putting it mildly
Tim Ashley in the Guardian Unlimited writes:
When Hansel and Gretel are out of the house, their parents (Thomas Allen and Elizabeth Connell) prepare to have sex on one of the children’s beds, and we recognise the potential for deeply inappropriate behaviour lurking behind this family’s facade.
And speaking of deeply inappropriate behaviour, is Anja Silja starring in “The Katia Ricciarelli Story?”
Shameful! Lilian Baylis would not have tolerated such tosh!!!
What’s with the reimagining of Hansel und Gretel these days? First that truly grotesque Met coproduction and now this? What is it about opera that prompts so many of it’s interpreters to take the delightful and turn it into the disgusting? (Not that I begrudge Peter and Gertrud the sex, mind you, I could use some myself.) These days it seems that a traditional production of anything would be the most shocking one of all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094243/Shock-Opera-BBC-Christmas-Day-fairytale-horror.html
See the above for more on the shock horror fest.
The extent of the sexual romp in ACT 1 was the homely Elizabeth Connell undoing the top button of her chunky home knitted cardigan.
Actually apart from the kids strung up in the Deep Freeze it was a bland production. Both pairs of kids Kirschlager and Damrau and Coote and Tilling are excellent.
Dcrazmo, tell me what’s delightful about a cannibal who devours children living in the depths of a forest, and a family so poor that in the original Grimm fairy story the (step)mother proposes leaving the kids in the woods to die so that there are only two mouths to feed? OK, so Humperdinck tones it down, but they are about to starve until Dad comes back with bags of goodies.
I’m sorry you didn’t like the ‘grotesque’ Met co-production. I’m as convinced of Jones’s genius as La Cieca is of Bieito’s (and I know Jones listens to the music a lot more than anti-music iconoclast Calixto).
As Sir Morosus hints, this isn’t a patch on that in terms of creating a world – it’s all over the shop. I have no problem with marital rights about to be exercised (abrutly terminated with ‘but where are the children?), but I do think that it’s a bit late to turn horrid with the Witch after all the picture-book prettiness that’s gone before. It doesn’t hang together.
And a few kids I’ve heard about loved that Jones show – at least there’s real magic when the Dream Pantomime angels become fourteen giant cooks serving up a feast for children dreaming – what else? – of food. The new Royal Opera production aims for that too, but messes it up.
But thank you, anyway,La Cieca, for taking the cue from Sir Morosus’s comment on the Daily Mail scandal and paying a passing nod to Life Beyond Metland.
Does anyone (Americans excepted) remember the old Pountney ENO production? Not particularly well sung (except for Felicity Palmer as Mother / Witch and Norman Bailey as Father) and set in 1950s suburban South London (Clapham Common seems too have been the Forest, with the Sandman as a drug pushing tramp etc… ) BUT – the dream pantomime brought tears to the eyes: the Sandman opened a door into the sky (literally) and the angels – the security figures from H & G’s childhood – came out. There was the postman, the milkman, the Salvation Army girl, the courting couple in the movies, the cinema usher… etc and at the first climax came Mother and Father on their wedding day – and at the big climax came Grandma with her walking stick. All in white with acres of stage smoke…
The production as a whole dealt with child abuse – the transformation of Felicity Palmer from Mother into perverted social worker / Witch was chilling – that pink tweed will haunt my nightmares!
Also Mark Elder conducted it very well indeed. Traditional by no means – but as a production for a London audience in the early 80s, quite something.
Yes – that’s the other production I love best alongside Jones’s (a film was made for TV which they ought to release on DVD, to add to the fast-growing number). The children popping up out of the ground a la Stanley Spencer at the end were also very affecting. Pauline Tinsley sang Mother/Witch in one run, though it was a real treat to hear Norman Bailey as Peter.
Pelly’s Glyndebourne show was good in parts – especially the scary hermaphrodite-witch and her supermarket house. It managed to say a few serious things with more lightness of touch than any of the others, though some found it superficial.
Felicity Palmer did some extraordinary things with the broomstick in her Witch’s Ride Kundry like transformation from Mum to Witch. How did the Dail Mail miss that.
And those crocodile skin shoes with matching handbag,
A moment of madness on Clapham Common, although we would have to explain that allusion to our American Cousins.
and at the first climax came Mother and Father on their wedding day
Just so long as Elizabeth Connell was not involved!
Regie Goodfornaught: Well…duh. The opera’s a piece based on what Bettelheim called an “experience in moral education.” OK, I get it. But it’s also a supremely beautiful work of Art — one very dear to my heart — and I object when directors stress the tawdry at the expense of the transcendant. I’m sorry, but, force feeding a child by stuffing a tube down its throat is grotesque, as is waving a severed hand in another’s face. Turning the witch’s gingerbread house into a torture chamber may be au courant, and resonate with an audience that sees dead children on their television sets every day, but it doesn’t add anything new to our understanding of the opera. It’s shock for the sake of shock, and I think it would completely horrify and disturb Humperdinck. Remember him? He’s only the composer, I know, and therefore his original intent should be of no interest to anyone…Wow, I most be more of an old-fashioned, traditionalist fart than I thought!
A moment of madness on Clapham Common
Are You Being Served Quote:
Mrs. Slocombe: Some of us don’t forget, you know! I remember being thrown flat on me back on Clapham Common. And it was the German air force’s fault!
Mr. Lucas: All the other times it was the American air force’s fault.
As for the old Pountney production, I remember at a dress rehearsal when the dream sequence occurred, rendered as 1950’s local figures from a sort of TV neverland – a cinema usherette, a baker, Mr Plod the policeman all in radiant white a then very current avant-garde director, protege of Berkoff, and the epitome of self-styled ‘cool’ (all quiff and doc martens) broke down and blubbed like a baby.
As well he might, it was pure magic I recall.
The finest Witch of her day was Our Own Sheila Rex.
I didn’t know Mrs Slocombe and Kevin Spacey had so much in common.
It’s a grotesque tale and Jones’ superb production brilliantly captured that, so I wholeheartedly agree with Regie Goodfornought. But there again Jones is used to directing operas for intelligent audiences, so it’s not surprising the Met audience didn’t get it. Oh and the new Royal Opera production isn’t in the same league but at least the withces’ scene kept the kids in the audience quiet!
A lady in an apron and pearls has to symbolize June Cleaver, who is an American cultural Icon.
And to think that for 115 years no-one actually new what the piece was all about! Thank God Mr. Jones came along to show us all. (Including us sunny and oblivious American morons.)
Well said Regie Goodfornought
And boy is the new Royal Opera production dull
dcrazmo- do you believe, then, that it is impossible for a work of great art to take on new resonance as time passes?
And I don’t quite know what you’d have a director do. You seem in your post at 16 to be criticising Jones for attempting to shed light on the worl.
That should be ‘work’ of course. Damn my fat fingers.
Oh, I love the crazy paving of threadery – where else but HERE would you get a connection between the ENO Hansel and Gretel, Mrs Slocombe (and her pussy) and Kevin Spacey?
Inevitably of course the ‘I must be a stupid American not to understand an imported Brit’s ideas’ comment has to crop up, too: that IS off-piste.
Sir Morosus – they were very obviously puppets strung up in the Witch’s kitchen, so not very scarey for most kids. Presumably the taste-police disallowed anything more realistic like the cadavers from The Hills Have Eyes.
Regie and others are right, of course. This new RO production can’t hold a candle to Pountney – we all blubbed, and Tinsley was unforgettable as Mother/Witch – and Jones. I’ve seen the Jones several times now, though not at the Met, and the cook’s feast is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in the theatre. Jones is a genius in works like Hansel and Gretel, but he lacks the naivety and innocence to take a work like Verdi’s Macbeth seriously. I am not sure I’m looking forward to his Falstaff at Glynditz this summer. His Cav & Pag surprised me, though, especially the Pag. Perverse – and unexportable – in some ways, but absolutely brilliant and compelling.
Regie and others are right, of course. This new RO production can’t hold a candle to Pountney – we all blubbed, and Tinsley was unforgettable as Mother/Witch – and Jones. I’ve seen the Jones several times now, though not at the Met, and the cook’s feast is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in the theatre. Jones is a genius in works like Hansel and Gretel, but he lacks the naivety and innocence to take a work like Verdi’s Macbeth seriously. I am not sure I’m looking forward to his Falstaff at Glynditz this summer. His Cav & Pag surprised me, though, especially the Pag. Perverse – and unexportable – in some ways, but absolutely brilliant and compelling. And, excuse me, but what is “deeply inappropriate” about a married couple having sex? Tim Ashley lives on another planet to the rest of us.
Regina delle fate
and I thought they were real kids! Real tiffin rather than from Tiffins School .
Is’nt Richard Jones a bit of a one-trick production pony? Sort of Carry On Opera?
We must consume other life to survive. The whole theme of the story is hunger. For my taste, I kind of like a house made of candy, but I would settle just as much for a grandmotherly sweet looking lady in a pink sweater who eats children. For me, the illusion of sweetness that lures the children sends a much stronger and truer message. If the grotesquness is hyperbolyzed, then the true grotesque nature of this human condition is lost.
Charm can be evil too. I think the Met missed the boat on this one.
Whoops, no need to summon Lynne Truss: I mean “Isn’t Richard Jones etc …”
Well said, albatrossity. I am tired of dictatorial directors leaving no room for ambiguity or for the audience’s interpretation thereof. It’s all part of the linear, sentiment-cleansed post-war Germanic approach to Kunst!
# 4 Regie Goodfornought: I’ve been convinced of Richard Jones’ genius after seeing his wonderful staging of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen here in Amsterdam. Not only was it absolutely spectacular in a visual way, the production managed to be profound, funny and very moving, and at the right times in the score too (a common Regie-failure, eliciting laughter in scenes where laughter can completely spoil the mood).
I was enchanted, and would welcome the opportunity to see other Jones-productions…
I find it disturbing that we’re discussing Richard Jones’ “genius” while seemingly dismissing Humperdinck’s. Typical of the times, unfortunately. I too agree with albatrossity & Thackeray: Ambiguity is always a far stronger directorial touch.
Who’s dismissing Humperdinck’s, dcrazmo?
I’d be interested to hear your answer to the questions I posed to you earlier in the thread.
Ambiguity is one of Jones’ directorial traits as anyone who saw his absurdist ROH Ring production will know. Götterdämmerung was left very much open ended.
Unlike some of German Regie colleagues he has a very macabre sense of humour illustrated in the scratch and sniff Love of 3 Oranges, Gianni Schicci, Lady Macbeth etc. He can do fun and glamour too with Trocadero chorus girls emerging from those clocks at the end of L’Heure Espagnol.
armerjacquino: Missed that post, sorry. I certainly think that the greatest works of art are those that change and take on new resonance as time passes and different generations come to them. And I truly respect a director’s right and inclination to find and present a modern take on a piece that will work for a present day audience. I just don’t think H&G supports that approach as well as other operas. The Ring, yes, Il Trovatore, yes. Macbeth without question. But bringing Grand Guignol to H&G, in my opinion, crushes it and negates what I imagine Humperdinck and his sister were going for. (And succeeded in doing gorgeously, I might add.)
Regie Goodfornaught: When Keith MC writes “Jones is used to directing operas for intelligent audiences, so it’s not surprising the Met audience didn’t get it,” that’s absolutely an allusion to us “stupid Americans.”
Thanks for the clarification, dcrazmo.
If as you say the audience didn’t get it then obviously the producer and stage director lacked communication skills. In actuality, I as well as my friends who went to see did get it, but we were not impressed.
No, Jones is NOT a one-trick pony. I’m constantly staggered by his ability to reinvent himself. Lesser directors in the theatre as well as opera, mediocrities in the proper sense of the word like Jonathan Kent, have ripped him off, but you never know what he’s going to do next.
I’ve said this before, but being told that a Jones Wozzeck, for instance, is set in a baked bean factory, or his Pag is about British sitcom/farce in no way prepared me for the results, which not only started with a brilliant mise-en-scene but sustained it. Very few regie-istas do that; many wrap the whole work around one idea – ie Tony Palmer’s Doria Manfredised Turandot – and get stuck with that.
I love Humperdinck’s genius, dcrazmo. I might agree that musically his witch is more of a balancing act between sweetness, humour and a nasty underbelly than Jones made it. But he convinced me of the work as a whole – and, yes, there’s nearly always a scene in each of his thought-through productions which DOES strike me as genius – the macabre party in his Queen of Spades, many episodes in his Ring, I could go on…and his theatre has been just as memorable.
Regie Goodfornaught: Obviously, I need to pursue seeing more of Jones’ work, it sounds very intriguing and theatrical. And not all about him.
Well, one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and Jones is VERY strong meat, but bravo for your open mind, dcrazmo.
Hey, I’m up for anything if it works. I just didn’t think the H&G worked. Is he like Carsen? Sometimes I love his work, sometimes it’s ludicrous.
One man’s strong meat is another man’s weak beer.
Carsen’s much more hit and miss, in my opinion – some shows seem very tight and disciplined, others (the Rosenkav, great in parts, and Hoffmann) a bit diffuse. Jones I haven’t seen do a half-cock show yet, and clearly the H&J amazed some of us, left others cold.
Is there something buried in your remark that I’m missing, La Cieca? How’s the hot tooth?
I thought Jones’ ‘L’Heure espagnole’ was a travesty. OK, the humour of the libretto is not that subtle, but the music is. He turned it (yet again) into a brash 70s sitcom. His obsession with big-patterned wallpaper is a bit tedious and the showgirls at the end, though decorative, were otiose. That final habanera is such sexy, spinetingling music that there was no need for irrelevant sequins and plumes.
The Schicchi was better, but it was pretty damn obvious. Not a piece I’m fond of, however – apart from the bits for the lovers.
Another thing that’s just occurred to me is how bewilderingly different Jones’s Royal Opera Rheingold was from the one he’d done for Scottish Opera a few years earlier (I never saw the SO Walkuere, done when Janeybabes was at the brief peak of her career, though Eaglen and R Jones are not two names that go naturally together). Not even Kupfer in his Berlin/Barcelona Ring after Bayreuth cared to reinvent himself in quite that way (ie the later Rings were pale shadows of the Bayreuth triumph).
Thackeray Gnomey, I’m going to do a Mrs Gundryggia and say you break my heart by not caring for Gianni Schicchi. But then I don’t care much for L’heure as a theatre piece, and I thought he saved it (didn’t think much of Christine Rice in it, though). Bryn sticking a fag in the bust of Dante was pretty sublime – and of course the connections (working boy vs the bourgeoisie in both operas) weren’t made too obvious.
For Gianni Schicchi, my all-time favourite comic opera newly-minted, I still prefer Annabel Arden’s Glyndebourne show. The Met staging got laughs but was coarse and undisciplined by comparison (though Corbelli with his Harpo gookies was sublime in both).
Regie, the Dante bit was the highlight of the production, I agree, but I really disliked all the ‘formation’ movement by the relatives. Elena Zilio was the best thing in it – she was a tough old posh Italian bird to the tips of her fingernails, but everyone else was mugging like crazy.
I can’t think why the ROH is pushing Christine Rice so hard. She’s probably a good Flora or Ines.
I was actually just thinking that I’m not that crazy about comic opera (as opposed to operetta) in general apart from the Ariadne prologue and L’Heure. The teapot and teacup in L’Enfant et les sortileges also make me laugh. I don’t even like Falstaff, and I am a big Verdi fan. Rossini’s comic music is usually much funnier than what’s going on stage, and a apart from a couple of moments of Mariandel, most of the broad comedy in Rosenkavalier is a bit of a bore. In things like Elisir they’re all bloody psychotic.
And Parsifal doesn’t exactly have me rolling in the aisles either.
After I’d been wondering what all the fuss was about,Christine Rice went and astonished me in The Minotaur. You could say that’s because I don’t know the music, but the sound she made was surprisingly good, and she looked superb – a real icon of a Cretan princess.
As for mugging, did you SEE the Met production?
I think Gianni is ripe for mugging, but it still makes me laugh out loud, which is more than I can say for any of the others usually. Jones’s Pag had me rolling about too, and what I think was his first stage hit, the play Too Clever By Half, made me fall off my seat. Ditto the Alsatian on the black and white set in A Flea In Her Ear.
Christine Rice is a pretty woman with a nice voice, but there are plenty of more exciting mezzos around, I would have thought.
I must confess I didn’t see the Minotaur … I once saw Birtwistle make an amazingly pompous speech at a concert and it put me off him for life! … Well, that and the fact that he doesn’t like to write tunes. The last new opera I saw at the ROH was Un re in ascolto, I think, but I rather like Berio. Still, at least the Minotaur had Amanda Echalaz and Johan Reuter in it.
There’s a German (Kupfer? Someone like that) DVD of Schicchi available from Premiere Opera with Duesing and Dernesch which is well worth a look, although the anti-Regie ists would hate it. It comes with a Barbara Daniels Tabarro and a Gallardo/Dernesch Angelica, both of which are well worth seeing.
I’ve only found it at Premiere, though, so the usual caveats about ordering it aged 20 and receiving it as a granddad apply.
A regie Dante opera could be put together about the lake of boiling tar in Hell that all whitecollar crooks and grafters are dumped. A scene with lots of people from Illinois and Grosse Pointe, Michigan(plus Mr. Madoff) boiling in tar would pack the audiences in. Someone go to work writing the music for this opus.
Not a bad idea, koslovsky.
This Christmas Eve I’ll sit in front the the TV with my much-prized (and now out of print) DVD of the Met’s O’Hearn production (Blegen, von Stade and Elias) and weep my eyes out during the pantomime with real angels. The rest of you may have your sick, stagy, symbolic laden Bettleheim nightmares.
Hello! Did anyone hear the broadcast of Hansel und Gretel from BBC? During the final applauses I heard a lot of “boo” and it seemed they were for Anja Silja….can anyone confirm that or explain what happened? Thanks!
Silja plays the Hexe – it’s traditional to boo the villain. When I went, she actively encouraged it. That would be the ONLY reason.
But, Windycityoperaman, the points made earlier make it quite clear that a lot of us wept through Pountney’s fantasy Clapham Common dream panto, and Jones’s magnificent banquet sequence too.
The RO show has winged creatures (not 14), but it don’t look good…
I agree with all who heap praise on the dream sequence in Jones’ production – a wonderful piece of musical theatre with the action on stage perfectly complementing the sublime music. When Jones’ productions work they are magnificent – H&G, Queen of Spades, Three Oranges. Operas with something fantastical about them seem to encourage his best work, while those that are more ‘real’ don’t fire his imagination in the same way. I remember his Carmen for Opera North which left me completely cold (and had one Leeds matron at the end saying to her companion ‘I think it was symbolic, but I don’t know what of’!).