sein wir wieder coot
That bloggeress La Cieca likes to think of as “like a young me,” OperaChic, is currently and brilliantly following up on the controversy sparked by Lorin Maazel‘s grumpy condemnation of those darn newfangled stage directors who won’t get out of his yard. Consarn it. Joining Maazel in tying an onion to his belt is the doyen of operatic media whores, Franco Zeffirelli. And now the young ‘uns are answering back, more in sorrow than in anger
they should shoot the young uns….
One of my clients told me not to have a “titty-attack” last week. WHen I asked what that meant, he explained that it’s the same as spazzing out. Apparently, it’s the same as getting angry about a nude Desdemona hung out like laundry with her ass in the air, while enjoying the tits at the Folie Bergere. (not that he’s wrong, by the way)
I’ve been using ‘titty attack” since 1999 at the ripe old age of 14. It’s still one of my favorite sayings. Some of us young uns agree w/ the old coot. There’s only so much “shock” one wants to see at the Opera.
Franco *does* get on these high horses… He designed quite a good framework to show off my brilliant work in FALSTAFF at the Garden and the Met. But time passes, as those of us still in the forefront of the profession realize.
Great graphic, La Cieca, one of my favorite Simpsons moments. I think we should have an opera equivalent to Godwin’s Law: when A.C. Douglas posts in a thread, it’s dead. I’ll just cut-n-paste what I wrote over at OC:
I will say that the most powerful moment I’ve ever had in an opera house was during a Peter Sellars Pelleas here in Los Angeles, with OC’s mang E-PS conducting. The production ran during the height of the OJ Simpson trial insanity and was set in a Malibu beach house. Golaud: huge black man Willard White. Melisande: small white, blonde woman Monica Groop.
In Act IV, Golaud meets and beats Melisande after Yniold tells him that he’s seen P & M together. So, onstage there’s a tall black man terrorizing a small white woman in a town that was in the middle of a trial that had horrible racial over-and-undertones and it was….STUNNING. The crowd was blown away after that scene ended, you could see everyone around you deflating because they’d been so gripped.
So, if Beito wants to have men taking a pewp on stage, BFD, regie like the Sellars can work and to lump everyone together is kind of childish.
Back in my day, we had to make do with one trap door and some dry ice. And we liked it!
Zefirelli should leave the stage with grace, as should his prodcutions.They’ve had their time. Not all the young ones are there to provoke us with filth, but some of them do (I do not like the horrible Bieito productions, but mcVicar, Carsen and such try to keep opera alive, not turn it into a museum. Frengo, wake up! we are not in the 19th century anymore!
Something is wrong when one can go to the opera, watch say the first act and correctly predict who directed the bloody thing? It does not matter whether it is Mozart, Verdi or whatever. All the identifiable mental bar-codes of some hung up politico ‘brain fuck’, are there to see. You then, get hold of a information sheet or a programme, and find their name up there in lights. Regie directors have one boring habit: ‘they must ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING OBSCURE no one else could ever wildly imagine (‘Hallucinate about’-is a better word) in the opera. They usually have their recognisable obsessions , in full view. Source inspiration :
‘wanking themselves silly while on funny substances or reacting to surge releases of perculiar self -produced chemical reacttions in their individual brains. In turn, no matter how well they have been parrot fashion formally educated- they suffer from a form of ‘mental dyslexy’ about the human condition. They are glorified, stunted mental runts who feel the kid like need to be a talked about show-off or skite. If one had such an adult acquintance, they probably would be given the swift ‘short shift’ out of your life. Yet we see ‘operatic monkey gazers’ mimic and exclaim of their work……”Gee that was really ‘something’, don’t you think?”.
Best compromise : Get Mel Brooks to pretend to be old Pop Simpson and do his own form of regie opera for the Met or Saltzburg. That would cover all grounds and be unforgettable and somewhat unpredictable. Perhaps some naked storm trooper boys as Valyries for a start, taking their dead heroes home to Valhalla for a few little heavenly ‘rewards’! The gods asking Loge to produce some heat ready during the magic steam muisc/ Manon Lescaut dying of thirst and hunger- not finding the Louisiana desert road stop for a Starbucks coffee and a hamburger / Dialogue of the Carmellites set in a sliced bread factory / Don Giovanni set at Disneyland – after he has ravished all forms of cartoon creatures ‘he still has Minnie Mouse (Zerlina)… on the agenda’ / Salome as the kiss of the deadly spiderwoman with cynanide lips before Herod orders her ‘pinned’ as a insect specimen / Electra as Lizzy Borden at the local state agricultural show – a champion frustrated contestant axe wood chopper / Makopoulos Case as a case of crook – batch botox and bad face lifts / Kata Kabanove as being the unfaithful wife of a coach at a swimming carnival / Der Rosenkavalier as the comings and goings in some well serviced public wash room, ran by the Marsallian’s expert staff. Octavian , Act 2 – of course offers Sophie the ‘rose’- a can of rose bathroom deoderant.
Just some of the untapped amazing ideas in the backs of some regie clown they have not thought of- no doubt, just yet! Sellers and Co. , where are you??? I am waiting for my own close up shot like Ms Desmond too!’
This is one of the reasons I am rejoicing that this is Maazel’s last season as Music Director of the NY Philharmonic…”old coot” is much too much of a compliment….deadly dull is much more like it….
My favorite quote?…when Maazel feels he has to ‘protect’ the “pure heart” of Violetta….lol!!