European males talk among themselves
La Cieca sat in on the “Cognitive Theater” discussion tonight at the New York Public Library, and the main impression she came away with is that Patrice Chéreau is a very quiet, soft-spoken man who happens to be a genius. (She was expecting something more fiery, but like many of the great divas, it seems this stage director saves his “flame” for the work.)
Luc Bondy came off as a serious artist who either has run out of particularly interesting things to say in his work or else (maybe more likely) not a good fit for directing Tosca. Neither he nor Chéreau are in any sense opera queens, which is maybe more off-putting to other people than it is to me.
Bondy did say that he thought (and he seemed to be weighing his words carefully here) that Tosca is a “wonderful and awful” opera with some “completely stupid” moments: a “good, thrilling” piece but a “trivial” story. The weak moments of the opera can be glossed over, like bad food with a rich sauce, which Bondy said was, as he understood it, Zeffirelli’s approach. (The takeaway snipe of the evening was in reference to the Zef: “He should remember Puccini wrote this opera, not Zeffirelli.”)
He wanted, he said, to try for a “human” approach, to make the action more believable. This is the source of Tosca’s finding the knife early, for example: Bondy feels that as written the melodrama is too “convenient.” He added that he did not realize that in New York Tosca was like the Bible.
A lot of back and forth about booing, and Chéreau was rather gallant here in recalling the Bayreuth Ring, though it’s scary to think that this was now 33 years ago! (Scary to me, I mean. He seemed all right with it.) Nobody wants to make a scandal, they all assured us, what they try to do is to tell the story. Bondy did say that the audience reaction was not particulary important because by the time the audience sees the production, his work is completely done. He added a funny analysis of why booing sounds so loud even when only a few people do it: the “r” in “bravo” interrupts the sound, whereas the “oo” in boo projects very well.
Bartlett Sher was a little more PC and, in the American style, very verbal about his concept for Les Contes d’Hoffmann. His point of departure is Offenbach’s outsider status as a Jew; he sees Hoffmann’s successive romances as attempts at assimilating into mainstream society. The production for the Met will have something of a 1920s feel because of a connection to Kafka that I didn’t quite get.
Again, Chéreau didn’t have any real “aha!” moments, but he sounded like he was very in touch with From the House of the Dead, how when he first looked at the work he expected a lot of “despair” but was surprised by how “full of hope and life” the work is. He took on directing it because Pierre Boulez asked him to collaborate on the conductor’s last operatic production. (Gelb says he invited Boulez to the Met but he declined.) Chéreau did emphasize that the Met production was not a revival in the conventional sense but rather a reworking of similar ideas, stimulated in particular by the different abilities and qualities of the New York cast, specifically Peter Mattei.
The interlocutor, Paul Holdengräber, got things off to a bit of a grating start for me when he drawled, “As de La Rochefoucauld once said…” and he could have spared us the anecdote about how his father was a claquer in Vienna. But mostly he asked the expected questions about missions and stuff.
Few revelations were forthcoming from Peter Gelb: he wants to build new audiences but not alienate old audiences, he does not believe in scandal for scandal’s sake, success of a production is measure in terms of audience interest over the course of a number of seasons. Some boilerplate about the success of the HD telecasts. The Met standard is the best voices in the world, the finest orchestra, heard in their full glory.
The questions from the audience ran the usual gamut from the incomprehensible to the asinine, but there was at least one good, straightforward query as to the future of the iconic Zeffirelli Bohème. Gelb answered, “There is no production at the Met that will not eventually be redone.”
Please see also the observations of squirrel and rommie. And Daniel Wakin was there too.
Ok sure, I see your point. What is the midway point between Luc Bondy and an Opera Queen? Someone not completely beholden to operatic tradition and cliche, but also someone who knows the art form?
Hans, please tell John that I very much enjoyed his Tosca review. It was well-reasoned and explained his support or lack thereof (depending on the specific topic of discussion) with evidence. I’m only sorry that this is the first piece of his that I’ve read.
John Yohalem’s review says it all. It’s brilliant!
squirrel, this is a difficult question, because everyone has a different definition of “knows the art form.”
Some would define this term as “obviously the only action possible that would coordinate with this music is the placing of two candles and a crucifix, and that’s perfect because that’s what the stage direction says anyway.”
Others would go a lot farther afield and say, “what we have here is a lot of notes and words, and their relationship is ambiguous (notes to words and even notes to notes), so let’s see if there’s a different possible meaning there from the one everyone just assumes.”
The first “type,” I think you can say, will likely be the more reliable director, but the second “type” is a gamble, i.e., maybe you’ll win back a lot more that way or maybe you’ll lose it all. But they both can be said to “know the art form.”
There’s this notion out there (not you, squirrel, but there are others) that Luc Bondy and Patrice Chereau are are some kind of black turtlenecked dilettantes who never saw an opera before and wouldn’t know which end of the score goes up, and that’s, like I said before, parochial.
It’s a very American sort of attitude that there is theater over here and opera over there. It’s certainly the case currently in New York that the opera audience is not a theater audience and vice versa, but this is not true elsewhere in the world, and it wasn’t even always true here. What caused this schism in America between opera and theater I don’t really know, but it’s neither necessary nor, in my opinion, healthy.
Or, short answer: yes, there is a middle ground of directors who are conversant with opera and yet not ghettoized into the opera house, and it’s with members of this group that I think Peter Gelb is trying to build his new productions. Which is not to say that I think this “trying” is always successful; it’s not. But at the same time it’s not the Goetterdaemmerung the pearl-clutchers are shrieking about.
blush blush blush blush blush blush blush blush
– on behalf of JY, who never does.
And on behalf of Alex Ross, he made that sublime remark about the Zimmerman Sonnambula, not about the Bondy Tosca. And while I certainly wouldn’t envy the job of anyone given the chance to stage Sonnambula nowadays (I’m holding out for the Ring myself — any takers? I want to do it all in 18th century dress and powdered wigs, set on the staircase of the Wurzburg Residenz), I do think Miss Z was the wrong man for the Bellini biz.
Alright then, good points all around. I know that Bondy and Chereau certainly know their way around the opera repertoire and you are right to point out that they are indeed the middle specimen. (That does not mean that they AREN’T black-turtlenecked dilettantes, however. I have begun to wonder if Luc Bondy isn’t one of those guys who made a whole career of dilettantism. Admit it, there ARE THOSE!)
Through all of these very interesting discussions, I find myself no longer caring really about whether the details of an opera are carried forth in the way the composer might have imagined it, and being really much more frustrated- by the absence of Personenregie and the ineptitude with which supposed “theater-people” fail to help the singers find a believable performance within their own skin (perhaps not just believable in a diagetic way, but believable all around, as an expression of SOME IDEA). If we meld these worlds of theater and opera, then the opera should be learning something from these wizards who were nursed on Brecht and Pantomime and Stanislavsky and god knows what else. Where is all that wisdom???
We can safely all agree (?) that Regieoper must not become Set and Lighting Designer Opera. Because then the singers will turn it back into Opera Queen Opera.
I attended a class tonight given by the SF Opera, the last of a series of classes about the various aspects of staging opera. Tonight, the guest was a director who has staged productions of Don Pasquale (Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar) and Der Rosenkavalier (Danish National Opera). One of the things he said that I found interesting is that he and many other directors like challenges, and so he would rather stage a “Lucia” (which he found problematic) than a “Boheme” (which he says is a perfect opera). For him, everything about Boheme is composed, every movement and everything the singer needs to do has music composed for it. In this case, if directors just follow the score and stay out of the way, you’ll end up with a great opera.
Re: Lucia, he finds many parts that don’t communicate to the audience what is happening or what has happened, or doesn’t allow enough time for things to have happened before we’re told about them (and there were other “problems” he named). The music, he didn’t have any problem with, but the dramaturgy (his word) was often confusing. The challenge in finding a workable (for him) staging would lead him to accept a directing gig for it, even though he doesn’t now “love” it.
This didn’t surprise me, once he answered the question (I raised), because two weeks earlier, when 3 musicians from the SFO orchestra were the panelists, someone from the class asked them to name their favorite composer. Unanimously, they said Richard Strauss. (A gasp went round the room.) “Why?” was the follow-up question. Answer: Because it’s challenging, and when you master it, you have a sense of real accomplishment. One of the musicians, a horn player, also listed Puccini (even though he can find himself sitting for 45 minutes during a Puccini opera with nothing to do) because the music is so beautiful.
cruz
thank you for a very interesting report!
if only we could have such a revealing nuts-and-bolts opera directing discussion in New York City! Maybe one day…
It’s true, now that I think of it, that Boheme does sort of stage itself, if the director is wise enough to listen to the music. It does not surprise me that anyone would choose Strauss as their favorite or most rewarding composer. It is music that has been extraordinarily wrought from a dramatic perspective, and text that has been carefully measured for musicality, in almost every case. Strauss is the best (disclosure: Crazed Strauss Lover here!) and never disappoints.
squirrel, I’ll have to take another look/listen to Boheme. I’ve seen it live once, and listened to it quite a few times, but I’ve yet to “get” it. It’s an enjoyable evening of music, has some gorgeous arias, but it all seems rather small-stakes to me. I don’t know why. I prefer that other consumption opera (I know have 3 recordings of it), although I know I shouldn’t compare them.
In Boheme’s favor, where I’m concerned, is that I once didn’t care for Tosca. But after seeing it this summer, I’ve listened to it perhaps 30 times, and love it. Even after coming around to loving it, I hated the opening of Act III. But the more I listen to it, the more I hear the mastery in Puccini’s craft.
Cruz (#89) – I agree with you about Boheme. It has some lovely moments, but overall … so what?