as I did not have the computer power needed to run the programme. If you don't know this disc, and if you're not that familiar with the Ring, this is indeed great stuff! The whole cycle is on the disc which is in itself unbelievable. But there's more to it. Once the disc is in the drive, the software runs, and an intro is played. Then you get to the screen you will behold whilst going through the operas. It consists of three parts: A part for the libretto, a part for the score and a part for various comments. These three windows all scroll as the music is played, and thus you can at any time see which words are sung, and to what notes, and how it should or could be understood. You can toggle the view between viewing all three parts at once or any combination of them. In general this should be a splendid idea for exploring operatic works but it is particularly well suited for a composer such as Wagner, I think, because his musical idiom is so complex — and hard to understand (which is perhaps why you either love Wagner or loathe him: Tertium non datur). It is much easier to understand the sung words when you see them printed at the same time, and you can even follow an English translation. If a new character is introduced into the action, the name is underlined and clickable for you to explore (quite useful in Wagner, one must say). Further the comments announce the leitmotifs, as they appear, and they are also available for replay and further investigation. Great. Oh, how did the Joy Motif sound? Play it again! You can't see the stage action, however, but apart from that I find this CD absolutely fabulous! The possibilities are legion, and the educational value is excellent. Such eduware must surely exist for other operas as well? At any rate I find it a great advantage to have this enlightening tool at hand in my further forays into the Wagnerian universe. I said he was hard to understand before, and I will freely admit that I had to listen to Der Fliegende Holländer 20-30 times, roundabout, before becoming infatuated with the work. And he wrote, like, ten operas? The longevity of the project of listening to Wagner (a life time, I assume), the pealing of layer after layer of delicious music, the infinity of meaning and beauty to be drawn from the great composer's art are substantial to opera listening to me. So despite the fact that I didn't recognize all the motifs this time, I had a happy night in the theatre. I have the disc to listen to (as well as my Böhm and Toscanini LPs), and Siegfried is on the play bill in the next season. BOUM BOUM! I'd more or less decided I wasn't up to writing a review when I headed off for the opera house last night for a presentation of Rigoletto here in Copenhagen. All went along quite well: I wasn't delighted with having to listen in on the conductor's breathing and even humming the "tunes", I didn't agree with all his choices in tempo, I was fairly delighted with the Gilda, the duke was a mess (nice voice, but no enunciation or clarity of diction whatsoever), there were very strange matters of movement from the characters and IMO the director should rethink his design, the scenography was beautiful if quite traditional, the person performing the role of the woman being seduced whilst Gilda peeps through the door was stunning etc. etc. I didn't plan on reporting all that, but then came Act IV and as is well known a thunderstorm rises. I'd almost Laughed Out Loud as I realized that there was more than the music conveying this information: yes, BOUM BOUM, theatrical thunder — and flashes of lightning. Someone on the list mentioned this scene as an example of how Verdi can create great scenes of nature — and I thought how right the lister was whose name I've unfortunately forgotten. Apparently they didn't think so at the Royal Theatre: Oh, poor old Guiseppe, let's help'im create something worthwhile, something the audience'll remember! I guess I will. Copenhagen: Die Zauberflöte Constanze was allegedly impressed by and proud of the Royal Orchestra in Copenhagen when it played Wolfang's music. That was back in the early 19th century when she had married Nissen after Wolfie, as she calls him in Forman's movie, had passed away. I am, however, not so sure she would have been delighted or as delighted as the locals were today anyway, had she been alive in our times. For Die Zauberflöte as played here as the seasonal opener was no sheer pleasure ride (Yes, the season is up and running now in Copenhagen which is *early*, I know). It had its charms and its less charming aspects. But first the facts: Die Zauberflöte. Copenhagen Royal Opera Tamino: Michael Kristiansen The stage design and the costumes were beautiful: Not opulent and intruding but delicately balanced between underlining the atmosphere and having interest and value on their own. The stage building was elegant and simple and held in a noble blue throughout and was not changed, which did much to eliminate any difficulties which could have arisen due to the many scene changes of the opera, particularly in act II. But here simplicity was sought and a few backdrops and a changing of the lighting did much to suggest a different atmosphere or location or both. A huge golden eye dropping from the stage ceiling or torches burning with real fire went along nicely with the midnight blue of the production design. Further, little lamps or lights dropping during the entrance aria of the Queen of the Night had a great effect, except that the light shed could have been a cooler shade in accordance with the Queen's character. But of course this design *must* have been inspired by a very famous production where stars equally radiate from the Queen's position. I wish I could remember but the name eludes me for the time being. Anyway, Mikael Melbye had done a really good job in this Zauberflöte, methinks, except that a few scenes were scarred by some stupid computer graphics that didn't correspond with the general aesthetics of the production at all (Melbye, by the way, sings as well: He is the Papageno on the Zauberflöte under Davis, issued on Phillips). If much can be said to Melbye's credit, I must admit that I wasn't pleased with McCreesh. Wow, did he go fast! Sometimes I fancied he had a whip in his hand instead of a baton: He seemed to *rush* through. I haven't got a programme or anything so I can't tell you who he is — maybe someone out there knows. I really do dislike slow tempi as well: that can be just as bothersome but of course it all depends on the particular opera and the singers engaged in its performance. But I didn't think the swiftness of operations were any good in this case. The performance ran for round about 3 hrs, a 28 minute break included. Now, I know that there's dialogue in between, of course, and that it may be hard to judge McCreesh's tempi by this information, but I have a feeling it was quite fast nonetheless. On the disc I just mentioned which does not contain the dialogue there is app. 2 hrs and 10 minutes worth of music. There was a certain freshness to it, of course, but the general effect of this rush was that the basic theatricality was ruined. I cannot remember the exact context now but there's a certain passage where Tamino is engaged in thought and where he sings "Ich glaub' es kaum". The thoughtfulness or severity of the passage was totally lost. Likewise there's a scene where Papageno is about to take leave with this world and where he, however, gives Life another chance, counting to three before opting for the final decision. But that went by as a tornado! Wrooom, and McCreesh hurried on to the next item on the agenda. Irritating! The social banter of Papageno or the emotional sufferings of Tamino were lost as if they were told: Get on with, come on, don't wait... all the time. Oh, yes, speaking of dialogue: The dialogue was in Danish and it worked quite well. The Rossini Barbiere I attended earlier this year which was also in Danish was absolutely horrible, but here it worked a lot better: perhaps because of the spoken bits between the musical bits. And, it is very much in line with the fact that the opera (or more precisely: Singspiel) was originally written in German and not in Italian (I'd be curious to know if it is the general experience of listers to attend Zauberflöte's in their own language). However, McCreesh's hurry did much to impede the general understanding: a lot of the lines were, I am sorry to report, rendered quite unintelligible. This situation was not improved either, by the fact that a lot of the singers were not native speakers of Danish. So, despite good intentions this aspect of the performance was not utterly successful though the meaning did come through, of course, but that may also be due to the fact that one does know this opera so well. The Tamino, Kristensen, has a lovely warm, wooden voice with a richness of tone to it that I like a lot. I have heard him in other operas as well, as Narraboth for example, and he consistently delivers. His voice is delicious and his delivery accurate but at times I find his act a little dull to behold. This was also the case here where he went through the whole show with more or less the same stern face. The Papageno was, on the other hand, a brilliant, yes, an excellent actor. Reuter does indeed possess the required stage presence so that one feels in contact with him. Zauberflöte is not my favourite opera and Papageno is not my favourite character but Reuter did get a lot out of it and had great timing of the comic parts. His voice is more ordinary... The Queen of the Night was a great disappointment. I caught myself despairing, shaking my head in disbelief: such lack of agility, such flatness. No beautiful colours, no richness of voice — and during those difficult arias, did I hear her straining? And then she's hailed like a queen (haha) and her act becomes a real show stopper! I don't know if this is common: How often have you attended opera disagreeing vehemently with fellow audience members? I am no professional critic but I was astounded to realize that the Queen of the Night and McCreesh took the greatest part of the applause at the end. If the Queen of the Night was a disappointment, I don't know if I have words for the three boys. I know it must be most difficult with operas involving children for how can one expect professionalism from 8 or 10 or 12 year olds? You may find the most gifted children with lovely voices: But the pressure? The stage business? Night after night? I heard a Queen of Spades which involves children as well, I think, and it was a Pain. I am sure it must have been nice for the parents of those three boys to see their offspring on stage but to all the others? It was awful and one audience member did have the audacity to shout a discreet BOO — and rightly so. We paid good money to see this and it just was not up to any decent standard. So, it was a very mixed experience: a speedy conductor with great singers and mediocre actors and vice versa, good production designs and stupid computer graphics at odds with them, high jinks mixed with solemnity as Mozart liked it, and a unimpressive Queen and a horrendous boy group. You can't always get what you want... and I didn't. But I'd only paid 50% of the price for my ticket as I got a ticket after 5 p.m. for the 8 p.m. performance and they go at reduced prices. At that price it wasn't too bad. [No title] Yes it was: A young tenor from Malta. The production is up again in the season just about to begin and will be featuring Niels Jørgen Riis as the duke instead. I hope I shall be able to report to you on that soon. George Topinges wrote: Dear List, Countertenors on Records I am eagerly waiting for the season to open with performances of Rigoletto and Die Zauberflöte in mid-August here in Copenhagen. Meanwhile I am listening to records. I have just acquired Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with Andreas Scholl and Barbara Bonney. I have been hooked on the record for long but now I have finally got my own copy. It is a great record in my opinion. I am infatuated with these singers and their style, the brilliance of their voices, the elegant conducting etc. But I won't ravel in that but would like to ask: Can anyone recommend *operatic* recordings with countertenors? I do not really know if this is an immense field and if I should specify any preferences but the fact is that I am open to almost anything so please just tell me what recordings *you* have liked. I hope I shall be hearing from lots of you, privately or publically as you prefer. Summertime, and the Living's Easy...? The opera season is over, and we're entering this operatic interregnum called... summer. Or? Is the true opera fan having a rest from his or her favourite pastime or have alternate plans been made? Are you in the doldrums or are you planning on, say, reading a bunch of Callas biographies, going to Salzburg or Savolinna or are you, perhaps, devoted to listening your way through Rossini's operatic output in its entirety? Personally, this summer I plan on cycling my way through the Ring as much as my stamina allows as well as surfing the net, exploring repertoires around the world. What are you doing opera-wise out there in Opera-L-and? Posts to this thread might reveal what will make up our discussion material this summer... Help Needed: Peculiar Ticket Situation in Aarhus In August this year there will be a few performances of La Bohème in Aarhus, Denmark, with Alagna, Gheorghiu, Skovhus and a few locals. I know that my father would like to go: I heard a splendid Anna Bolena with Gruberova in Munich less than a week ago, and on this occasion dad rambled a bit about how fantastic it would be to hear the abovementioned stars at home. Therefore: I'd like to give my parents a pair of tickets — the only problem is that the performances are sold out! However, there are tickets left — for foreigners only. That's where the list comes in: Would anyone here — with an address outside Denmark — be able to help me out? It should be relatively simple: I'll pay any expenses connected with this, of course, I just need someone abroad to cover my nationality so to say :^) I look forward to hearing from someone out there. (Staged) Opera in Denmark 2003-2004 Well. It isn't all misery: I've indulged in lots of joyful opera listening since that horrendous Barbiere... The programmes around these parts have finally all been published, so here's a short presentation for you of what makes me drool with anticipation (Stay happy until you have reason for doing otherwise, right?) Anyway, I thought I'd let you in on the attractions here in the upcoming season. The Royal Opera starts out with a Zauberflöte and a Rigoletto, conducted by McCreesh and Badea, respectively. Both productions are by Melbye. These are followed by The Handmaid's Tale (by Ruders), which has had its English premiere at the ENO and will have its American premiere later on (not sure exactly where). I heard that it hasn't got raving reviews in London, but that's just what I heard. I read a letter to the editor in a newspaper here, written by Ruders himself (!) He was angry with a Danish reviewer who trashed the work as such now on the occasion of its English premiere but praised it highly when it premiered here in the very same production design (allegedly, this reviewer went up to Ruders after the WP and exclaimed: YOU GIVE US GIFTS! YOU GIVE US GIFTS!). I didn't see it when it premiered here in Copenhagen, so I have no idea what to expect. For those interested, I can disclose that a new opera by composer Ruders and librettist Bentley will see its world premiere in Copenhagen in 2005 in the new house. Allegedly, it's based on Kafka's "Der Prozess". An old and much beloved production of Tosca comes next, and after that one of the season's four premieres, Il trovatore. Not the work I'd most wanted to see in a new production. It'll most probably be quite traditional, signed by Melbye. Le nozze di Figaro is on the cartellone from November onwards, and in December... The Ring, part II, er, part I, that is, or rather the "Vorabend". The Copenhagen Ring Project oddly started with Die Walküre this year, as I reported earlier. Anyway, Das Rheingold will be the second new production by the Royal Danish Opera. Holten directs. Then there's Britten's Peter Grimes, starring Stig Fogh Andersen and Tina Kiberg (They are married in real life: I've heard them in Tristan und Isolde, BTW). This will be one of the season's highlights to me, I'm sure: Steuart Bedford conducts, David Radok directs. Radok also directed Il viaggio a Reims in a very successful production shared with the Opera in Gothenburg, Sweden, and it reappears this season. It was quite astonishing, but this is not the work I simply must see twice. A new work will see the light of day on 3/15/2004: Under himlen (Under the Skies) by Bent Sørensen. And the fourth new production will be Mozart's La clemenza di Tito which hasn't been heard in Copenhagen since 1860. Lars Ulrik Mortensen conducts, David McVicar directs. The season is rounded off by Die Meistersinger in Nürnberg: conducted by Dietfried Bernet, in a production by Francesca Zambello. The touring opera company, Den Jyske Opera, will bring productions of Eugen Onegin and Les aventures d'Hoffmann round the country, whereas Den Fynske Opera will stage Don Giovanni, Orfeo ed Euridice and Testamentet (a new work by Ørum). Finally, the Tivoli Gardens of Copenhagen will bring a concert version of I puritani, and the The Danish Radio Sinfonietta will perform Il re pastore under Adam Fischer. The Stinker Every season has one, I'd say. A stinker. A really bad one: A failure. I encourage listers to think over their seasonal programmes: Isn't there something that really sticks out? What will you remember from the season 2002-2003 as a terrible operatic experience? I'll remember Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia as performed here in Copenhagen as a really bad trip, I'm sure. It was conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen who's a brilliant conductor and directed by Kasper Holten as an updated version of an old production, dating from 1968 if I'm not mistaken (originally designed by Holger Boland). The cast was as follows: Conte Almaviva: Rickard Söderberg What made it so bad? First of all, the tenor was a mess. He didn't have any brilliancy of tone nor no way near the vocal stamina required for the coloraturas of the part. Most of the time he was totally incomprehensible, if he could be heard at all. The Rosina was sort of nice, except that I like Semmingsen in a repertoire from the hundred years before Rossini's barber: Haydn and Handel and that gang. Anyway, I really look forward to hearing her in La clemenza di Tito next year. The Figaro gave the best vocal performance, whilst the rest of the cast was more or less anonymous. Second, the performance was sung in Danish. I know that there are good reasons for performing operatic comedy in the language of the audience, but still... It was AWFUL. The text didn't suffer much semantically or poetically in the transition, I guess, but it was often sheer cacaphony to lend an ear to. Oftentimes I find it strenuous to listen to such translations: Try Carl Nielsen's Maskarade and you'll see what I mean. This was composed to a Danish text and works well, but Danish is no perfect opera language. Where's the mellifluous Italian I'm used to? And when the fact that the diction of the Almaviva and to some extent that of the Rosina left a lot to be desired is considered, the benefits of the translation were lost... The concept of the production meant that the actors had to move about a lot and that various items were to be dropped and moved (there was even a tub animal squeaking as Rosina sings "Una voce poco fa" in her bath). This produced a lot of (irrelevant) noise (Add to that a very noisy audience and a blind woman having explained the stage action to her by her husband (Just behind me: I politely requested silence but didn't get much)). The orchestra played really well under Mortensen and if it hadn't been for that, I'd seriously have considered leaving the building... Third, the concept was the stupidest I've ever seen on the operatic stage. It started out as a joke, I guess, which was sort of OK, but as it wore on, it became UNBEARABLE. How do you get on somebody's nerves? Keep telling the same joke over and over and you'll end up being a NUISANCE. What did Holten do? He said to himself, I gather: Well, we want to mount Il barbiere di Siviglia again, it's such a lovely piece. It's been on here more than 600 times, so how do we get to doing something new and radical? And so it happens that the old, ugly, worn out, traditional production from 1968 is taken out again — and "updated". I don't care much for either the original, nor for Holten's updating it. When you enter the auditorium the curtain is up and you behold set pieces (from behind), ropes, spot lights, trolleys with props etc. The works. All the theatre machinery, devoid of its illusion creating power. The doors in the auditorium are closed and the performance starts. Now, the first people enter the stage, obviously clad in their casual everyday clothes. What is the point? I'd expected the conductor to appear as usual, the applause to break out and the overture to unfold. Instead, these people on the stage... Bizarre. As the invented conversation unfolds, we find out that we watch the singers preparing for this performance — only that this is part of the show. They greet each other, they even say hello to the prompter and go about with lines like: Oh, so what are we playing today? Yes, Il barbiere. How nice. Could I have a sip of your coke? Long time, no see. Etc. The conductor enters from the wings. Hello everybody, he goes. Then he seats himself behind the rehearsal piano on stage and plays a few bars tentatively from the overture. Then again, and another helps him out with a little something. All of a sudden the orchestra joins in, and the singers greet them: Hello, how do you do? The music slowly starts to flow and everybody prepares for the performance and the conductor enters the pit. OK, then. Quite inventive. Let us see the performance then, I thought. But this joke of taking out an old performance and the playing on the distance between then (1968) and now (2003) carries on. All of act I is played with half of the costumes on: jeans, pull-overs and casual clothes can be seen underneath. Wigs are deliberately placed askew on their heads, and the set pieces are not joined properly together so you can see the wings and the light there. VERFREMDUNG is sought wherever possible and I was utterly alienated. As a door is slammed, the set piece wavers from the shock displaying what it is: A set piece. Which opera goer enters a theatre, BELIEVING in what he or she sees? Nobody! We all know, that it's just theatre, but there's no point in telling us, all the time, is there? Even Brecht can't have meant that?! It was so utterly patronizing, I had to control myself. But, ah! It's FUN, isn't it? Telling this joke all the way through? Who cares if Rossini's original joke comes through? Holten didn't. But this self referentiality is taken even further. Now, as I indicated earlier, this is one of the safe bets in Copenhagen. Wanna fill a house? Put on Barbiere. The point is that the Bartolo (Paëvatalu) used to sing the Figaro. Everybody in the audience knows that. How do you make a joke out of that? He has, allegedly, sung the role more than 150 times (it is probably not true). Anyway, he knows it quite well. The joke is: he forgets he's playing Bartolo and sings the Figaro at various places during the opera, of course! One example: Knudsen is well into the largo al factotum, and when he reaches the spot where he goes "Figaro! Figaro!...", the Bartolo sings it instead. This joke is acted out in many, many combinations and causes mirth every single time. Hahaha. Very funny. NOT. Holten and his assistant have been very creative throughout, thinking out their scheme of Verfremdung plus low comedy based on an old production. So creative and inventive have they been, that they didn't mind making up situations and scenes for their scheme to work. A stupid singer contest (we're talking operatic stereotypes here: Singers ALWAYS, I repeat: ALWAYS compete with each other) is invented: I want the attention, I want it, look at me, me, me. Example: Berta enters just before her aria, commenting: "The latest Rossini research shows that this opera's all about Berta, not Figaro, Rosina and Almaviva..." Dressed as a vamp she gives a miked (sic!) performance of her aria. During this a disco ball descends and the others do a STUPID dance. The others, by the way, are always present. They are, throughout, seated at the far ends of the proscenium: Thus there's no problem hurrying "on stage" when needed. Their constant presence is very strange, indeed: It gives you a feeling that this could be a dress rehearsal. So, we're never led to believe that these are not just singers singing an opera. (We DO know that, of course, but often we don't pay so much attention to it, immersing ourselves in the story and the music). At one point where two singers start discussing how to sing a particular recitative (The singing and the music is broken off here — seriously!!!), the conductor goes from the pit and onto the stage and shouts at them, telling them to be nice to each other and that "Palle" (i.e. Mr. Knudsen) is doing OK and that he can sing it the way he likes it. Another example: During one of the arias the conductor audibly says "Good!" to the singer. Haha. Again. The frolics never end. The motto of the theatre once was: Castigat ridendo mores. Yeah, right... But no: We're JUST having fun (at the expense of Rossini's fun). The audience did have fun. I'm afraid I belonged to a tiny, tiny minority finding this concept ABSURD and IDIOTIC. What was absolutely devastating was that the music suffered. The orchestra played with precision and delicacy under Mortensen, but Holten's conceptual thinking interfered with the music, interrupting it, delivering lines in the midst of instrumental parts (voice over), making noises to disturb it etc. And the soli were from acceptable to poor. Thus, the musical pleasure gained from this experience was rather limited, the dramatic performance was idiotic and patronizing, and the visual impression was awful. I couldn't believe that I had sat in the very same seat listening to Die Walküre, just a week before. Same house? Afraid so. I wished I'd done a repeat of Walküre instead of watching three hours' worth of these Holten antics. I left the house DISGUSTED with this amount and level of FOOLISHNESS. YIKES. That was my stinker. What's yours? PS Oh, and another thing, that bothered me: several times, after singing a particular line, one of the other singers on stage would echo it in the most playground-like manner as if intending to say: nana-nanana, you sound stupid! Rossini didn't make THAT up, but perhaps he's just a retard? Report From a Budding Wagnerian: Die Walküre in Copenhagen I grab the opportunity to thank listers again for the many replies I got to my post about how to handle the first Ring experience. I've now returned from a night at the opera where I saw and heard Die Walküre. The Copenhagen Ring will be complete in 2006. For some reason they've chosen to start by Die Walküre and not Das Rheingold. I'll see the latter in December this year and Siegfried a year after that. Götterdämmerung will be on some time in 2006 — as will the whole Ring cycle. It's a bit strange going through them in that order, but I guess it'll all make perfect sense when I see all the operas on four consecutive nights. However, I might very well be tempted to going abroad and seeing the Ring before that... As I had relatively little time to prepare myself (a week or so), I primarily listened to the music and followed the text in my libretto some of the time. I read a synopsis in an opera guide and a short biography on Wagner as well as half of Shaw's "Perfect Wagnerite". I also found books by Newman, Donington and Osborne, but I didn't find time to read them beforehand. I'll have plenty of time to delve into that and much more in the months (and years...) to come, I should think. Thus, I felt reasonably well prepared — one shouldn't overintellectualize it, either. But I had a general impression of the music I could expect and the drama that would unfold. I got to know the music of the first and third acts the best, but although it was a long night, and despite the fact that I didn't "understand" all the music in (particularly) the second act, I enjoyed myself and never got bored. So, this has only whetted my appetites and I look forward to going into further detail with Wagner. Now, some remarks about the performance and production itself. As I think I've said, the director is Kasper Holten, whereas the conductor is Michael Schønwandt. The stage design neither irritated me nor pleased me: Perhaps I was too busy taking in the music to perceive the greater significance of the scenographic aspect, but its genius didn't really set me on fire. The first act was set in a suburban villa of yellow bricks (Siegmund is offered a drink (whisky?) from the decanter by the fireside). But the sword is a sword except that the tree does not really have a trunk: It's a pole. Oddly, leaves gently fall from above during Siegmund's praise of the spring. In the second act we've obviously moved inside some sort of factory: There's a large red steel bridge across the stage and Wotan sits in what looks like the steering cabin of a crane. He is dressed as a business man in an immaculate suit or like a gangster, actually, with a broad-rimmed hat and a black suit with white stripes on it. There's an ugly scar in his left eye (no pirate's patch here). And round the edges of the scene: gigantic book-shelves. The volumes on these shelves are larger than life. In the third act we're in something that looks like an observatory (or a green house with a dome on top). On the other side of it, we find, as the scene revolves, the valkyries busy doing their business: dealing with slain heroes from the battle field. Their dresses (they wear black wings, but no helmets) are red along the edges: They're obviously wading through a mess there. The final fire show was quite impressive. This last thing was not in the least due to the light: The engineers and designers had really done a great job throughout. The light changed a lot during the opera and was used very effectively in suggesting the different moods of the opera. I cannot really tell if this is an adequate interpretation or what it means, but as I said: I wasn't bothered by it. The music, the story as conveyed by the words and the gestural and mimic interaction were the main areas of interest to me. It was great to get a sense of how it all works in practice, for example to get an idea of the leitmotif. I got Hunding's for one: A fine detail is where it sounds and Sieglinde is scared before Hunding has even come home. The principals were sung by the following cast: Siegmund: Poul Elming I wasn't so pleased with the performance of the first act: I was in Bayreuth 1967 with Böhm for a week (if only via my gramophone!), so Copenhagen 2003 proved a little less pleasing. Perhaps it is not fair to compare Elming and Theorin to King and Rysanek but that's all I've got to go on (the record is from a live performance). Anyway: I think it was Elming's Siegmund which bothered me. His phrasing wasn't very beautiful and often unintelligible. His voice has a nice sound but there was a bit too much "steel" in it to my liking. The lyricisms of the song to the spring didn't come out. Hunding, on the other hand, was impressive. I think Milling sang in the Seattle Ring, so perhaps others will be able to confirm my impressions. His stage presence is very powerful: I've seen him as Phillip II and Jeronimus (in Nielsen's Maskarade) before — and his booming voice was a real thrill. His splendid act and his solid vocal performance could've made my night alone. Part of the problem may also be explained by the fact that Gamle Scene which dates from 1874 is a small theatre. It houses about 1,300 people and the auditorium is by no means large: it's perfect for Mozart and Handel but with Wagner it becomes a problem. Even with a reduced orchestra the sound is constrained, there's simply not room for it. Furthermore, I sat in one of the front rows of the stalls: if only music and music alone meant something, I think I would have preferred the gallery, but I also want to watch. Finally, I sat a bit off-centre: It was only a dozen seats to the right but even so it disturbed the balance. I had a very "brassy" Die Walküre. All said, I had a wonderful experience. I look forward to Das Rheingold in December! PS The singers came out in front of the curtain to take a bow after each act: Is that normal? My First Ring: Advice Sought I am about to embark on a journey — and experience Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for the very first time. On April 15, I'll see Die Walküre here in Copenhagen in a new production by Kasper Holten, and in the coming seasons the other parts of the tetralogy will follow. In the spring of 2006, the whole cycle will be performed a number of times. What advice can you offer a Ring first timer? I have in my possession two recordings, Furtwängler's 1950 Milan production and Böhm's 1967 Bayreuth production. I've only just started listening to the music. Do you have any reading recommendations? What parts should I pay special attention to? Any suggestions for interpretations? (The Holten production is allegedly set in the 1920s, seeing Brünnhilde as the protagonist, not Wotan). Any advice or experience you feel like sharing with me (your own first Ring?) would be most welcome! Adorno on Bourgeois Opera There are many learned listers out there, and somebody must have read Adorno's essay on bourgeois opera. I'm not sure I get it: Can somebody please explain the meaning of this essay to me? Reply in private or on the list as you like. TIA. More on Opera in Movies It's funny but opera related issues keep popping up when I watch films. Recently, I've watched Vinterberg's "It's All about Love" featuring Nemorino's "Una furtiva lagrima", and in "Pretty Woman" the protagonists go to what I now know to be the San Francisco Opera House... Yesterday I watched Leigh's "High Hopes". Leigh is known for his social realism, depicting the everyday lives of ordinary people, often from the lower social classes. In this film on the clash between so so socialists and wannabe yuppies in thatcherite England, there's a couple from the latter category who goes to the opera (to see Le Nozze di Figaro, by the way: the wife hums an aria from it afterwards). Going to the opera and forking out £150 for a show are obviously considered the thing to do if you want to belong to the upper classes. Actually, Leigh also uses the opera as a contrast to the dreary lives he depicts in his most recent release: "All or Nothing". One of the protagonists is a taxi driver and in a scene he has to take a French lady to Covent Garden and their conversation proves, of course, quite amusing... The Pretty Woman and the Wayward Woman I watched part of "Pretty Woman" the movie last night and was surprised that it carried a bit of opera: A selection from La traviata (of course). Didn't remember that. Does anyone know about this: Which opera house do they visit? Who are the singers? Was it from a real production? Etc. I wasn't really paying attention to the movie — but the opera bit got my attention :-) What is also interesting is that this operatic selection also appears towards the end of the movie where he comes to her to declare his love for her... Learning About Opera As a relative newbie to opera myself, I thought I'd have a go at this one, too. One way, and perhaps the best way, to learn about opera is to listen to it, of course, and going to the theatre. But there comes a time when knowledge is needed, too. I've read quite a few books. There's really a market for introductions to opera... I wonder why: Are opera music and opera theatre really that inaccessible? Or is it perhaps to do with opera going being associated with a certain social milieu? Pettitt, Stephen (1998): "Opera. A Crash Course". Simon & Schuster: London. This introduction does what it can to persuade its readers that opera's an interesting and powerful art form although it exists in a "miasma of social snobbery". Despite this honourable intention, it does exactly the opposite, I think, albeit it might be argued that there's an ironic twist to it. There are lots of anecdotes and funny, but irrelevant quotes: All designed to equip the newbie with material to impress. Hundreds of works are mentioned, and composers like Monteverdi, Rameau, Mozart, Weber, Auber, Verdi, Bizet, Mascagni, Britten, and Dallapiccola fly by in quick succession. A time line even picks out events from world history to correlate it with operatic history. It is as if this guide tries to do too much for the reader: Introduce an art form, its history, its works and great men, its glamorous surroundings and more... In about 150 pages, richly illustrated. Pogue, David and Scott Speck (1997): "Opera for Dummies". In a Danish translation. This guide is "dumbing down" (and the Danish translation being a poor one does not make things any better). Being informal can be a good thing to take away all the hot air, but it does not necessarily enhance the readers' understanding or appreciation of opera. When composers, singers, conductors, and others are consistently mentioned as "guys" and "gals", it becomes a bit tiring. But then again: As Pogue and Speck tell their readers: "It's gonna be a wild ride!" Like it or not. That aside, I like this book much better than the aforementioned guide. As Opera 101, this is actually not too bad. You get a reasonable historical overview and some in-depth examples. These examples are analyzed in an easily understandable manner and you check up on them on the CD that comes with the book. Osborne, Charles (1983): "How to Enjoy Opera". Piatkus: London. Osborne also comes to the defence of opera in the first part of his book: Reading these opera manuals could actually be a way of studying opera apologetics... This book is now 20 years old, but somehow it did not really succeed in whetting my appetites, had I not had it already of course :-) I think it focuses too much on plot explanation: That can be good and necessary before going to the opera, but what I like are guides which also explain the music and its relation to the drama, to some extent at least (highly technical stuff is not for me). In a Handel opera I'd like to know about the important arias, their character and distribution throughout the opera, and in a Wagner opera, I'd like to know about leitmotive and Norse mythology. Jansen, Johannes (1998): "Opera. An Illustrated Historical Overview". Translated by Marion Kleinschmidt, Barron's Educational Series: Hauppauge. Jansen's guide is less broad: It does not cover the social issue, it does not deal with plot explanation, it does not go into much musical detail. It is an opera history and an accessible one at that. The text is much more elaborate than, say, Pettitt's text, but it is not overloaded. It gives you a reasonable picture of Mozart's operatic contributions and their place in operatic history within a couple pages, for example. Pettitt mentioned even relatively obscure composers (which I find strange considered the purpose of the book but perhaps those could be used for some name dropping?), whereas Jansen only deals with major stations in operatic history and the main genres prevalent at a given period. He'd mention Monteverdi and the Camerata, Lully and the tragédie lyrique or Puccini and verismo for example and devote enough space to its description to give the reader a reasonable picture. Jansen's book is aimed at budding opera lovers who need to know more, I think. I found it a pleasant read. Re: Weighing in on Booing 1) I don't think it is fair to demand that any critic must be able to do it better than the criticised (In casu: Sing better than the performing singer). I can't sing but that does not imply that I cannot distinguish (other people's) good singing from bad singing. 2) Do you really mean that to have the courage of one's convictions one must be able to say it to the singer's face? How about the clappers then? Must they bring roses and chocolates to prove the sincerity of their reaction? :^) Of course not: And that just goes to show how fearful we are of negative criticism... 3) Further: Are we supposed to feel sorry for the singers standing in "THAT spot"? It is as if the mere fact that they've put themselves THERE means that they are free from criticism altogether. Yes, it takes courage, but singers aren't a sacred species. 4) Finally, I think you overstress the importance of "the safety of the dark"... Most spectators respond immediately, not in fear — whether their comments be positive or negative. Very few spectators "stand up" as you put it and have their opinions counted. I can only think one category: The professional critics. Lin Allgeier wrote (in part): And booing is soooooooooooo COWARDLY. It's ALWAYS done by some fool who hasn't stood in that spotlight. ...the slinky, spectator hiding out there in the dark while his target is standing in the spot. If you haven't stood in THAT spot then you are clueless on this subject.If I can't say it to their FACE, then I don't think I have some god given right to publically express my opinion in the safety of the dark. Cowards, all of you. If you have an opinion that should be counted, then STAND UP and let us count you. Huh? (Chandelier did fall!!) OK then, now that someone else started this thread... :-) James Jorden wrote: Given how often chandeliers have fallen on the audience's heads during the history of the Met, I can see now that those standees who sit in unoccupied Rear Orchestra seats are just plain asking for trouble. It does actually happen from time to time: I mean, chandeliers falling on people's heads. Back in the olden days, when there were no electric lights and real candles had to be lit before and after the performance — as well as during the intermission — the chandeliers had to be pulled up through the roof via a system of ropes. People handled those things — and accidents could happen. I know of one incident at the Royal Theatre. But more recently there was an accident in 1993 Madrid at the Teatro Real. I think it was closed though, and that it did not happen in mid-performance. And then there's the musical, The Phantom of The Opera, where the chandeliers drop to the floor at the close of Act I... Upgrading Seats + Section Names When sitting in the more mildly priced sections of the house, I often if not always feel an urge to "upgrade". In recitals and concerts it does not matter so much to me, but in opera it always irritates me to be so far removed from the stage as one is when seated up there under the roof. If I see better seats and they are free I often feel like grabbing them, but I don't know if it is permitted (perhaps that depends on the house you are in), nor do I want to make a fuss about it. So, I often end up just moving to the front row of the section I happen be seated in. I haven't been confronted by angry ushers on that account. PS The various names for the different parts of the house bewilder me: What is the difference between parterre, orchestra, and stalls? And between gallery and balcony? Are there internationally applicable terms to avoid any confusion? Around these parts, a dress circle would be called a balcony... TKTS: Rigoletto and Mahler #9 in Copenhagen Anybody near Copenhagen these coming days? I'll sell the following tickets, face value or best offer: Copenhagen, Royal Opera House 1 ticket for Verdi: Rigoletto, 1/21/2003 Orchestra, 4th row, no. 20 Face value: 554 DKK (app. 77 USD, 74 EUR) Check http://www.kgl-teater.dk/dkt2002/opera/frame.htm for details. Copenhagen, Tivoli (The Royal Orchestra in Concert)
1 ticket for Mahler: 9th Symphony (c/Gary Bertini), 1/17/2003
Balcony, 8th row, no. 59
Face value: 108 DKK (app. 15 USD, 14 EUR)
It's All about Love (and Opera) Somebody recently brought up the topic of opera (excerpts) in films in connection with "The Hours". Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, known for "The Celebration", is about to release his new film, "It's All about Love". Now, in this movie opera music is used in a scene where a skating ballerina practises for some show. I recognized it instantly as being Nemorino's "Una furtiva lagrima" from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. The *strange* thing about this rendition of the aria, though, was that it was sung by a soprano and not by the usual tenor. Quite baffling. I haven't seen the film yet but look forward to getting the context in place and to understanding the background for this choice of sound track. Give Popular Operas a Rest? I agree that some operas are so familiar and so well known and staged so often that perhaps something else — new works, rarities or just less often performed operas — would be more in order. Such a point of view is understandable on a forum of dedicated opera lovers and connoisseurs. But out there, in the real world, where business is business and even state subsidized operas have to think in terms of success or failure in order to keep going financially, the Carmens, the Figaros and the Otellos are necessities and might be just what is required... to put, say, Il Ritorno di Ulysse in Patria or Intolleranza on the cartellone. Still, I wouldn't retire any opera for good. I am only 29 and I haven't been through "the rep" yet. Suppose I couldn't go and see a Eugene Onegin or a Barbiere di Siviglia because older people had seen them a dozen times each. That would be a shame methinks: We have to think about the opera lovers of tomorrow, too, and a diet of classics is not the worst way to get started. A World Premiere — In Your Opera House? Now that we've *bridged* the troubled water, haha, I thought I'd take the topic of modern operas a bit further: World premieres... Some say that opera's dead and have we not all heard that tale about dinosaurs, museums etcetera? Yet world premieres keep popping up. A couple of years ago Ruders' The maid's tale premiered in Copenhagen and in March another work will have its premiere here. It's called i-k-o-n™ and is by John Frandsen, and all I know about it is the introduction from the brochure: "A work about status, money, and love. A satire about our times in a hyperrealistic style which strikingly resemble the reality we know. We think we recognize them from the newspaper: A business scandal is about to surface..." Such PR does not say much, of course, and I have no familiarity with Frandsen's style whatsover. Yet I am intrigued and excited about trying something new... My report and impressions will follow... Will other listers be attending new works? PS Oh yes, by the way: The most famous world premiere in Copenhagen is undoubtedly the overture to Der Freischütz which was given here on October 8, 1820. TKTS: Rigoletto and Mahler #9 in Copenhagen Any Americans touring Europe? Any European listers out there? Any Danish listers? I'll sell the following tickets: Copenhagen, Royal Opera House Check http://www.kgl-teater.dk/dkt2002/opera/frame.htm for details. Copenhagen, Tivoli (The Royal Orchestra in Concert) Strange Opera Lirica Series And a happy new year to y'all. I am just listening to a nice Act I of a 1960 Rigoletto with Scotto, Bastianini and Kraus under Gavazzeni conducting the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. It was issued on Ricordi in a certain Opera Lirica series. There's nothing except Act I: Apparently this series consists of such issues. The CD mentioned is #5; I also have half a Bohème, #3 of the series. My dad found'em for me in a shop for only a little more than a buck each. Strange, but what is there is good and fine. Does anyone else have experience with such cheap, yet high quality issues? I gather this Opera Lirica series could consist of, say, 10 CDs with parts of well-known, popular operas. An introduction to opera? Perhaps. The New Opera House in Copenhagen Some of you out there may know that the local "Vilar" here in Copenhagen has donated an opera house to the city and the country, worth approximately 1,5 billion Danish kroner (roughly 200m $). It is, unfortunately, more or less a scandal. Why? All the publicity about it is not about opera; It's about architecture and taxes. No one seems to care about music: No joy, no pleasure, no revelling in the immense possibilities this opens to the opera loving public in Copenhagen and Denmark — just sulking. It turns out that the "Vilar", aka Mr. Møller, can deduct part of the amount when paying his taxes and this has caused wild accusations of fraud and the like: All of a sudden people realize that the tax payers will have to bleed their share too. Then, it ain't no fun! But those are the rules. And further: Donors often have a say when it comes to spending the money donated. So it was settled that a firm of architects Mr. Møller accepted was to construct the building. Two issues are at stake in that matter: First the donor has asked that the front of the house was not made of glass entirely but that a more "closed" construction was sought (Møller is an aesthetic tyrant, public opinion has it). Second, now that the house takes form on the waterfront of the Copenhagen harbour, people worry themselves to death that a 14 storey tower over the stage will obstruct the view from the royal palace. Ha! So much for opera's "skyrocketing" popularity! When it comes to it, people worry about their purses and city planning. I think it's too bad: We'd never have had such a house if it weren't for the good will of donors. Despite all the pettiness, the house will open in two years' time. One can only hope that public support won't fade away. The Royal Opera will have to sell a bunch of tickets to fill both houses: The capacity will almost be the double in 2004. Oberon Operas I am doing a little research on Oberon operas, that is: Operas based on Christoph Wieland's verse epic from 1780. How many operas were written on this story and by whom? I've been able to track down a few myself, and my list does include, of course, Carl Maria von Weber's 1826 piece for London. Mozart: Mitridate. In Copenhagen I've just returned from: W.A. Mozart: Mitridate, Rè di Ponto (Opera Seria in three acts, KV 87 (74a)), libretto: Vittorio Amadeo Cigna-Santi Mathias Zachariassen (Mitridate), Henriette Bonde-Hansen (Aspasia), Maria Fontosh (Sifare), Kristina Hammarström (Farnace), Yelda Kodalli (Ismene), Andreas Post (Marzio), Sine Bundgaard (Arbate) DR RadioUnderholdningsOrkestret (The Danish Radio Sinfonietta), Adam Fischer (conductor), Richard Lewis (cembalo) I was very pleased indeed to read Mike Richter's opinions on reviews on Opera-L this last Monday, since I may be counted among those "fearsome" members on this forum who are, a bit, reluctant to post — especially reviews (therefore I often choose to "comment"...). Albeit the risk of exposing my ignorance, I choose to do it anyway... Well, first of all, I am not that sensitive and would happily stand corrected if committing an error, second I don't think it should require a Ph.D. in music appreciation to participate on this list, third I am glad to share my experiences with a wider forum (and I've noted: it sometimes helps me observe and pay attention to details if I have a post on the event in mind)... This was a concert performance of the opera, taking place in the concert hall of the Danish national broadcasting company (DR). The acoustics are quite good there and I enjoyed the performance immensely from my cheap, top tier seat at the back row. Everything could be heard, and... there was not much to see. Sometimes, at concert performances of operas, you'll see the singers putting on a little act (perhaps to get more comfortably into the psychology of the role?), but the "acting" was rather subdued here. Not that it matters, really. I'd more or less given up on the plot beforehand. As "Mozart" said in the Amadeus film: In opera seria they shit marble! Well, opera seria's a serious thing, but I enjoyed it well enough without understanding all the technicalities of this plot. I saw audience members desperately looking in their programmes to keep track of the action and the singers — even in the middle of the nicest arias and a lot of wonderful music. Honestly! Well, that is their problem: if they could just try to flick through those pages more silently! Concert performances are much different from staged operas, I think: It really focuses the attention on the music. And indeed, this opera (and a lot of other serious operas, I gather) is more or less a concert in pieces with a lot of dialogue in between. Of course, the recitatives are also musical, and there is, certainly, a dramatic aspect to the opera, but to me, the arias, the overture, the ensembles and the finale were the main attractions (which they would have been to an 18th century Italian audience, too, right?) Now, the most stunning performance (to me, of course) was Fontosh's. As the Sifare, she had a beautiful and warm and pleasant voice, powerful and round. Hammarström's was less delightful as the Farnace, able, but lacking in power and brilliance, particularly in the lower part of the register where she could be almost inaudible at times. Kodalli, a Turkish soprano, as the Ismene, certainly had those ultra high notes (and they never fail to please) but her technique wasn't flawless (I think). Finally, Bonde-Hansen as the Aspasia wasn't bad: she just didn't impress me as much as she did when she sang an Adalgisa some time ago. Thus, there were many good bits to be had from these soloists. The most disappointing part, in my opinion, was the conductor. Adam Fischer is apparently scheduled to go through a whole series of serious operas by Mozart (Next, he'll do Il re pastore in October 2003), if not all of them, but I found him, I must admit, a bit heavy-handed with this orchestra. What struck me were his dynamics, especially the way he almost violently attacked the phrases, enforcing volume and pressure, instead of letting the music flow more graciously, growing more slowly... That is not to say that the music does not catch fire, it does but it becomes dynamite, not fireworks. Well, I am no professional critic: These are just my immediate impressions. Other listers who've heard his interpretations may disagree. And listers within reach of the Mannheim Opera will be able to hear the team mentioned in this post (and verify my comments), as they'll perform Mitridate during the "Mozartwoche". It will also be issued on CD (on DR's own label, I think) in the fall of 2003. Film: Amadeus As this is such a well known film, I'll just restrict myself to a few notes: — There were quotations from the following operas IIRC: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte. No Così fan tutte... well, you can't have it all. — And then: This film is a portrait of Mozart as an opera composer more than anything else. Seen in relation to his total compositional output, the opera lovers really do get their share in this film (yippee!) — Interesting set for Die Zauberflöte. Die Königin der Nacht sings her aria with a starry sky as background: A lot of stars going out in fine lines from the centre. Inspiration from the 20th century... Now if I could only remember who designed this backdrop originally... — A bit irritating that the quotations from Die Zauberflöte (and perhaps others of the operas quoted) are sung in English and not in the original language. I don't think it would have mattered much as the words or the action in the operas quoted do not play an important part in the main story. — Further: O these quotations! Always short excerpts! It really makes you long for the real thing. — Loved Murray as Salieri. The story's a bit over the top IMO, but it's a great film nonetheless. — I'd really love to hear some of Salieri's music, too, or more music from other mid to late 18th century composers. Mozart is a great composer no doubt, but isn't just a convenient simplification that he was such a genius and that so many other composers were just mediocre? The final scene where Salieri is taken through the asylum (I absolve you, o you mediocre souls! or something to that effect) is really poignant. Alagna and Gheorghiu (was Film: Tosca) Oh, and speaking of Alagna and Gheorghiu, they are actually coming to Denmark next year (August 2003). They'll sing in a provincial production of La Bohème in two or three performances, I think. The ticket prices? About $ 210 for the best seats!!! Mamma mia, one would think that "Musikhuset" in Aarhus had become the Met in New York or The Staatsoper in Vienna for a few nights... And the performances are sold out, of course (The administration has saved a few tickets for foreigners who might be interested). Great vocal actors or not: They certainly do have that star quality... Mozart: Idomeneo. In Copenhagen. Stephen Cutler wrote: It must be something to do with Copenhagen! I saw Giulio Cesare there with Andreas Scholl earlier this year. It's theOne and only time I've seen a singer strip naked (and most singers, including this one, Mogens Boesen singing Pompey, look a lot better with their clothes on) and take a shower on stage — a real shower with real hot water in a real glass shower cubicle. And yes, he sang in the shower. I must have expressed myself badly: the Idomeneo didn't feature naked singers — nor farting clowns or imaginary characters. Those were just my ramblings about what producers would do next... But Mr Cutler is right: The Giulio Cesare had a naked Pompey singing in the shower and a naked Cleopatra singing in a Roman bath. I remember a Copenhagen production of Pikovaja Dama, i.e. The Queen of Spades. The production was by Kasper Holten. In the very last scene, scene 2 of Act III, which takes place in the casino, the guests sing a drinking song. Drinking and gambling at hand, only one thing is missing: Women. Count Tomsky is then encouraged to sing a song to the female gender... If dear girls could fly. And enter do two girls, swarming around the count, Visibly naked. They only wear very black coats which make for a stark contrast to their white breasts and thighs. The impression was not vulgar; Yet they were of course there for the entertainment of the officers and the guests at the casino. Their dark-white appearances were quite appropriate to the general aesthetics of the production. Well, then... Copenhagen and nudity, huh? Whoa! Film: Tosca I'm afraid this was the biggest disappointment of them all. This month I've seen a lot of opera films in a local cinema featuring a whole series of'em and it has in many ways been a delightful experience. Well, this Tosca from 2001, running for 120 minutes, directed by Benoît Jacquot, starring Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorgiu with Antonio Pappano at the rostrum was the last one of these opera films (I'll be seeing Amadeus in the director's cut soon and will perhaps report on that too, though it is not, strictly speaking, an opera film). With such names for a Tosca and a Cavaradossi I thought this would really be something. But I was, I must admit, somewhat disappointed. I like Gheorgiu's voice in general but the lower part of the register is not so beautiful: Assasino, voglio vederlo! And Alagna? I could imagine tenors I'd rather hear in this role. I guess the conductor was ok — but strangely enough you see him quite a bit in this film. In most of the other operatic movies I've seen, the conductor and the orchestra are not seen at all. In Syberberg's Parsifal you can catch a few glimpses of Armin Jordan from time to time, but in this Tosca Pappano almost has a role to play... In several scenes Jacquot inserts footage from the the studio where the sound recording took place. This may even happen during moments of high dramatic intensity and it certainly works if a *Verfremdungseffekt* is what is sought. It takes the air out of the balloon. Furthermore there a shots of various Roman locations, mainly during orchestral interludes. For some reason the picture quality is very low, coarse, low resolution quality. Obviously it is done on purpose. And finally the sets for the parts of the story, more traditionally dramatized. They are quite beautiful, even filmed on location, but for some reason they are lit so that only parts of them are seen. Thus, the light design effectively denotes on and off stage (I guess). And before fate deals this couple the fatal blow in the last scene, a strange sequence of images went over the screen. I think Jacquot activated all three layers or techniques mentioned above — and that scenes from earlier parts of the opera were shown again, in reverse! Or am I wrong there? Anyhow: The opera's over and Tosca's sung her last notes over Cavaradossi’s corpse. Cut. Back to the studio where we get a close-up of Angela Gheorghiu letting out a loud phew! Concert over. Singing's a tough job, no doubt, but that kinda takes away the magic, doesn't it? I haven’t found this Tosca at major American retailers like B&N, Tower and Amazon. The German Amazon (.de) has it though. It was released on DVD on 06/17/2002 from Arthaus Musik, ASIN: B000069USW. Mozart: Idomeneo. In Copenhagen There's nothing a producer won't do to get his or her share of the attention and publicity. If it requires that the production features a clown farting before the overture, naked singers or an invention of a role or two not originally in the play — so be it. I'm exaggerating the case a bit, but still. I think it was Henry Pleasants who termed this trend produceritis... I won't bore you with a long story of how an Idomeneo appeared here in Copenhagen after David Cunnigham, Bruno Schwengl, and Dieter Kaegi had dealt with it, but there was a rather pleasant side effect to their ideas for the very last bit of the opera. The lights in the auditorium were turned on, the doors were opened and the chorus entered and sang its "Scenda Amor, scenda Imeneo" whilst drinking champagne (The stage business at this point suggested actors packing up and getting ready to go home after another day's work). Turning the lights on and singing directly to the audience are not new ideas but I've never experienced singers singing in the auditorium. Thus this trick demonstrated the great acoustics in the theatre. The sound was just brilliant. It was special being so close to the singers and the acoustic effect was astonishing. PS It is interesting to note by the way, that Giambattista Varesco, Mozart's librettist used the names from the Roman mythology for the gods and not the Greek ones: Neptune instead of Poseidon, Minerva instead of Athena and perhaps a few more. Well, it is an Italian opera... However, the Copenhagen translator and editor of the supertitles changed it back. The New Operatic Superstar! On 31 Oct 2002 20:15:17 -0800, Val Suan wrote: http://www.whoohoo.net/operababy/operababy.swf Tried it out. Was astounded for a bit. Then finally realized it was the duke's aria from Rigoletto. Fun! If you want to check out this and other arias on the internet, try: www.aria-database.com You'll find MIDI-files (quite mechanical but they give you an impression of the music anyway) and lots of other information, too. Film: Madama Butterfly Or Madame Butterfly, as this is a French production. I am almost through a month of opera in the cinema which has been great indeed. One of the things that has been so, casually speaking, utterly *cool* about it, has been the chance to see productions of operas I'd never seen before. Of course Madama Butterfly is often staged but what I'm getting at is that the cinema offers an opportunity to see operas that you might never have *seen* but only *heard*. Unfortunately, this cinema didn't get around to showing, say, Delius' A village Romeo and Juliet, Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, or Gay's The Beggar's Opera — but the possibility is there... I don't expect my local opera theatre to stage these works soon but it doesn't require that much planning or money for a cinema to offer them for public enjoyment (The only real rarity on the programme was Menotti's The Medium which I didn't get around to commenting on). Anyhow, this series of opera films has been a great course in advanced opera appreciation for me. Madama Butterfly was another first for me. Someone should have told me to bring along a pack of Kleenexes. I entered the cinema hands down, not knowing what to expect except a piece by Puccini set in Japan. But I didn't listen and watch for long before my eyes started watering... I liked it a lot, but perhaps it could be said that this opera reaches its emotional climax too soon. I think you see the depths of Pinkerton's personality during the first encounter with Sharpless depicted in the opera. That was, of course, where the opera hit me, but it proves a bit difficult to sustain the dramatic intensity throughout, I think. The story is not that interesting — despite the lovely musical treacle with which Puccini serves it. The film is from 1995 and is directed by Frédéric Mitterand and runs for 134 minutes. In the cast are Ying Huang, Richard Troxell, Ning Liang and Richard Cowen. James Conlon conducts. The film is no doubt very loyal to its source. Perhaps too much so. Maybe a dash of Zeffirelli would have made it more efficient on screen? It was beautifully set in "Nagasaki", Tunisia. Didn't realize that till afterwards, though... It's amazing what can be done. Filming on location belongs to the cinema. Yet Mitterand's film is almost more theatre than film: The means of expression are often limited to gestures and facial expressions. However, the scene where the uncle curses Butterfly is strangely at odds with this general design (exotic location, theatrical means of expression). He comes flying as if he were on an invisible cloud machine (Just like in the olden days, but cloud machines weren't in use in Puccini's day...). This is a strange supernatural element in an otherwise "realistic" production. Another thing that puzzled me a bit was that Mitterand uses some authentic footage from turn of the century Japan in orchestral interludes. So, I found it interesting to try yet another opera for the first time. It was the first time that I was really blown away by Puccini's music. I didn't find the story that deep or interesting and the film didn't try to remedy this "problem". A beautiful film, but a bit (too) conventional IMVHO. This Madama Butterfly was released on video and DVD on 2/26/2002 and is available from Columbia Tristar, UPC: 43396056701. Film: Otello Morte e dannazione! Or Donnerwetter, as the Germans say. I'll post a few comments on the Otello film, too. I don't know if other listers have had the same experience with opera films, but it seems to me that times just flies by in the cinema and that, before you know it, you reach the final bars of the opera and the last images. Some of the films run for what is normal in ordinary movies (which I reckon would be about 100 minutes): E.g. La bohème (Comencini) and La traviata (Zeffirelli), but I still get this impression of time flying by. Most of them have been shown without any pauses — even a relatively long one like Carmen (Rosi), which ran for 152 minutes. I suppose that it's mostly a matter of "gestalt" or feeling, because comparing the length of the films with the length of, say, CDs there are no stunning differences. There may be cuts, but in general most of the music is there. What I am trying to say is that the cinematic experience differs very much from the theatrical experience. This Otello directed by film maker Franco Zeffirelli certainly made that clear. It is from 1986 and 123 minutes long and Placido Domingo and Katia Ricciarelli sing the Otello and the Desdemona. Zeffirelli accelerates the drama. One gets an impression that he wants to avoid to bore his audience — a film lasting more than two hours is long, after all. Not a long opera, but a long film. As a film it works very well, I think. But I regret the manipulations done to the score. Among these is a cut that is quite controversial: The willow song is left out. I think this would have been a brilliant opportunity for lyricizing, for emotional reflection, amidst all the action that Zeffirelli creates with stunning effect. But there are not only cuts — there are also additions. He uses ballet music which Verdi composed for the opera's Parisian première. This is not *that* controversial, yet this is a different Otello than the one, one is used to. Which can be refreshing — but in the end the product is substantially altered. Films open with the credits, everybody knows that. The gaffer boy, the hair stylist, the director, the actors — everybody's name shows up on the screen during the first few minutes. In these opera films there has not been any music before this introduction was well over and the drama could begin, but in this Otello we're thrown directly into the storm. So that made for an odd experience with movie goers still chatting and still getting seated while Otello's ship gets safely to shore. The storm scene is very powerful and gives us a strong impression what is to follow. As in the Traviata you can't have any doubts as to Zeffirelli's fidelity to time and place. The film is shot on location in a castle in southern Italy and in a Venetian fort on Crete. I had no problem imagining this was Cyprus in the 14th century. After the initial storm is over and Otello has arrived we are quickly hurled into the drama. Zeffirelli's camera is very agile and this works particularly well in the depiction of Iago's manipulations as he moves about and is here, there and everywhere at once. There's movement throughout, and the pace is quite dizzying: Thus during the credo, which takes place in a crypt of some sort by the way, Iago himself is at relative ease but the camera swirls around him as if he were some sort of black hole. Which he is. The close of act I is the moment of calm in the film, I think. The great scene between Otello and Desdemona ends with them on top of some large wall looking out to sea. A lion overlooks it all from a pillar. Venice rules. But from that point the drama really gains momentum. It is now some days since I saw the film and I mainly remember people running and camera angles changing — and the splendid locations. It worked really well as a film but I think the scales tipped a bit too much in favour of action. Emotional characterization has a part to play, too, in this opera. Perhaps this would work as a great introduction to people who find opera boring? Boring this film is not. It has many virtues, but as I've suggested some faults, too. Zeffirelli's Otello was released on VHS on 8/15/1991 and is available from Kultur Video, UPC: 32031118430. Sore Throats I admit that I am one of those who do repeats. I saw Billy Budd again here in Copenhagen but I shouldn't have done so. Skovhus had a cold and a replacement had urgently been found: Johannes Mannov had come to Copenhagen before scheduled. Originally he was just to sing two performances later on (They don't operate with a real B-cast: Just an extra singer in a couple of performances, perhaps due to troubles fixing schedules). Anyhow, it turned out that Mannov had a cold, too! In Act I it wasn't that much of a problem though you could hear him lacking vocal stamina and brilliance. But in Act II it became terrible: I've never heard a singer in such great trouble. He fought bravely but his voice was ragged, serated: The conductor (Marin who indulges in seas of sound: He gave it what he had at the premiere at least) kept the orchestra down to make him audible but what could be heard was really bad. It didn't ruin it all — but a Billy Budd without a good Billy? Not that much fun. The applause wasn't affected that much by it: Perhaps out of sympathy. The poor singer waved his hand belittling his performance... I felt sorry for the fellow but I just don't understand why they don't have a regular B-cast. Most probably it's too expensive — but it's risky not to have one. What are your experiences in this matter? Have you felt embarrassed on a singer's behalf? Britten: Billy Budd. In Copenhagen Well, it ain't all cinema. The first production in Denmark of Billy Budd could be seen at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen last night. The great attraction was the Billy, Danish baritone Bo Boje Skovhus singing this role for the last time in his career during this run of performances. It was a bit difficult to cut through all the hype, but he is, certainly, an able singer... Other listers may be able to comment on his Billy, too, as Skovhus has sung the role in the Paris production of last season (Mr. Cadenhead? Ms. Brite?) Edward Vere was sung by a member of the local ensemble, Ole Hedegaard, and John Claggart by Jonathan Veira. These were brilliant, I thought. Novice was sung by a beloved tenor but I did not think his voice fitted the part, though he did look it. Dansker was sung by a Dane: His English was flawed by a, mirabile dictu, Danish accent (Dansker means Dane in Danish). The enunciation was quite good, though. The soli were the best part of it. The orchestra and its conductor, Ion Marin whom I only know from a CD of Lucia di Lammermoor, were quite imprecise in handling this music. A member in the wind section unfortunately dropping a sordine or some other item in the middle of it all is a telling fact. The coordination with the chorus could also have been much better. The quick exchanges of lines and the dynamic dialogue found in this opera are examples. The set design was based on a tilted stern pointing upwards into the scene building. This Indomitable must have had a hard time and some very rough weather... Of course it's a visual metaphor for the upsetting events aboard but it did seem a bit stupid to me, and it must have been a bit tough for all the chorus members acting on such a floor. The floorboards were painted in white but for some reason the paint was not meant to cover: The painters hired by the British navy must have done a lousy job. The colours used were primarily stark white and pitch black — and some navy blue here and there. It could have worked well, I think, but the lighting design made it a pain to look at: it was as if the designer didn't realize that you could do more with a spot light than to turn it either on or off. Thus there were scenes where you almost couldn't see anything at all and others where the light was blazing and almost hurt the eyes. During the opera some black curtains and walls went up and down. What the meaning was I don't really know: There was no mist in Act II, Scene 1, but a black wall certainly did obstruct Vere's view. Perhaps that was meant to signify blackness, confusion, disorder, or blindness? They could easily have furnished something resembling real mist a bit more: When the cannon, which couldn't be seen, went off real smoke was seen. What I am saying is not that I necessarily want cannons and mist: It may well be symbolical but such dreariness and ugliness? The sets seemed amateurish and the lighting designer was not even given any credit in the programme. The costumes were alright, though, and that's why I think this was so half-hearted. The costumes looked like something from 1797: Triangular hats, silver buttoned coats and that sort of thing, and some of the props did, too. Add to that a tilted stern of a pirates' ship as they can be seen on children's playgrounds and you'll have a general idea of Wolfgang Gussmann and Willy Decker's design. They didn't even come out to take a bow after the opera was over (Never experienced that at a prima before): I didn't hear any murmurs of dissatisfaction in the audience so they may not even have been there. This is a co-production with the Oper der Stadt Köln. Anyone on the list from Cologne? There was a lot of commotion on the scene during the opera, as the singer's were instructed to move about a lot. Vere in a mix of despair and worry, Billy looked, which was silly, like a giant baby. Well, Dansker does call him Baby Budd, but is he really that naive? He looked like Nicholson from One flew over the cuckoo's nest when he's been dealt with... as he skipped about like a baby who'd just learned to walk. I find Britten's music interesting and his characterization excellent but I was rather disappointed with the opera as it was seen in Copenhagen last night. — Come along, Dansker, and sing! — Come along, Dansker, join in the fun! But the "Danskers" didn't really do that. Perhaps it's *me* who didn't know to join in the fun but we'll have to wait and see how much flogging the professional critics will submit this Billy Budd to... Film: La traviata I have really been looking forward to this one. Recently I saw La traviata on the big screen at 7.15 p.m. and Otello at 9.30 p.m. A double bonanza! Verdi meets Zeffirelli! Zeffirelli meets Verdi! Well, of course it is a bit foolish watching and listening to two operas in a row... but I felt tempted — and enjoyed it quite a lot! And I had 26 minutes in between to have a cup of coffee and jump mentally from 1853 to 1887 (or from Paris around 1850 to Cyprus in the end of the 15th century). However, I'll only be "reviewing" or commenting on La traviata for now and save Otello for some other time. I didn't believe that I had come to the right place when I first entered the cinema: There were so many people! This was a real crowd puller. The films mentioned so far haven't done the trick, but La traviata did. Even Rosi's block buster Carmen only filled half a cinema. But here: Just a few seats left. I sat next to a girl avidly eating liquorice (yikes!), and on top of that she had a cold so you'd think she was heartbroken all the way through. But at least no gregarious souls swigging Carlsberg! Anyhow, this Traviata from 1982 is, as I said, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It runs for 109 minutes. James Levine conducts and Teresa Stratas, Placido Domingo, Cornell Macneil, Allan Monk, Axell Gall, and Pina Cel have the main parts (I hope but please correct me if I'm wrong!)
Actually, Zeffirelli was not new to the opera as he had done it in 1958 with Maria Callas as the Violetta. Since that he allegedly wanted to find someone who could play with the same fervour in a cinematic production and in the end he chose Stratas. A wise choice, I'd say, since she really took it all the way home. The film opens with some panoramic shots of Paris. The camera avoids the Eiffel Tower and focuses on another piece of Paris, the Notre Dame. Even at this point one has a feeling that it's going to be traditional. And as such it's great. Setting the opera in the time and at the geographic location that it was originally given is the first trademark of traditional productions. And Paris around 1850 it is. Now, we all know the somewhat subdued music with which the opera opens, the preludio. It is as if it is a faint echo of what is to follow... Zeffirelli uses this opportunity brilliantly for a, well er, "flash forward", showing us Violetta close to her last hour, creeping around the house as a shadow of her former self. During the opening scenes you get a very strong impression of contrasts between warm and cold, blue and dark versus red and bright. These effects are obviously used to underline the difference between inside and outside. And one wants to be inside, where the festivity and gaiety takes place. Of course: An important strand in the theme of the opera is social ambition. The villa or palace found is really sumptuous. At times I got associations to Losey's Don Giovanni which really revels in the architectural surroundings. It's not as pronounced here, but there's something to the point anyhow, I think. There's no less grandeur to Violetta's parties than to the house itself. And it's really astounding what Zeffirelli accomplishes, and it is beyond the sort of illusion you can get in an opera theatre. The crowd scenes are really beautiful. The arrival of the gypsies in act III is quite something, for instance. And then there's a detail I liked quite a lot: I don't know how regular ballet scenes are in operas anymore (did your last Traviata have them?), but Zeffirelli's version had. Now, in act II we move out to the country house outside Paris. It's very beautiful, though perhaps not in keeping with the opera, that much (?). We've recently had a discussion about the garden scene (and Verdi and Nature). Despite all, Zeffirelli opts for lots of outdoor settings. It's not the grand outdoors but there's plenty of opportunity for his camera to indulge in the natural surroundings: The hills, the trees, the cage with doves (nature under control?) It's certainly idyllic. Alfredo sings "De' miei bollenti spiriti" under a tree and the camera wanders off and we see Alfredo and Violetta, happily together on a boat trip. Such inventions are common. Thus, when Germont Père (very sinister here) arrives and tells Violetta about the matrimonial plans for his son, the camera sees the opportunity to tell the story. In narrative arias this is a clever strategy for opera-film makers, I think. Creating action is somehow necessary for screen effectiveness: The word cinema derives from the Greek kinema meaning movement. Movement — movie... Zeffirelli's camera is a quite agile one. He tells the story efficiently — and makes good use of cinematic techniques in doing so. I don't hesitate to recommend it. Zeffirelli's version of La traviata was released on video and DVD on 4/13/1999 and is available from MCA Home Video. Film: Les contes d'Hoffmann Another one bites the dust! This time Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann was on in the cinema featuring opera films (Every film is only screened twice: It's a non-commercial, subsidized thing). This film is directed by Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger. It was produced in England in 1951 and runs for 127 minutes. Some of the roles are sung by Robert Rounseville, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann and Leonid Massine. Sir Thomas Beecham conducts — the orchestra of The Sadlers Well, I suppose, since the chorus from that company participates (but wasn't Sir Thomas connected with the Royal Opera?)
England 1951, Beecham... it was indeed English, and it was even sung in that language. It was a French opera, sung in English, with Swedish and Finnish subtitles in a Danish movie theatre. Babylonic! Normally, I prefer to hear operas in the original language (and preferably with little or no accent), but when it came to it, it did not matter that much here. Why was this so? Well, after Powell and Pressburger's success with dance and drama in "The Red Shoes" from 1949, they were encouraged by Beecham to try their hands at opera, and they settled for this one by Offenbach (opera or operetta, by the way?) The results are splendid, especially if you like ballet (I love it but not as much as opera). Most roles are, namely, acted by dancers. This works quite well, I think. Yet, I find it less convincing when these dancers are not instructed to mime (some of them do, more or less successfully), because the mime conveys a dramatic illusion. Opera's sung drama, n'est-ce pas? In ordinary opera, it would be an exception if you couldn't see who was singing and if you couldn't, at least some of the time, see the singer's mouth. Likewise in film: It would be strange having a soundtrack not closely connected with the images, at least most of the time. But as I said: Some do mime — and dance. This of course requires suspension of disbelief beyond the ordinary: It wouldn't be possible except on film. Les oiseaux dans la charmille... and pirouettes? Nah, I guess not. As I've already suggested, I liked it quite a lot. It was my first time with Les contes, ever, so I had nothing with which to compare. However, I could easily imagine some opera lover out there wincing at the thought of the cuts and changes Powell and Pressburger submitted it to. As a first timer, I don't know exactly how they have tampered with it (Did it ever contain spoken dialogue? I am asking because it's been termed operetta). I imagine that what "suffers" most is the drama, the basic story line so to say. It does not just tell it self if you don't catch all the words (I caught some but not enough to get the subtleties and inflexions of meaning if they were still there — or ever were). But you do get stunning tableaux of dance and play — jolly good fun, I'd say. The sets were quite imaginative, too. This film was somewhere between La bohème and Parsifal I've commented on earlier, and yet it was quite its own. The tavern and the theatre were of the more "realistic" sort whereas Hoffmann's long story naturally took part in more fantastic surroundings (in "non-rooms", with curtain walls, pillars of light etc.). Mixing the grotesque and the gracious, the three different love stories are played out in Paris, in Venice and on a Greek island. Hearing the opera for the first time, it is a bit difficult (for me) to comment on the vocal interpretations. Nonetheless, I can say that the music was most enjoyable, scoring high on the listenability scale... Powell and Pressburger's version of The Tales of Hoffmann is available on VHS, released on 9/21/2001, from Homevision, UPC: 37429055533. Mispronunciations OK, so far in dealing with this topic, we've mostly had American mispronunciations. But here comes a Danish one that is really, really bad: Wagner is oftentimes, if not always, heard as WAUW-ner or WOW-ner in Danish. TV, radio, small talk, wherever, it is always the same. Absolutely terrible, but that's the way the Danish pronunciation wants to have it. Once, when talking to a friend, I said it correctly: That was considered very snobbish. Well, there you go! And then there's Ludwig van Beethoven whose last name always becomes BeethoWen. Alas, the list is endless. Of course, as David Rosen noted, it is strange to shift entirely from one language to another, but some degree correctness should be sought, I think. That is also a matter of respect. Film: La bohème Si può? My most recent experience in the cinema was director Luigi Comencini's version of La bohème. The film is from 1988 and runs for 107 minutes. James Conlon conducts. Barbara Hendricks, Luca Canoncini, Angela Maria Blasi, and Gino Quilico star. Actually, José Carreras who was not that well known in 1988 sings the Rodolfo. But just before the shooting of the film was to begin he contracted leukaemia and had to withdraw. Luca Canoncini plays his part, but the voice is still Carreras'. The first thing that struck me hadn't anything to do with the film but with the cinema: This was so loud. Normally they show all kinds of movies: Action, romance, whatever. Opera's a rare exception. The operators (!) apparently have their thoughts about opera: Oh, these people on the stage scream and scream, the audience probably wants it loud! And up the volume went. Ouch, my ears. Apart from that I liked it ok. However, I think the film suffered somewhat from what I'd call Disney-fication, if you'll excuse the expression. It just sort of becomes too sweet. There is something sweet to it, but Comencini hides the tragic and the misery too well. The opera is evidently not filmed on location. We see houses, roof tops in Paris, chimneys, fog, snow, icicles etc. but the film makers do not fool the audience. There's something unreal about this realistic set. It is as if we are meant to see the intended realism. I kept wondering if this couldn't just as well have been done at the theatre. Why didn't the producers take advantage of the cinematic medium, now that the decision to wed film and opera had been made? It is quite obviously not cold in this Paris. I think you'd call it nice. The two poor artists in their icy studio look healthy and don't seem too bothered after all. Mimi seems to be quite well, too. These people, Rodolphe and Mimi, do not really suffer — nor do they really love. Hendricks and Canoncini do not touch much except for that first kiss. There's lots of good music and the singing is not bad at all, but drama and passion (other things being equal) as seen between other great love couples, between Romeo and Juliet, Tristan und Isolde, Carmen and José etc. are not to be found. Not in this Bohème methinks. But perhaps that was not intended? There's a detail I like, though. Mimi does not drop her key; she deliberately forgets it, so that she has to come back and see Rodolphe again. There can be no doubt that love is in the air. Yet, this is soon contradicted by the film as Rodolphe as he sings his aria about his life and his dreams more or less sings it to himself or to the universe and not to Mimi. We don't even see her listening, and as it turns out she has actually left the room. Her response is sung in a likewise fashion in her apartment: We don't get an impression of a couple forming here but just of singers in the good old stand'n'deliver-fashion. It may sound a bit harsh but compared to the acting in the Carmen or the Don Giovanni, this is a bit poor, I think. In the end Mimi dies. It never fails: the Kleenex effect. However, I think it is minimal here. Dying from tuberculosis may not be violent, but emotions can be that... Not here: There isn't much passion. The Rodolphe looks as if he is sitting by his aunt's bed, not by Mimi's. But as I said: The magic worked and elicited tears and handkerchiefs in the cinema. I haven’t been able to find Comencini's La Bohème at major retailers. Film: The Turandot Project Next up in my cine-operatic frenzy was Allan Miller's documentary on "The Turandot Project". Not an opera-film as such, it pertains to both opera and film nevertheless. I didn't find it a great filmic experience, but the operatic project described was indeed impressive. It deals with the staging of a Turandot in 1997. After an initial run of performances in Florence, Italy, the production is moved to The Forbidden City in Beijing the year after. Here the project takes on immense dimensions and the documentary focuses on the many creative and cultural problems encountered by the team. In front of this are conductor Zubin Mehta and director Zhang Yimou. As Mehta says initially, Puccini was often inspired by foreign impulses: La bohème takes place in Paris, La fanciulla del West in California — and Turandot in China. The ambition is for the authentic, so therefore Yimou was engaged. Though he had no operatic experience prior to the project he was, as it turned out, the right man. For if Mehta et al. wanted the production to revolve around authentic Chinese culture, that was what they'd get, as Yimou saw this as an opportunity to get the world's attention to just that. This is what he tells some stage hands who must move two pavilions across the stage. They weren't doing it with the desired delicacy so he asks them to think about this great opportunity for China and Chinese culture. Yimou has a keen eye on even the slightest details: Now, the Florentine set and costumes must be given up altogether, for the buildings in The Forbidden City are from another dynasty. If buildings and costumes did not fit or have the same style, it would be a joke to the Chinese and to the world, Yimou thinks. So 2,000 people are ordered to work on the 900 costumes necessary. They need that many. The stage in China is much larger than the one they used in Italy, so people are needed to fill it. 300 Chinese soldiers come in handy there. The results are impressive: I'd really love to see it in its entirety after this look into the creative process. But the film is not just about ambition and the fulfilment of it. Working for the theatre is also the art of compromise: A fact that Yimou perhaps didn't realize from the beginning. But working with light and sound engineers, e.g., it is necessary. The film features lots of music, too. A nice Nessun dorma, for instance. Among the singers are Audrey Stottler, Sergej Larin, Sharon Sweet, Giovanna Casolla, and Barbara Hendricks. They even had three different casts! Miller's documentary was released on video and DVD on 5/28/2002 and is available on Zeitgeist Film, UPC: 795975102032. The production itself, which I have not seen, was released on video and DVD on 4/13/1999 and is available from RCA, UPC: 743216091720. Film: Carmen Oui, c'est moi! Carmen was next on my agenda. This month, I will be seeing close to a dozen opera films, as I have said before. So most recently, I saw Carmen directed by Francesco Rosi from 1984. It surprised me a bit that it was not cut, more or less, as it ran for 152 minutes. Furthermore I was unfamiliar with this version. I heard some music I had not heard before, e.g. where José and Escamillo get involved in a knife fight. There was spoken dialogue but I don't think this film followed any official version. I didn't realize that the inn keeper, Lillas Pastia had lines to say, e.g. I gather that the dialogues were manipulated a bit for cinematic purposes perhaps. Apart from that, this was a most loyal production. Don Giovanni is supposed to take place in Sevilla but Losey moved it to northern Italy. Rosi, on the other hand, opts for southern Spain, where Carmen likewise is supposed to take place. The land- and cityscapes are beautiful and must be close to what Carmen's authors imagined. Yet the surroundings do not play as prominent a part in this Carmen as they did in the Don Giovanni mentioned. But pictures do play a part: This is a movie after all. That means that there must be pictures all the time: You can't just let the music play, curtain down. So a bull fight is invented for the overture, and I reckon it works well as a cinematic introduction to what is to follow. But at the same time the credits roll up on the screen. Those things taken together take some attention away from the music, I think. Inventions are also necessary for other stretches of purely orchestral music. What is worse, though, is that you don't always *see* who is singing (Jane Bishop’s comment on the final scene of Don Giovanni applies more generally to this film). It was very strange not to be able to focus on the singer: A voice commands the attention of the ear — and the eye. But the chorus of the opera is rarely seen and if they are seen the actors are not miming. This results in a loss of contact between music and movie. An example: The boys who play they are soldiers in the first act. You hear them and you see them but get an impression of two different parties. I'd call it the sound track effect. The more closely pictures and music are related, the better IMO. In fact, I think the boys are watching the infantry marching (une, deux, marquant le pas) but in the film they run alongside the cavalry, thus creating a somewhat bizarre contrast between the marching being sung about and the running being seen. This is also true for soli sometimes. E.g. in the first part of Micaëla's aria in the third act she is seen singing but later on, the camera moves away from her and you don't get the impression that the person seen is actually singing. It makes it less credible, for me at least. The Parsifal I mentioned a few days ago overdid the mime, for its own aesthetic purposes, but here, in Carmen, some sort of realistic representation is sought. Of course the main part of the opera is mimed and oftentimes it works very well indeed. Carmen's habanera, e.g. Domingo is the Don José, Raimondi the Escamillo, Esham the Micaëla and Julia Migenes-Johnson the Carmen. I liked them more or less in that order: well, the first two are great, though Domingo's French is not unsurpassed. The weakest was, IMO, Carmen. Migenes-Johnson put on a powerful act but vocally I was close to actually disliking her performance. It was as if she tried so hard to express something dramatically with her voice that she hadn't any energy to tend to its beauty. I know that this is French verismo and not Italian bel canto — don't get me wrong — I just think I've heard greater Carmens. Still, her act was a bit on the vulgar side. I like my Carmens with equal doses of sexuality and violence of emotion, but there's also something graceful about her. Migenes-Johnson's Carmen was rather raucous. This version of Carmen, shot on location, works well as a movie, I think. My major reservations about it are the less convincing mimes, the Carmen, and... the conductor. I'm no fan of Maazel, I think. Rosi's Carmen is available on video, VHS and DVD, and was released on Columbia Tristar, 43396048799. Film: Parsifal Next film up was Parsifal, directed by Syberberg. This was quite special, sitting close to 5 hours in a cinema (the running time is 255 minutes and two pauses of 15 minutes each were given). But what an experience! There's a first time for everything: Your first opera, your first opera CD, your first Zauberflöte, your first time listening to Domingo... This was my first Parsifal! So let me issue a note of "warning" before going on: What follows may be a bit naïve but it may prove worth the read anyhow, that's up to you. I am not wholly new to Wagner: I've heard and seen Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin and Der fliegende Holländer. I like Wagner very much, but as a newbie I find him quite complicated. This applies both to the music and to the drama. The first act of Parsifal was particularly breathtaking (or perhaps this is just because I was *fully* concentrated at this point?) but it is apparent to me that this music needs to be heard more than once to be fully understood and enjoyed. I look forward to doing just that! There were, much to my regret, no subtitles. Even bad ones as in Don Giovanni which I have already reported on can be a help. Here, I was on my own. I could catch a word or a phrase here or there from the German, but to no avail. For the film did not help me much either. Apparently it appeals to people who are well versed in the story and who have thorough knowledge of the themes dealt with. I had neither — as it was my first encounter with the opera! If the lush imagery of the Don Giovanni impeded the action somewhat, the symbolism seen in this Parsifal brought it to an almost complete standstill. I have never seen anything quite like it. I had vague ideas of what was going on and could recognize some "Wagnerian" items: Knights, a grail, a spear etc. but besides from that... The set was indeed very strange. But after some time I found out that it was a giant copy of Wagner's death mask. So there's quite a lot of "action" around his nose (perfect for mysterious fumes), other scenes take place on the eyelids, and later on we go "underground" as well, into the head that is... Another strange thing was that it seems to operate with a clash of aesthetics. There are so many different orders of representation in play here — it is hard to describe. Puppets, filmic projections on the horizon, and then, close-ups of singers, so that you could see mouth and teeth and tongue occupied with sound production (miming it, of course). And perhaps the strangest thing: The Parsifal is acted first by a man, then by a woman (the change takes place in the second or the third act). It took me a while to figure out, first that some character had been replaced by this woman, second that it was Parsifal (character recognition, who's who, was a major job here) and third, — no I didn't get to figuring that out: what the meaning was. I still don't get that one, but there must be a purpose (I hope). This eerie visual universe fascinated me, but what was strange was that I couldn't in any way connect it with the music. There was a direct link, of course: from the exaggerated mime mentioned before one would never be in doubt as to who was singing. But the drama? The story? It escapes me. Perhaps I'll go see it again when it is shown again in about a week's time, but I hope to see a traditional production of it, too. But before that, I wish to get more closely familiar with the music. A DVD and VHS version of Syberberg’s Parsifal was released on 3/30/1999 by Image Entertainment, UPC: 14381458022. Film: Don Giovanni Before commenting on Losey's Don Giovanni, I'd like to put here what I had planned as a PS so that you might help me, if you don't want to go through the whole post:
"PS" Going over my list of films again (a local cinema is featuring a series of opera-films this month), I realize that most of them were shot in the 80s. I'd be most appreciative if any lister knowing of opera-film productions of a more recent date could send me some suggestions. I know of the Tosca (w/Alagna and Gheorgiu) from 2001, but there must be something else...? Anyhow, I really looked forward to this one. It's delicious. Director, Joseph Losey's, vision of Don Giovanni, that is. The film is from 1979 and has the following cast: Raimondi, Macurdy, Moser, te Kanawa, Riegel, van Dam, Berganza. Maazel conducts. McCarthyism drove Losey out of Hollywood and he settled in France. The head at the Opera in Paris, Eric Liebermann suggested that he made the film. Losey had never seen Don Giovanni but the combination of Mozart's music, the themes of the opera and Andrea Palladio's buildings from the renaissance appealed to him. With the cast from Liebermann's production he was ready... It is filmed on location and that is the particularly lovely thing about this film since the surroundings in Venice and particularly in Vicenza are astonishingly beautiful. Of course, the action is supposed to take place in Seville, but I gather this one would also appeal to hard core puritans. Losey's pictures of Palladio's renaissance buildings are luscious, a real pleasure. If I'm not mistaken it might be the Villa Rotonda and the Teatro Olimpico that Losey uses as background for the drama... Yet, this is also a weak point. In the middle of this pictorial feast, I got lost somewhat as to the drama: The succession of events leading to the end and conclusion of the opera. Being familiar with the story, this is not a real problem of course but to those who don't know it that well it must have been bewildering. I saw people with opera guides (in a cinema!) The characters of the play almost hurl themselves through the many rooms in the villa: This swiftness does not necessarily clarify what is going on. Don't judge this with Aristotle's poetics in hand... But I think Losey has great success with instructing the actors. They are, of course, opera singers but this film really does them credit IMO documenting them as able to *act*. I took particular delight in the don, Raimondi, and the Zerlina, Berganza. I liked the vocal side and have no special comments, except special praise for te Kanawa. Incidentally I have heard her in another production under Davis. I like him better than the conductor in this film, Maazel, with whom I was less impressed though I am no competent judge. But at times his tempi were very slow. The cinema's copy of the film was a bit worn and the loud speakers in the movie theatre could have done better justice to, well, er, the sound track (it sounds a bit plain when speaking of an opera film, doesn't it?) But the sound was good and an effort had obviously been made to make it sound as if they were singing on location (E.g. when in the bath there's a slight echo to the sound. This does, luckily, not apply when they sing out in the open). In other words it didn't sound as if it was just a CD being played. These acoustic impressions were supported by the fact that natural sounds (foot steps in the gravel, noises from plates and cutlery at the dinner table etc.) could be heard alongside the music. And finally the mime was convincing which, of course, is due to the fact that the singers also act (which is not the case in Carmen Jones, e.g.) Finally, I must say the (Swedish) subtitles weren't very good (No distinction between anima and amica, e.g.) But as I don't know the libretto by heart and can't always hear the words, they're a help nonetheless. It might not be a stellar vocal and musical performance, and it might not be as dramatically effective as it could have been, but for its flood of overwhelming images and for its fine actors, I do not hesitate to recommend it. A lister suggested to me privately after I had posted my list of films to see this month that I examined whether the films were generally available or not. This one is: It was released this year (2/26/2002) on VHS and DVD on Columbia Tristar, UPC 43496072121. In About Five Years' Time... ...it will be the 400th anniversary of Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo which premiered in February 1607 in Mantua. One could argue that it will be the *art form's* birthday shortly. Does anyone know if celebrations, stagings or the like will take place? Just wondering on a Sunday evening. Operatic Cinema — Cinematic Opera Since I saw Carmen Jones a few years ago in a local cinema I have been shamelessly trying to get the decision makers there to put on as much opera as possible. Opera on the big screen is not the same as live opera — far from it!!! — but the film medium offers other opportunities. Opera films represent a mixture of high culture and popular art that is fascinating: A contradictio in adjecto? Not to me. It might even be argued that opera films offer an opportunity for democratization, an educational perspective: The films as part of an outreach programme? We've had a Don Giovanni (Losey) and Die Zauberflöte (Bergman) but there has not really been a breakthrough yet. Till now. I am not taking all the credit but I vainly hope that my insistent e-mails may have helped the men in power make what is obviously the right decision... :-)
So now, a whole series of opera films has finally made its way to Copenhagen! Rejoice! Of course there are videos and TV operas but I do not own a DVD (or a TV set for that matter) and Danish TV neglects the art form. I look forward to seeing... Carmen. Francesco Rosi 1984. Migenes-Johnson, Domingo, Raimondi, Esham, c. Maazel. Don Giovanni. Joseph Losey 1979. Raimondi, Macurdy, Moser, te Kanawa, Riegel, van Dam, Berganza, c. Maazel. Les contes d'Hoffmann. Michael Powell, Emerich Pressbruger 1951. Raunseman, Shearer, Helpmann, Massine, c. Beecham. La bohème. Luigi Comencini 1988. Hendricks, Canonici, Blasi, Quilico, c. Conlon. La traviata. Franco Zeffirelli 1982. Stratas, Domingo, Macneil, Monk, Gall, Cei, c. Levine. Madama Butterfly. Frédéric Mitterand 1995. Huang, Troxell, Liang, Cowen, c. Conlon. Otello. Franco Zeffirelli 1986. Domingo, Ricciarelli, Diaz, Malakowa, c. Maazel. Parsifal. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg 1982. Kutter, Krick, Clever, Jordan, c. Jordan. The Medium. Gian Carlo Menotti 1951. Powers, Alberghetti, Coleman, Kibler, Dame. The Turandot Project. Alain Miller 2001 (A documentary on Zhang Yimous' Turandot in the Forbidden City of Beijing). Tosca. Benoît Jaquot 2001. Gheorghiu, Alagna, Raimondi, Cangelosi, c. Pappano. Whoa! It's *so* cool. Comments on any of these are welcome. BTW, I read that Cecil B. DeMille shot a version of Carmen, starring Geraldine Farrar. But that was in 1915, before the advent of sound!!! Artists' Events. Opera on Tuesdays As always a happy reader of Artists’ Events I take the liberty of posting a few addenda for September 24:
In 1754 Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Le Cinesi with a Metastasian libretto premiered at Schlosshof close to Vienna. 25 years later, another of his works, Echo et Narcisse, with a text by Louis Théodore de Tschudy saw its world premiere in Paris. In 1761 Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen was born. PS Listening to a broadcast on www.dr.dk of Arminio from Amsterdam (Il complesso barocco under Curtis). Nice! Operas are also broadcast regularly on Tuesdays now on DR Klassisk (select Hør Radio in the upper lefthand corner of the site mentioned above). Massenet: Werther. In Copenhagen Here in Copenhagen the opera season has been going for a while now, and treats like Tristan und Isolde (with Stig Fogh Andersen and Tina Kiberg) and the rarely performed Danish opera Antichrist by Rued Langgaard have already come our way. Massenet's Werther is the latest premiere. The production is shared with the Festival KlangBogen in Vienna. The lighting was designed by Cunnigham, the costumes by Jara, the set by Leiacker and the director was Joosten. I did not find it offensive or too "Euro Trashy". The set consisted of two immense tiled walls, giving an impression of a supernatural hospital or something. Something sterile. In the corner, a living room of sorts, its walls totally covered with landscape paintings. There are very few changes throughout: Among the most important, the landscape paintings go from spring through winter. O yes, it's about death and unhappy love. In the fourth and last act where Werther has shot himself, the room has vanished and leaves the bare walls: Maybe the walls were meant to suggest an asylum and that some kind of insanity has been surrounding Werther and Charlotte all the time? And then a fine row of butterflies was stuck on these walls... No idea what *that* meant... But at least no semantic rape here à la Don Giovanni snorting up coke and the like! Such a symbolistic set may even give one something to ponder on (One might even argue that art as straight answers to straight questions would not be art). Here the costumes were strangely at odds with the general design. They could be credible as dresses dating from 1780. Weird. The singers were ten relatively well known singers from the ensemble, well known only around these parts of course. No one with an international career. The season brochure mentioned something about a chorus but it was not performed with one. An error? I liked the voices alright, yet I found it almost unbearable, that the pronunciation was so poor. Someone will say to me that it is often very hard to hear what they sing but that is not what I am aiming at: You could hear the words alright, but instead of "printemps" you'd get "pourtant", "un buisson" could be heard as "important", "les larmes" as "les âmes" et cetera. For anyone who has some French it was most bewildering. I'd rather listen to a translated version than hearing Danes singing in French. Of course it will oftentimes be a problem when singers sing in a foreign tongue (supply your own examples) but to a certain limit it can't be heard. But if the accent shows through even when singing, it's probably heavy. Mozart uncomplete... Mozart wrote 21 operas or scenic works IIRC. Of course, to the larger public the triple bonanza (Figaro, Giovanni and Cosi) and Die Zauberflöte are his most well known. But there are also less known works, and recently I learned that a few, L'oca del Cairo (1780) and Zaide (1783), were never completed. Does anyone know if these fragments have been recorded anyway? Highlights vs Full Opera Sets I think there might be an educational aspect to highlights CD, too. (See Calvert's and Fekula's postings on young persons' music appreciation, too). Teenagers and even young adults may not have the "stamina" required to go through the full opera set. A Carmen or Die Walküre or any other normal full length opera of an hour instead of three, four and even five hours are better than nothing. Furthermore, the music selected for these CDs is *good* and often has an immediate effect: Hence its popularity. If you want people to like opera why not offer them the good and easy bits first? (I knew a pal who whistled bits of Rossini (William Tell) and Handel (The Messiah) — when I told him he looked really puzzled!) Of course, a severe disadvantage to this approach would be if people got weaned on the highlights and did not care for the rest. Naturally, I am not implying that highlights are for kids only. I see instances where I'd choose such a version: If e.g. I found a CD with a favourite singer or if the opera was hard to find. And then there are recital discs and recordings from before technology made full length operas generally available. Besides, I often take out a CD or LP for one aria or some other piece of music, only. Hello again! Opera's popularity? It's wonderful being back on the list after a longer break. Opera's still on the top of my mind, so Opera-L's obviously the place to be... It seems that opera's on a lot of people's minds these days — but maybe that is just how it seems to those happy few? This is what concerns me in this contribution, besides reintroducing myself to the list (though I can't promise that I will be as prolific as some of you are). But is opera actually very popular? Of course it is not so popular that even the man on the streets whistles Va pensiero (that is not the scenario here, at least) or that every town has its own opera theatre (I have just read that Venice had up to 8 opera houses in the 1640s, and the city only had 140,000 inhabitants at the time!). But some say — they may be the experts, they may not — that opera's becoming immensely popular and maybe that is so, relatively speaking? I have no idea about opera's standing in relation to other classical genres, neither in terms of records sold, tickets sold, numbers of radio listeners and TV viewers nor in terms of people who think of themselves as "opera lovers". Somewhere I have read that, allegedly, the opening ceremony of the soccer world cup in Italy in 1990 should have been an eye opener to a lot of people opera-wise, because Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti sang together at that occasion. Modern myth making? Some of you may have friends who don't care a whit about opera or who may even be operaphobic. Perhaps that makes it easier to judge whether opera's really on the way up (and the sky's the limit) or not. Is it important to know? Does it matter if it's popular or not? Well, yes, I think so. Which true opera lover would not want his or her cherished art form to become a public fancy? I hope you're all well and have had a peaceful September 11. Another Take on the Singspiel I have been listening to Mozart: Die Zauberflöte. So far I only have Davis' version from 1994 on Philips with Moll, Schreier, Price, Serra, Melbye, Venuti et al. A remarkable feature, among others I suppose, is that all dialogues have been cut out — only arias and recitatives remain. All of Mozart's lovely notes are there, of course. However, I have come to notice a certain discontinuity in the piece due to the fact, I gather, that the spoken bits are omitted. Could it be that the work was composed, calculating on the effect of interspersed dialogues? Of course it wouldn't make much sense as drama, as musical theatre, without the words — but it seems to me that the effect of the music, too, relies on the pauses the words create. I reckon the dialogues were left out to compress the Singspiel and put it on two CDs only. Maybe the editors at Philips thought the audience would be bored by lengthy spoken intervals? PS I think I am going to get an unabridged version. What would you recommend? Losey's Don Giovanni I cannot but say I am impressed. I have just returned from a long night at the cinema but what a night! I saw Joseph Losey's filmed version of Mozart's Don Giovanni in a local movie theatre — and enjoyed it very much. The copy the cinema had at its disposal was, however, not in very good shape to put it mildly. Some scenes had "snow flakes" all over, and the sound was poor at times. And speaking of sound, this cinema interpreted it as volume. It was *loud*. Well, generally I was, prior to last night, a bit sceptical about opera in a cinematic venue. Would it not sort of belittle the luxurious experience of opera? Would it not be distracting with pop corn eaters and people swigging beer? Would it not be strange not to applaud, not to sit in one's usual red plush seat, not to wait in anxious expectation for the curtain to go up? Perhaps so, but those were minor distractions. Of course the sound was very much different from what it would have been *live*, but in the loss of the particular experience of being there, a lot was gained, too, I think. First, on a level of basic comprehension, I must admit that I understood even more than I have done so many other times because the subtitles are so readily available at the bottom of the screen. Not so with the supertitles in the theatre which are far above the scene: When reading them I always feel a bit bewildered — which is clearly not their purpose. Further, the singer being near the microphone, the sound engineers could have made adjustments so that a better balance between the orchestra and the vocal parts would be found, when it comes to understanding the words articulated (I doubt the parts were actually sung on location???)
Second, the medium has another advantage over a production mounted on a traditional scene. In this opera, and in many others, I believe, a lot of sudden changes of general mood occur. We are used to cuts as part of the cinematic conventions. From one scene to the next and back again. To illustrate a line of thought or to jump to an entirely different location would thus not be a problem when filming opera. Further, I found that a lot of the techniques of cinema worked well with the concept of opera. For instance, close-ups are excellent in depicting the emotions experienced by the characters of the plot. For singers who can also act, it is possible to enter into more immediate contact with the audience and the director can leave out undesired elements. In Losey’s film, e.g., we see Donna Elvira (Kiri Te Kanawa) in her hymn-like aria in Act II through the grid of a confession booth. Cinematic representation is often felt as more realistic, I presume. We are led to believe that we see the world as it is, which is of course not true: Narrative art consists in manipulation, but a sweet one. Anyhow, representing the operatic action through a camera lens easily lends itself to a more "traditional" show. Therefore it came as no surprise to me that Losey had opted for the beautiful surroundings of Vicenza (and Venice). They were such a pleasure to behold – and for once the scenery and the "conceptual" thinking underneath it did not seem to intrude unjustly in the action and the music. Sometimes it was not easy to follow the layout of rooms and villas as the characters went through them in quick succession, but I did not find it distracting. On the musical side, I was particularly amazed listening to Van Dam as Leporello. Raimondi was a powerful Don Giovanni, and Berganza a most delicious Zerlina. If I had to single a less convincing part out, it would be Kenneth Riegel’s Don Ottavio. Opera in the Cinema How often have you spent a night at the cinema enjoying an opera film? Where do you find movie theatres with regular runs of opera? Does it exist at all? I had my doubts until recently — but now I rejoice in the fact that it is going to happen just this month! The Danish Film Institute has a cinema in central Copenhagen showing all kinds of films: It is both an art cinema, a museum of moving images and a treasury of all the best in cinema. And now they must have heard my silent prayers, since a production of *Don Giovanni* is coming up soon! Of course I could just lend an operatic movie or a taped performance from one of the great opera houses in the world — yet is just something special to sit in front of *the big screen* with good sound and all, isn't it? The production in question is from 1978 and directed by Losey, starring Raimondi, Te Kanawa, Moser, Berganza and Van Dam. Would anyone care to comment on this film? And does anyone have comments on the more general issue: Opera in your local movie theatre? Bayreuth 2006 I thought this might be interesting. The following article appeared in the Danish daily, Politiken. The following is my translation of the internet version which appeared on 17th October. I have not seen this mentioned on the list, so bear with me if it has already been discussed. Lars von Trier to direct Wagner’s 'Ring' The Danish film director is to present a new version of Richard Wagner’s "Der Ring des Nibelungen" in 2006 for the opera festival in the town of Bayreuth in southern Germany, according to a press release from the festival managers. This is confirmed by Vibeke Windeløw, producer in Zentropa, von Trier’s company. Vibeke Windeløv and Lars von Trier visited the festival in Bayreuth this year. Vibeke Windeløw says that the agreement was settled last week at a meeting in Copenhagen with the leader of die Festspiele, Wolfgang Wagner, and the conductor, Christian Thielemann. »This is the first time, Lars is to try his hand at the genre of opera. But he is already working with several ideas for the run of performances, and Thielemann has promised to play the works for him on the piano next time they meet«, Vibeke Windeløv says. Thielemann will conduct von Trier’s version of "Der Ring des Nibelungen", Richard Wagner’s musikdramatische masterpiece, consisting of the operas, "Das Rheingold", "Die Walüre", "Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung". The scenographer will be Islandic Karl Juliusson, who has worked on several of Lars von Trier’s movies. American Opera I have just finished reading yet another book on the history of opera, Lesley Orrey's "A Concise History of Opera", Thames and Hudson, London, 1973. In a chapter on "Opera in the New World", he states:
"Since the 1930s, and more particularly since the Second World War, activity has intensified, on a scale and with a variety that will astonish anyone who regards the United States as simply a distant outpost of the European operatic empire. [...] In 1955, according to the music critic Olin Downes (in Opera Annual, 1955-56), there were more than seven hundred separate operatic enterprises in existence in the United States; and between 1930 and 1967 more than a thousand American operas were written" (sic, p.200). Would anyone care to comment on that? Le Grand Macabre 9/23 The opera season has been on for quite a while now in Copenhagen, and we have had two season premieres. The third premiere was today: The first production of György Ligeti's "Le Grand Macabre" in Denmark. Just before the piece was to begin, Kasper Holten, head of the opera and director of this production, came before the curtain and addressed the audience. In his short speech, he spoke of the events of September 11th and discussed the plausibility of giving the opera its premiere which was planned, of course, long before terrorism became the talk of the international community. Despite the heinous acts committed against the American people and against humanity — or maybe even because of them — the house had decided to go along. As has been pointed out on the List, just that — keeping the performing arts alive and not being defeated by terror — are ways of defying the culprits and their ways. However, the production did have scenes which could, indeed, very easily be interpreted as references to the recent disaster; The action is placed in a wrecked city and in some scenes the resemblance between the buildings on stage and the WTC is striking (no pun intended) — which was of course not planned. I hope sensitive listers will excuse me and refrain from reading the rest of this message, if bothered. The opera is a fairly recent piece and had its world premiere in Stockholm in 1978. It is a grotesque and funny opera and deals with the Apocalypse. Therefore Mr Holten's choice of aesthetics seems quite appropriate in my opinion. The sets are designed in a science fiction-like, comic book fashion. In the first scene, two young lovers, Amanda and Amando, are searching for a place to themselves where they can make love. However, a cellarman, Piet von Pils, and other people from the imaginary Breughelland are busying themselves on the streets. Then from an escalator (possibly leading down to the city's subway, an image of the underworld) comes Nekrotzar (nekro actually means body in Greek and a tzar is obviously a ruler). He declares the imminent destruction of the world which he will enact by the help of a comet. He commands Piet to get his utensils ready — scythe and trumpet — but he does not have any means of transportation. Piet, always somewhat tipsy, is more than happy to be of service as Nekrotzar's horse. As they leave for the capital city, the lovers see their chance and descend on the escalator to indulge in a moment of intimacy — while the world faces doom. Now, in a combination of an observatory and a kitchen, the court astrologist, Astradamors, is subject to Mescalina's whim: He is the slave, she the dominatrix (astra means star in Latin, and the rest of the name is a pun on amor meaning love and mors meaning death thus evoking two central themes in the opera). In a burlesque, sado-masochist act, the woman commands him around, humiliating him. His wisdom is obsolete but he is of use to Mescalina: watching the stars through a giant telescope, he is to assure her that the stars are all in their proper places (That the old world still exists, so to say) and inform her on the position of Venus (the love goddess of Roman mythology: "Oh, my dreary nights, dark with bitterness! / Hear me, Venus? / How I do envy you!") But instability and perversion rule the world. However, Venus does descend and arrives on something reminiscent of a cloud machine but with an extra touch: She sings from within a frame such as found in comic books, thus ironically underlining the character's different planes of reality (the background of the frame further alludes to the famous "Venus" by Botticelli, a Florentine painter: with a delicate irony, a collision of cosmos and chaos, of beauty and horror is created). In her imagined conversations with Venus, Mescalina dreams of a real man, but what she gets is Nekrotzar, brutally satisfying himself with her. Astradamors sees this as his chance of escape from his ordeal and joins Nekrotzar and Piet, so that the plan may be carried out. Meanwhile, at the palace the white and the black minister bicker with each other, hurling out invectives, literally from A to Z (from arse-licker to vagabond!) They are clad in suits with words written all over them: Black on white and white on black. They give speeches of utter non-sense (an opportunity for Ligeti to indulge in pure sound of the human voice), but as it appears, no differences are to be distinguished between their respective ideologies. A suiting parody of politics. Prince Go-Go is not much better, though: He only thinks of food. The chief of the secret political police, Gepopo (One comes to think of Gestapo), enters warning everybody that the end is nigh. The ministers flee — symbolically they leave to the left and to the right, respectively. Then Nekrotzar breaks into the palace, followed by crowds of upset citizens who partake of the riches like vultures. Even Nekrotzar, Le Grand Macabre, gets so inebriated that he, for a while, forgets his business. But as midnight nears — a close-up comic book picture of a wrist watch is lowered — he declares the cataclysm, and a black curtain falls. Next morning, in the last scene, we are back in the dilapidated city. Astradamors and Piet greet each other as ghosts, and the prince thinks he is the only survivor. But as they suddenly feel thirst, they come to realize, that Nekrotzar has failed. They recognize themselves — and each other, just as importantly — as living human beings. Maybe Nekrotzar, this self-proclaimed Satan really was the perpetrator of evil? Maybe just a misled human being? Or maybe he was a despicable, yet ridiculous lunatic? Anyway, there is belief that Good and Life shall prevail. Nekrotzar is not shunned away: There is no need. He leaves himself in disgust — saying his last words in a comic frame entitled, "Death Dies". And the other characters are too amazed, being alive — and too overcome by their not having rejoiced in that fact before. As Nekrotzar has left and descended to the underworld from whence he came, the two young lovers reappear — celebrating the joys of carnal pleasure and love:
For life grants most to those who give,
And who gives love shall loving live. When one does this, then time and tide
Stand still: now and for evermore. But the opera does not end in a happy-ever-after mood. Death is part of life, but until one's day comes — life is joy and love and giving. And as everybody joins in the very last four lines, the black curtain falls again: On the singers, literally pressing them towards the floor-boards. They do not perish until they have sung their last notes. Musically, the opera must be very demanding with lots of very high and very low notes in many roles. Generally, I think the performers involved did well, though no one was really outstanding. Sten Byriel (Nekrotzar), a Danish basso of some renown, was quite good and had a warm and pleasant voice. Bengt-Ola Morgny (Piet) and Jens Bruno Hansen (Astradamors) were much less convincing as singers, though they did communicate as actors. Gisela Stille (Gepopo; Venus) impressed me quite a bit with very high and sustained notes, despite verging on the shrill. And finally Susanne Resmark (Mescalina) did a wonderful job in a most difficult role. But I will not go further into discussing the purely musical side of the performance now, since I do not know the different parts that well (and since I am not that experienced in musical criticism, yet). I will read the reviews tomorrow, and I might do a bit of "Beckmessering" for you Le Monde Here is a translation of the editorial Mr. Letort found in Le Monde. I hope I shall succeed in conveying the gist of the text to you. Your comments are welcome — on or off list, as you like. Le Monde We are all Americans By Jean-Marie Colombani In this tragic moment where words seem so poor to express the shock one feels, the first thing that comes to mind is this: We are all Americans! We are all New Yorkers, just as John Kennedy declared himself a Berliner in Berlin in 1963. How can you not feel — as in the most grave moments of history — profound solidarity with this people and this country, the United States with whom we are so close and to whom we owe our freedom, and hence our solidarity. And at the same time: How can you avoid being overwhelmed by this fact: The new century has begun. The 11th of September 2001 marks the entry into a new era which seems far away from the promises and hopes of another historic day, that of the 9th of November 1989, an era which was born by the somewhat euphoric year of 2000, which could have been believed to end with peace in the Middle East. Thus, a new century moves forward: Technologically strong as is shown by the sophistication of the act of war which has hit the symbols of America: The economic superpower in the heart of Manhattan, the military might at the Pentagon, and finally the protective force of the Middle East close to Camp David. The first impressions of this century are unintelligible — except as mockery and as the most widespread cliché of war between South and North. But to say that is to credit the authors of this murderous frenzy with "good intentions" or with a project of some kind such as vengeance upon their only oppressor: America. That would be to permit them to claim "poverty" — an insult to poor people! What monstrous hypocrisy. Nobody who has been part of this operation can pretend to want what is good for humanity. Those people do not want a better world, a world more just. They simply want to strike *our* world from the map. The reality is, surely, that of a world without a counterbalance, physically destabilized and thus dangerous, in need of multipolar equilibrium. And America, in the solitude of its power, of its super-power, in the absence now of any kind of Soviet counter-model has stopped drawing peoples to itself; or more precisely, in certain parts of the world it does not attract but hatred. In the world regulated by the Cold War where terrorism was more or less helped by Moscow some sort of control was always possible and a dialogue between Moscow and Washington could be maintained. In today's monopolistic world there is a new kind of barbarity, apparently out of control which seems to want to claim contra-power. Maybe we, ourselves in Europe, have underestimated the intensity of hatred which accumulates towards the United States, from the suburbs of Djakarta to those of Durban and from the cheering crowds in Naplouse (?) and Cairo. But the reality is perhaps also that America has been trapped by its own cynicism: If Bin Laden is really the man who ordered the 11th of September as the American authorities seem to think, it must be remembered that he was trained by the CIA and that he has been an element of a policy turned against the Soviet states that the Americans found viable. Wouldn't it then be America who has nurtured this devil? Anyway, America will change. Deeply. It is like a great ship which has been sailing for a long time along the same trajectory. And when this is changed, it is so permanently. Well, even if the usage is somewhat gauche: The United States have suffered a shock without precedent. Without going back to the very first ingression on its territory, that of 1812 when the British army destroyed the first White House, the most recent episode is that of Pearl Harbor. That was in 1941, far off the continent, and bomber planes attacked the navy: The horror of Pearl Harbor is nothing compared to what has just happened. You cannot use the same yardstick: Yesterday 2,400 marines, today many more innocent civilians. Pearl Harbor marked the end of an isolationism, so deeply rooted as to resist even the barbarity of Hitler. When in 1941 Charles Lindbergh toured Europe to plead against American involvement, a large part of the public opinion over there already dreamed of a withdrawal from the Latin-American space (?) — leaving Europe in its ruins and with its crimes. After Pearl Harbor, everything has changed. And America has accepted it all: The Marshall plan and the deployment of GIs in all the corners of the globe. After that came the Vietnamese gash which has lead to a new doctrine: That of using power more rarely but more massively accompanied by the American dogma of "zero dead" as it was illustrated during the Gulf War. All that has been blown away now: No doubt that all available means will be used against adversaries who have been impossible to capture to this day. The new line which emerges from the havoc will at this point entail at least foreseeable consequences. They are both alliances: The strategy against Russia, formerly Soviet, is over. Russia, at least in its non-Islamic parts, will be one of the principal allies of the United States as was demonstrated by president Putin on the night of the drama. And perhaps the alliance with the Sunnite Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is also over, an alliance that the United States sketched in the thirties and solidly established in the fifties. In the American public opinion, Islam in all its forms risks to become the new enemy. Certainly, the anti-Islamic reflex has already fostered some ridiculous declarations, if not odious ones, right after the attack in Oklahoma City against a federal building. But this time, the inextinguishable hatred which nourished these attacks and the choice of target and the military character of the necessary organisation limit the number of possible kingpins. Except for their murderous lunacy, these villains obey — despite all — some sort of logic. It is evidently some barbaric logic of a new nihilism, repugnant to the vast majority of believers in Islam. This religion does not authorize suicide more than Christianity does — and suicide coupled with mass murder on innocent people no less. But we are dealing with a political logic which — when mounted to extremes — wants to force the Muslim opinions to choose sides against those who are constantly named "the great Satan". However, their objective might very well be to extend and develop a crisis without precedent in the Arab world. In the long run, this attitude is evidently suicidal. Because it attracts flashes of lightning — without discernment. This situation commands our leaders to rise to the occasion in order to avoid that these instigators of war proceed and make more people part of their suicidal logic. It must be said with fear: Modern technology permits them to go even further. Madness, even under the pretext of despair, will never be a force that can regenerate the world. That is why: Today we are all Americans. Condolences I felt like expressing my condolences to the list, to New Yorkers and to the citizens of the US, too. It is hard to describe what one feels at a moment like this, when facing a global catastrophe of such magnitude. Terrorism has shown its ugly face and life will not be the same. A few days ago the list was teeming with life and discussions of opera, with joy of and interest in the art form we love the most and now we are faced with the deplorable facts of reality, a reality that will seem scarred forever. Flags have been going on half-staff even here, thousands of miles away — the catastrophe is not only America's, but the world's. People have been putting flowers on the pavement in front of the local American embassy and tonight a memorial service in honour of the victims will be held. One feels so helpless and I can but offer a few words of comfort. I am glad so many of our listers have reported that they are safe. We suffer with you,
Reps I don't know how the thread got started and I didn't read the article in FT, but with all due respect and as a matter of clarification: How do you think a repertory should be put together? As an ideal, that is (I know that opera managements have to put up with a lot of planning). As I read your post, you find 20th century operas far too dominant on the cartellone of the MET. Here in Copenhagen we are served 12 operas spanning roughly 250 years of opera with a slight emphasis on opera from the 2nd half of the 19th century. From the 18th century: Giulio Cesare (1724) and Don Giovanni (1787), from the 19th: Il Viaggio a Reims (1825), Lohengrin (1850), Un Ballo in Maschera (1859), Carmen (1875), Otello (1887), Pikovaja Dama (1890), and Manon Lescaut (1893) and from the 20th: Salome (1905), Maskarade (1906), and Le Grand Macabre (1978). That repertory seems encyclopedic to me — and I am happy about that for my own personal reasons since I am relatively new to opera and have a lot to learn. Would that be the kind of repertory, you would prefer? What does the list have to say on this? Do you look for a particular operatic period and avoid another or do you prefer some sort of "encyclopedic" repertory? What are your personal hopes when looking through the operas for a season to come? Massenet Massenet’s operas always stir my emotions, too. In particular, I am absolutely crazy about the little gem of LA NAVARRAISE from 1894 which I enjoy in a recording with the lovely Lucia Popp. A dedicated fan of Massenet, Mr. Frone, has an interesting site on this composer and on French opera and opera in general, that is well worth visiting:
http://www.intac.com/~rfrone/ Salieri Web-cast In a little less than one hour (2:00 A.M. CET, 8:00 P.M. in New York), the Danish national broadcasting company will transmit Antonio Salieri’s PRIMA LA MUSICA, POI LE PAROLE on the web:
www.dr.dk Go to "HØR RADIO", then select "KLASSISK". I haven’t been able to track down any information on this particular version. Ticket Situations Ticket situations. A cause for despair? Nothing to worry about? How is it at your opera house? Well, here is a report from Copenhagen that is not to be envied! I have just endured an ordeal of waiting 30 hours in a queue in order to get tickets for the upcoming season at the Royal Opera, Copenhagen. I arrived at 4 A.M. on Sunday morning outside the box office and sat through the day and the following night until 10 A.M. on Monday when the tickets finally went on sale! Phew! By a little to 10, I reckon we were around 250 people in the queue (It was — I must admit — quite a thrill to be #1). The sales were only open to people who already had subscriptions, the box office being open to the general public one week later. The theatre also houses a ballet, a theatre of the spoken word and an orchestra giving regular concerts besides being part of the opera. I have a subscription to a concert series and thus the right to be in line with the other subscribers yearning for one thing... opera tickets. Of course the house also has opera series but they are hard to get. First you have to become a subscriber to one of the other series (operas may be included in some of their mixed programs). The year after you may choose a series featuring only opera but you will have to react the very instant the letter arrives with options for renewal! You do get to share your love of opera in a queue like that. However, amongst the most popular topics for discussion was the ticket situation. I heard that one third of the tickets are reserved for subscriptions, that another third goes to groups booking in advance, and that the final third is destined for sale by the piece. Now, the opera has 1,334 seats and 117 performances of opera per year — making it a total of 156,078 opera seats per year. With a mere 50,000 tickets in rough figures to be sold by the piece, the attractive tickets will be gone a few hours after the opening of the box office and some performances will be sold out very quickly indeed. If you are after *good* seats or tickets for opening nights or both (as I was), you have no other option than being amongst the very first in the queue (and still you may realize that the central seats on the front row of the balcony are already sold to the opera subscribers — count me amongst those next year!). However, the theatre does reserve 25 tickets for each performance to be sold on the day of the show — but believe me — they are popular! Luckily I do not need to have any more headaches. I can now look forward to: Otello, Masquerade (a Danish opera by Carl Nielsen), Le Grand Macabre, Don Giovanni, Carmen, Salome, Il Viaggio a Reims, Pikovaja Dama, Manon Lescaut, Giulio Cesare and Lohengrin (the only thing on the cartellone that I avoided was Bieito's version of Un Ballo in Maschera). Amongst the highlights of the season are the first performances of Le Grand Macabre and Il Viaggio a Reims in Denmark — ever. And I am also very excited about seeing Lohengrin and Salome. Yma Sumac (again) Without having any secure knowledge on this whatsoever, I will venture a guess... Try spelling Yma Sumac backwards... and you will get... AMY CAMUS
Tom
Macbeth in Copenhagen Speaking of Macbeth I have just laid my hands on a ticket for a concert performance of this opera in Copenhagen's Tivoli. I have two questions:
1) Since I know next to nothing about this particular opera of Verdi's (I do know the play, though!) I would like to ask if anybody has suggestions for a recording to listen to before going to the performance? 2) The conductor will be Mr Angelo Cavallaro and the soloists Giuseppe Garla, Paola Romana, Niels Jørgen Riis, Thomas Poulsen Kragh, and Maria Streijfert. The only name that is familiar to me is that of Mr Riis — do you have any knowledge of some of these artists? Berlin Wagner Cycle Mystery Until the 1st October 1, 2001 only the full cycles are available. Cycle #1 will take place from the 24th of March to the 6th of April and cycle #2 from the 13th to the 28th of April. The full cycles are 2340, 1890, 1440, 990, 585, 360, 225, or 135 euros whereas single tickets can be bought for 260, 210, 160, 110, 65, 40, 25 or 15 euros each — subject to availability after the 1st of October, that is. Subscribers will also get 20% other concerts and Lieder-abends featured during the Festtage. I was there for this year's Festtage but saw only one performance, Der fliegende Holländer (They had only a few Wagner operas on). If sight is important, I would not go for anything less than 990 or 110 euro respectively — however, I would believe the acoustics of the house to be fairly good so that the music can be enjoyed fully from almost any position but other listers might have more experience with that than I do. All that said, I guess I, for one, could go with even cheap tickets in this case, preferring Barenboim to Kupfer — if I had to make a choice. Hope some of this helps. Disappointment As always happy reading your posts — although irritated that my Hotmail account cannot hold more than 2,048 kB worth of messages, I have come to discover — I felt tempted to throw in a little contribution on the topic of disappointments. Ivy Lin wrote: "One big disappointment was my first-ever full-length opera recording I bought, the Karajan/Pavarotti/Freni Boheme. [...] The excruciatingly slow tempi, the loud, brassy orchestra, which just about drowned out the voices, the humourless, overly serious atmosphere in general."
That is *exactly* how I feel about Karajan's 1980 recording on Deutsche Grammophon of FALSTAFF which I have just acquired. It just seems terribly void of that elan and vividness so abundant in Bernstein's conducting on the CBS version from five years before. I do love Taddei's voice but with Karajan the character of our good, old drinking fellow just does not seem to come to life. The singing is not bad — maybe the problem lies with the maestro? I do not mean any disrespect to the great Karajan whose 1964 CARMEN on RCA is first rate IMO. Another disappointment, perhaps even greater, was with a RIGOLETTO I witnessed in Malmö, Sweden. In order not to bore you with too many specifics of the production, let me state the *worst* part: A Sprechtallmeister of some sort had been devised by the house who told the audience what had happened on stage after each scene! I haven't ever felt so patronized — and on top he was terribly self-indulgent, apparently savouring every bit of this excellent interpretation, given to a supposedly ignorant audience. Discussion Groups and The Attraction to Opera I incidentally surfed by another discussion group on the net, rec.music.opera. Reading a very long thread, consisting of some 405 postings, I could not help noticing a very hostile atmosphere and some very poor arguing. Though causing me some mirth — it could be considered an interesting study of human psychology — I gave up half way through. Do you have any experiences with this bulletin board? The initial topic of the thread was the joy of opera, a poster asking why people feel such joy of and attraction to this art form. That topic was given up after a dozen or so responses and the focus seemed to centre on the condition of the market for classical recordings (Is it well or not?) and on whether an artist named Charlotte Church, who is completely unknown to me, categorized as cross over, could be said to be improving the health of the recorded classical music market. But I digress: I thought I would bring the original issue up here: What is so fantastic about opera? Does it have to do with its constituent parts (drama and music)? Is it the extraordinary experience at the opera house? Is it because opera highlights some key aspects of the human condition? Is it all of the above or is it something completely different that attracts you to opera? Or maybe it inspires some other feeling in you, awe instead of joy, e.g.? I realize that this question lingers on topics covered before, e.g. the discussion on la musica e le parole or the discussion of live vs. studio, but maybe this approach might offer new insights. And after all, I am not looking for definitive answers - just curious about your personal motivations. Needless to say, opera means a lot to me, but am I not at all certain why it attracts me so much. I look forward to hearing your comments... Oper zu Kinopreisen I just received an e-mail from Komische Oper in Berlin, Germany, with a special offer and I felt like sharing this bit of information with you — in case anybody would be around those parts in July. Comparing their prices in July to those of attending cinema, they offer the following: when you buy a ticket in a certain price category, you'll receive one free ticket in that same price category. Two tickets for the price of one, that is. IIRC, the best seats are DEM 106, app. USD 45, so that makes it circa 23 bucks for a good seat in a lovely house! Their programming includes DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, DIE LIEBE ZU DREI ORANGEN, ORPHEUS IN DER UNTERWELT and much more. BTW, the repertory to choose from in that city is stunning: They have three — 3 — major opera houses and there are lots of other musical venues there, too. Favourite Opera Houses I am astonished by your level of knowledge of the proceedings here in Copenhagen, Rob! I love the old opera house of Copenhagen (Gamle Scene) for its architectural beauty and warmth of atmosphere, though the sightlines and acoustics could be better in several parts of the house. It is a medium-sized house of approximately 1,300 seats and as the demand for tickets by far exceeds that, I am amongst those who, indeed, look forward to seeing the new house built and inaugurated. It will have a capacity of 1,800 and cover around 41,000 square yards of floorage. However, it will not open until 2005 so in the meantime I just hope that every concern will be had in order to ensure the best possible conditions for performances of what it is all about: *opera*. Though experts are connected to the project, I could have my fears that concerns for the district plans might be subject to more intense consideration, or that local patriotism would play a bigger role than necessary ("It will be one of the biggest opera houses of Scandinavia, only a little smaller than the Metropolitan Opera of New York", a newspaper reported.)
But, as far as I know, Mr. Møller has not made any claim for immortalization by having his name posted above the main entrance... :-)
Apart from that, I like the Komische Oper Berlin for its auditorium intimacy, not for its outside appearance, that is. Missing libretti In my collection of recordings — which is still in its infancy, by the way — I have a few without a libretto. This is a bit bothersome, as I would like to study the works more intensively, having now become more familiar with the music.
Would anyone know where I could find the libretti of CAPPRICCIO and DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER online (I have tried the major sites offering this service) — or if it would be possible to obtain them elsewhere, without necessarily having to buy another version of the operas (I find comparative studies very interesting but I find that I may not have enough "experience" yet in order to benefit adequately from it). Greetings from a New Member and a Discussion of UN BALLO I am overwhelmed having joined Opera-L: Receiving so much information. The wealth and value of it. You listers may have gotten used to it, having been on the list for a long time, but imagine someone wondering what that e-mail address at CUNY is all about, trying it out to find his mailbox a cornucopia the next morning! Opera and music mean so much to me — so being on a list full of equally minded adherents of opera only adds to my joys and raptures. I have been lurking for a few weeks and I now thought that my time had come to make my entry on the scene. I have been on a much smaller list — a message board in fact — that has been established by The Royal Opera in Copenhagen, Denmark, Scandinavia to care for its younger audience, i.e. those under 35! The intendant of the house, Kasper Holten whom some of you may have heard of since I know he has been an active lister here a couple of years ago — does participate in this forum as he is quite young — he is 27 years old, as I am myself. I am a graduate student in the humanities, by the way. This message board has around 30 active listers and is therefore not teeming with life as is Opera-L but there have been discussions about a recent production and that is where I would like to start. This was Calixto Bieito's production of Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA which you might have discussed before since it premiered in December 2000 in the Gran Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona, Spain. If it has already been the issue of the list, I hope you will excuse me — or offer me your views in private replies. You will be familiar with the synopsis of the opera and its turbulent history but let me sketch the interpretation behind this new production. The house presented it as being a return to the original casting of the opera (The Swedish king, Gustav III instead of governor of Boston, Riccardo) as the Copenhagen Opera allegedly was the first to do in the 30's. However, in May 2001 this played no major role as the opera actually took place in Spain in the 70's or so. I prefer to refer to the characters of the opera as Riccardo, Amelia and Renato (since my favourite recording is thus produced: The 1967 recording with Price, Bergonzi and Merrill under Leinsdorf from the RCA). As was pointed out in Mr. Handelman's interesting essay on booing — or refraining from doing so — the production opens with a row of chorus members at the toilet. Apparently this is intended as a reference to the GODFATHER-films which I did not understand but I might have been too preoccupied trying to deal with the emotions the scene inspired me. The division between Riccardo's friends and foes becomes clear in the course of the scene, though they join in expectation of what will take place at Ulrica's. In her den, she summons the devil as you know and he actually appears on the stage! In Bieito's vision il re dell'abisso (the king of the abyss, that is) takes the shape of a midget in a red, glittering impresario's dress — and he walks down towards us rubbing himself thoroughly in the crotch. But that is only the beginning, lots more is to come. The stage has turned into a kind of porno theatre with red latex seats and all the officials and citizens walk around in the most bizarre attire — which leaves much skin bare. Transvestism, fetishism and much more prevail and sexual poses are everywhere to be seen. The people enjoy Ulrica's performance — and they masturbate in their seats. And in contempt they convey an impression of what they think of Riccardo's romance with Amelia that does not leave much to the imagination. Well, it was said that Riccardo's idea of going was "feconda di piacer" (full of merriment) and that "ogni cura si doni al diletto" (every thought is turned towards pleasure), but this is a quite extraordinary way of interpreting it, I think. Now Amelia, the only ordinarily clad person of the scene by the way, is struck by fear as she enters in search of the magic herb. Her horror is produced when she sees some of Renato's officers raping a poor fellow (homosexuality thus adding to the "impression") and thereafter urinating on him. Upon this Riccardo enters and after some hesitation they declare their fervent love for each other, e.g. "Astro di queste tenebre, a cui consacro il core: irradiami d'amore, e più non sorga, il dì!" (star of this darkness to whom I dedicate my soul, make me radiant with love, and dawn need rise no more!), whilst the Riccardo of Bieito cannot hide his sexual desire for his Amelia, pawing about her body. The action that ensues is well known and I have but a few remarks left to make. The first scene of act III does not take place in the library at Renato's but in the bathroom. Renato is so very much upset by what he sees as his wife's betrayal — that he kicks her toiletries in disgust. Amelia's pledge to Renato to mind their son is portrayed as a cynical scheme, but of course Renato wins back the initiative. At the masked ball matters of style are turned upside down: all of a sudden everybody wears a smoking (or tuxedo) — except for Riccardo who wears but a cotton coat and his underpants. Renato repents, but Riccardo forgives him and blesses America. The opera has come to its stunning conclusion
To state MY interpretation — contradicting Bieito's — briefly I see the drama as essentially revolving around Riccardo, Amelia and Renato — the culprit being: Renato. Riccardo and Amelia nourished a love for each other but they knew all along that this love being extramatrimonial was illegitimate. They were about to abandon it; in the very beautiful aria of act III, scene 2, Riccardo wants to send Renato and Amelia back to England as a means of solving the problem. Tragic as it is, Riccardo, however, wants a very last glimpse of her. That proves fatal and the conspirators' plan is executed. Riccardo reveals his true feelings: "Io che amai la tua consorte, rispettato ho il suo candor" (though I loved your wife, I respected her innocence). That breaks Renato's heart and shows the size of Riccardo's ditto. I think Riccardo's forgiving and blessing reveals to us how the character should be understood. This is all contradicted by the recent production. Riccardo did not respect Amelia and Renato's accusations were justified. That makes the conclusion ridiculous, I think. Now, having said all of the above I would like to put a few questions for our discussion:
1) First of all: Do you agree with my interpretation or do you see the characters in a different light? Is the drama about the dilemma governor's love of America and that of Amelia, is it about the abuse of force and sexual desire, or is it about something else? 2) What do you think of the symbols used in the interpretation? Is it necessary to use images readily understood today or are productions with a historical distance just as good? 3) Are the libretto and the score the basis upon which an interpretation for the scene must rest or? 4) How do you conceive of the balance between the original work and the interpretation rendered to a specific audience? Is it the aim to achieve an effect similar to the one intended for the audiences of the time of the composer, should a reverence be sought in respect of the artists' (i.e. Verdi and Somma) work at all costs or is the balance somewhere in between? 5) What is the relation between the composer and librettist and the modern interpreter? Does it matter if we convey another message than intended, or should it, roughly, be the same? I would be most happy if this inspires comment. I had a sort of bewildering evening at the opera: I love this particular opera by Verdi as I love his other operas, but I found the interpretation given to it too vulgar. Let me finally reiterate the thrill it gave me finding my mailbox full of letters! |
|||