Regie, Steady, Go!
Two images from a recent production of ... well, you tell me!
Our previous Regie riddle? It's Tristan und Isolde, of course, directed by "The Cher of Regisseurs," that one-named wonder Rosalie.
Our previous Regie riddle? It's Tristan und Isolde, of course, directed by "The Cher of Regisseurs," that one-named wonder Rosalie.
POSTED at
8:35 PM
43 Comments:
Wait a minute - that last riddle was Tristan?? Erklaere uns naeher, uns teuschet ein Betrug... Which one was Tristan and which one was Isolde??
Faust- in the top one "le Veau D'Or"
Fledermaus?
..."THERE IS ONLY ONE MAN WHO CAN LEAD ANY WORKER'S REGIME..."
Just a guess.
I really want the bottom picture to be the Viljalied from Merry Widow with some weird industrialist backdrop
fidelio?
It has to be Bellini's La Sonnambula! Picture one is Amina's lost promise of bourgeois happiness and picture two shows her waking up from her proletarian nightmare back into the glamorous state which no human thought could imagine.
I've seen this one, so I won't say. But I will say that I liked this production very much, and, damn, that first picture is going to make this very confusing.
Bottom looks like Boheme - the cafe scene, Musetta's number. Top, well, er, maybe not Boheme.
It's got to be "Arabella." Top pic is the first act, bottom pic is the second act, with Milli singing ...
Ah Rosalie, my own! Those of us who never quite recovered from those haystacks she dressed Polaski in in Gotterdamerung can eat their Monet mousepads.
The top picture is Cosi fan tutte. The bottom one is probably Louise singing Depuis le jour. Second guess for both: Rake's Progress.
norma, second pic is casta diva
It's likely a Peter Konwitschny production, because of the 1. obsession with Nazis and 2. use of people in evening dress singing from black music stands in front of Nazi pictures (see the recent Amsterdam production of Daphne, originally from Essen, I guess.) So maybe Don Carlo?
He did one of those recently, didn't he? The first scene is Eboli, Elisabeth, Philip, and Carlos doing something- maybe the Act IV bit (but where is Posa?) and the second picture is from the auto da fe, with the blond bimbo being the voice from heaven, and a Nazi/Philip's crime in Flanders reference.
I'm gonna say "Arabella"...
THE BOATSWAIN"S MATE.
Don Carlo/s.
Yes, the second picture looks very much like "Casta diva." I'll go with Norma. The music stand calls attention to it being a musical performance, and you can see a little ... shrubbery at her feet. Obviously, the projected image behind her is the equivalent of the Romans they're wanting protection from and victory over. I'm not even going to try to explain the first picture, though. WTF?!
It is the Don Carlos production of Peter Konwitschny as seen in Vienna, Hamburg and Barcelona. The first picture is Eboli's dream, the theatre piece that takes over the ballet in this five-acts French version of Don Carlo. Posa is delivering the pizza but did not still arrive at the scene. The second picture is the end of the Auto de fe, with a Marilyn Monroe-esque singer as the Voice from Heaven. Go figure.
Yeah, that is the Konwitschny Don Carlos from Hamburg (not so new, actually, I believe it was first staged 2001), which in my mind does not deserve to be ridiculed. Although it is heavy-handed sometimes, there were truly great moments in it and I consider it to be one of the best examples of good Regietheater.
I, personally, very much agreed to the way he handled the Autodafe scene, which is shown in the lower picture. Basically this is one of the most violent scenes in the operatic literature. However, while it is a scence about the cruel execution of innocents, there is hauntingly beautiful music and the audience is sitting comfortably in the opera house and is clapping wildly afterwards. To top that there is some voice from heaven telling us that it didn't end all that bad for the executed: "Soar towards heaven, fly, poor souls, fly up to enjoy, the peace of the Lord!".
Konwitschnys production tries to achieve three things with this problematic scence. First it seeks to make the audience actually realize that something horrible is happening on stage (thus the image of a modern day execution on the wall [which is, if I remember correctly, in no way tied to the Nazis, although it is surely from that time].
Second, he intends to make the audience aware of the fact that they are not much better than the crowd on stage, who is actually looking forward to the exeuction on stage ("The day of rejoicing has dawned"). In order to do so, Konwitschny installed large flatscreens all over the Hamburg State Opera where a newsspeaker announces in the first break that the execution is soon to begin. To mimic the audience, the choir itself is dressed in formal clothes, while drinking champagne during the Autodafe.
Third, he tries to expose the voice from heaven as nothing more than a cheap attempt to take the horror out of the scene. Thus, the monroe-like appearence of the voice.
So yes, this is not very subtle. But I believe it does have merit. It is also certainly very theatric and effective and it stays true to what is actually happening. At least in Hamburg, it was also a Box Office success, although I believe that it does not sell well in Vienna.
Those of you, who are sceptical, there is still a chance to see and judge for yourself. It is still part the repertoire of the Hamburg and the Vienna State Opera in 2008. Obviously, there is also a DVD from this production
As Kevin Comer and others said, it's Verdi's Don Carlos. I saw it at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in Barcelona, last year, with Adrianne Pieczonka, Carlos Árlvarez, Sonia Ganassi, Franco Farina and Giacomo Prestia in the leading roles.
Oh, how disappointing to actually have an answer. I was formulating a very good case for Cosi.
It looks like Fledermaus, so it must be Don Carlos.
I was certain it was Evita.
Micaëla said "I've seen this one, so I won't say."
What a shame that not everyone has such good manners.
Before I read the comments I was convinced it was Figaro. That Figaro in the bedroom with Countess and Susanna, the champagne bottle symbolising Il Conte's intention to take his droit de seigneur. Cherubino is played by an aging countertenor.
I was convinced it was Tannhauser. First the Venusberg scene and then Elizabeth singing Dich Teure...
There's a bear under the table, so I'm going with "Siegfried," Act 1. With the Rheinmaidens making an unexpected appearance.
So much for the fun of guessing. Oh well. I'm gonna guess Ariadne.
I can't believe the last mystery-production was Tristan. After a couple of relatively easy ones, La Cieca has certainly upped the ante!
those would be great sets for Vanessa, especially the top one
But he probably borrowed the wallpaper from Richard Jones.
What is a teddy bear doing in Don Carlos?
Hmm. Don Carlo. With a director's comment on the real-life audience tacitly approving of the horror of the auto da fe scene. Maybe the director doesn't realize that the audience is not approving heretic burning in and of itself, but Verdi's music and Schiller's drama.
It would work for me if the director permitted real-life audience participation: We who pay our exorbitant ticket prices for this sort of thing should be permitted to storm the director's dressing room as a real life alternative to the Prison Scene: "La popula e in furor! E il directore che la vuol!"
Hahaha @ Posa is delivering the pizza but not yet arrived. I am sooooo glad I haven't travelled and spent good money to see this production. You can hear the Vienna cast on an Orfeo DVD and it ain't pretty. I've also managed to avoid the Konwitschny "schoolroom" Lohengrin with Ortrud as the school bully. Watching Act One of his Munich Tristan with Waltraud Meier and Marjana Lipovsek sipping cocktails and Jon Frederic West's face half covered with shaving foam was enough for me.
Hahaha @ Posa is delivering the pizza but not yet arrived. I am sooooo glad I haven't travelled and spent good money to see this production. You can hear the Vienna cast on an Orfeo DVD and it ain't pretty. I've also managed to avoid the Konwitschny "schoolroom" Lohengrin with Ortrud as the school bully. Watching Act One of his Munich Tristan with Waltraud Meier and Marjana Lipovsek sipping cocktails and Jon Frederic West's face half covered with shaving foam was enough for me.
regina delle fate: I've heard about that schoolroom Lohengrin. I haven't seen it but I think it's kinda cool that, in Act II, Ortrud and Teleramund are in detention. At least it makes sense within the konzept.
If Konwitschny et al. want to "make audiences aware" of something, they should compose their own operas.
Newcomers to the regie races need to be reminded that they should abstain if they know the answer. I chalk it up to ignorance as opposed to rudeness.
Spilling the beans should be sternly frowned upon, yes, but more than getting the right answer, what intrigues me is thinking about how many different operas you really could force into any of these "concepts." For this one, I was torn between two totally different (to say the least) operas: Cenerentola (some stepsister scene above, finale below) and Rheingold (celebrating the opening of Valhalla above, Erda's Weiche Wotan - can you imagine? - below). Thanks, La, for this thought-provoking series.
I'm shocked, shocked ... and Shocked German has made, I must say, just about the best case for Regietheater (at least a la Kondwitschny) that I've seen. I'd very much like to see Don Carlos done like this, and his Lohengrin too ... and then have the option of seeing them done with rather more regard for the composer's intentions. (I certainly always prefer Don Carlos in French.)
I suppose it's too late to guess The Rake's Progress?
Bolshoipavel,
You suggest that "If Konwitschny et al. want to 'make audiences aware' of something, they should compose their own operas." It's interesting to count the number of times I've heard opera "lovers" say this, compared to the thorough bashing they tend to give any new score that actually does attempt to make a statement.
I don't know you—maybe you're wild about bold new operas, and you can't wait till Berio and Ligeti get their day at the Met. But usually the implication of a line like that is, "If Konwitschny et al. want to 'make audiences aware' of something, they should compose their own operas, so I don't have to hear it."
But the really interesting thing about this cliché is how true it probably is. I think that some of this regie can be really moving and enlightening—as, suggest the comments here, this Don Carlo production turned out to be. But why not put on a new opera?
Why are so many opera houses content to put on a production that comments on Verdi or Mozart by putting new clothes on it, then leaving the words and music exactly the same? Why not commission a brand-new opera that comments on Verdi or Mozart in a sophisticated way?
My guess: money. It's just cheaper when the composer is long-dead, and you don't have to pay his publisher. And opera fans (ahem) tend to be a pretty conservative bunch, meaning that you're more likely to get butts in seats advertising Verdi than Berio, no matter who's designing the sets.
So if you want to put an end to distracting direction, put your money where your mouth is, and support your local composer.
'...But usually the implication of a line like that is, "If Konwitschny et al. want to 'make audiences aware' of something, they should compose their own operas, so I don't have to hear it." '
I took that to mean that they should compose their own operas, and leave Verdi/Schiller and Mozart/daPonte, et al intact. I will hear new composers and their works if it looks like they have something to say.
What I don't like is to spend money on is someone who paints a mustache on the Mona Lisa and calls it a "statement" - as if that is supposed to make me aware of something other than the churlishness of the "artist" whose only art is the ability to deface someone else's work.
I beg your pardon, I didn't know we shouldn't say the correct answer. Thanks to Jeff Massie for his kind reminder.
I've seen this, and I gather various readers have already correctly identified it, so I'm not giving the game away when I say that the first image is 'Eboli's Dream' from the Vienna DON CARLOS. I have never been able to watch this section in its entirety, I always fast-forward it....
I gather the idea was to use the ballet music, OK, but almost anything would have been better than this. I especially hate the bit where Posa turns up as the Pizzza delivery man.
Post a Comment
<< Home