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.
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’?