starkers scheite schichtet mir dort
Need you ask who discusses the subject of nudity in opera (among other performing arts) in today’s Times?
[W]hen nudity seems called for and natural, it can lend disarming humanity to a drama.
There was, for example, Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,†at the Public Theater in 2002, about a superstar baseball player who reveals that he is gay. The play could not have explored how the interpersonal dynamics of baseball’s locker-room culture are shaken by the star’s announcement without showing the players in the clubhouse showers.
. . . . Already in previews at the Broadhurst Theater on Broadway is Peter Shaffer’s “Equus,†a new production from London of the 1973 play. Naturally, fans of the young Daniel Radcliffe will be enticed by the chance to see him, our adorable Harry Potter, in the buff.
La Cieca kids, of course, because Tony Tommasini would never stoop to conscious lasciviousness. In fact, in the current screed, our scribe remains relentlessly high-minded in his rehashing of 1960s cliches about how “when nudity seems called for and natural, it can lend disarming humanity to a drama.”
Your doyenne should add here that, though she’s no Biblical scholar, she is shocked that Mr. Tommasini should be laboring under the misapprehension that the Gospels of Mark and Matthew are part of the Old Testament.
Kundry’s Therapist raised it, I thought. Anyway, I wasn’t accusing anyone, just pre-empting, Isn’t it the most common directorial idea these days that Anna DID recognise Don G and let him get on with it for a bit? Mozart and Da Ponte give no hint of going along with that.
Anyway, I think the piece is much stronger if there is genuine outrage on the side of the ‘angels’: Anna and Elvira are not sops (and I don’t mean sopranos), and even Ottavio needn’t come across as utterly wet if he’s seen as young, naive and inexperienced.
I think the problem with Ottavio is ‘Dalla Sua Pace’, really. Utterly beautiful but dramatically static and such an odd, odd reaction to the crisis of ‘Or Sai’.
That’s singer power for you, I suppose.
…right, and anyway, Cassandra, she wouldn’t have needed to “have taken off dress, corset, underskirts, and various other accoutrements” coz she probably wouldnt have been wearing them.
She was alone in her room and it was the middle of the night, (”…era già alquanto avanzata la notte…” and presumably in bed already. That’s why in most productions she usually comes out in her nighty or in a robe over it.
In actual fact though, I would tend to second you general point, especially because of all of the above. I mean just trying to hold her tight, then one hand up the night-gown, between her legs, the other, as she says herself, over her mouth to stifle her cries (attempted cries, allegedely!)… really no time to get naked or even no NEED!
(is it weird that I am being aroused by my own account of this scene?? LOL )
Yes, LVPO, very.
By the way, Behrens’ naked Brunnhilde wouldn’t have been too grisly a sight. She was no spring chicken when she sang Salome, but she certainly revealed all then. I remember getting her to sign the cover of my Karajan box booklet, between the breasts and bush of the naked lady in the art-image. She was delightful about it all – wearing a leopard-skin coat (not carrying a box of eggs), I seem to remember.
I like Kiri with naked shoulders, that is as far as necessary
Hans Lick screeched:
The first total nudity I ever saw on the opera stage – not sure of the year – 1972? – was Carol Neblett’s Poppaea at the New York City Opera. Long before Bumbry became the first nude Salome.
As dear Anna used to say:
“I. Was. Not. Nude.”
It may have looked like I stripped down to my “perfume and jewels” but we artists have WAYS.
Besides, Herr Lick, my first Salome was in *1970* at the Garden.
Hey SCARA:…
a case of signing the box on the.. BOX!! LOL!
Now I really AM aroused!… Behrens, and Solti and Box… Oh MY!
armerjacquino :
“..the problem with Ottavio is ‘Dalla
Sua Pace’…. an odd, odd reaction to the crisis of
‘Or Sai’.
But it’s an odd relationship, very co-dependent,
in modern parlance ( something of no interest at
all to 18th century audiences I’m sure) BUT,
and I’m sure this will raise a few hackles…
I thought the Peter Sellars ‘Spanish Harlem’
DON G. really worked, with the Afro-American Perry
brothers, twins, as the Don and Leporello, Lorraine
Hunt’s Elvira, struggling a bit with the tessitura
but an intense early memento of a great artist, and
the most convincing Anna/Ottavio relationship I’ve seen…certainly not the only DON G. I would want
to own, and none of the singers would compare favorably with the best, but an example, for me, of
‘regie’ stimulating and enhancing a great work.
I still come over all funny when I recall Lady Hall, as she was then, Maria Ewing come to the front of the stage and waggle all of her bits at us like a deranged Tessie Tura at the close of the Dance of the Seven (or was it 3 and a half) veils, back lit by a blood-red moon – I haven’t been able to touch a hard boiled egg since……..
Blimey, Graciella, I think there’s VHS of that Sellars DG, taken from the telly, at my parents’ place somewhere. I had no idea that Hunt was the Elvira, I’ll root it out and have a look.
And, meremarie, some of the more tradition-bound of my compatriots used to BOIL at the ‘Lady Hall’ thing. Her ‘title’, as the wife of a knight, would have been ‘Maria, Lady Hall’ which is altogether different. The kind of thing that bothers people who are bothered by that kind of thing.
Well, you know armerjacquino, life behind a wimple shelters one from the vanities of worldly jostlings- but thank you for the orientation – it will be useful for when I need aristocratic patronage to replace wire for the convent chicken coop, or freebie opera tickets to see the next nudie show
Haha, meremarie.
I’d watch out for that Soeur Blanche, by the way.
She strikes me as something of a loose cannon. I don’t think you’d be able to rely on her in your hour of need.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,799471,00.html?promoid=googlep
This is an amusing account of NYCO’s great Brenda Lewis; she was in her late twenties when she did Salome and she definitely went there. The tour mentioned in the article took place in 1949, I believe. In any event, Brenda was a pioneer in many ways, and 60 years ago she was showing ‘em how it was done. Really showing ‘em, God bless her!
Ian,
“Straight” theater came from the Greeks too, but still threre was no nudity.
armerjacquino, Blanche got the chop – I”M still here.
What was it Frederick Ashton said about the pitfalls of nude ballet? – things moving after the music stopping…….having to sing and the physical effort involved is even less welcome to watch….. Those poor opera diva/o’s have enough to contend with without having to bare their all.
Constantine- I say again- so what? Your ‘if it wasn’t in Greek theatre, it has no place in modern theatre’ argument is one of the most logically spurious I’ve ever heard. Unless you want all-male, masked productions of absolutely everything.
I long for “want all-male, masked productions of absolutely everything.”!!!
LVPO
even the road company of ‘Cacoon’?