The Metropolitan Opera, Live in PG-13
Condescending to opera lovers across America — and cheating both Bartlett Sher and Squirrel out of the simple joys of partial nudity — the Met has decided to censor the December 19th High Def broadcast of Les Contes d’Hoffmann!
It should be noted that the poitrines in question are already censored — with tasteful little pasties, yet — and so it’s not even whole boobs we’re talking about.
Apparently concerned that this production might be too stimulating to some viewers in the development of their appreciation of the art form, the House of Gelb will, presumably, pan away from the chestical areas of the supernumeraries and dancers in Acts One and Act Three, training cameras instead on— what?— Joseph Calleja‘s drooling, stupefied stare?
I am seeing this production on monday and I can’t wait to check it out- especially after reading what everyone has written here
Dear me what would they have made of Le Grand Macabre that we got here in Rome and that then went, I believe, to the ENO – why there was a stage filling nude with singers coming out of the… gasp … nipples, the .. double gasp clutching pearls nervously… vagina and the… triple gasp and averting eyes in horror… the anus of the huge lady. Why the screen would have been permanently blacked out!!!!!! Which may not have been a bad thing when I stop to think of it.
The NYCO had an ORFEO, of course, in which a couple of dozen people were completely nude in bright light for an extended period. So it’s not the live New York audiences that are the excuse for these measures. And — vide supra — even this one is all about getting publicity for the Met and its “venturesome” offerings.
It is, I repeat, brilliant.
Is the Met getting its clues from Broadway lately? Last night I had a dream (nightmare?), and it was a future Met Gala with sets from La Sonnambula, Salome and Hoffmann. It started with an Ethel Merman double coming down the aisle in the orchestra “Sing Out Louise!”, then there was the “Let Me Entertain You Number”, and finally the show stopper, “Once I was a Schleppa, now I’m Miss Mazeppa…” It’s fun, but shouldn’t the Met sometimes do Opera?
Doncha know –
YA GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK!!!
That’s what it’s ALL about, these palmy days.
Haha, now I’ve heard it all. ‘I disapprove of the Met because of what it did in my subconscious’
Varla Jean Merman live on stage at the Met!
Oh Lawwww!— Please guide me to my fainting couch! Where are my smellin’ salts?! I’m gettin’ the vapors again!!
Thanks for the replies. I have not been able to stop laughing like Resnik in the Solti recording of ‘Elektra’. I particularly liked armerjacquino’s comment.
Coming back to this thread, it is so funny the Met will censor the broadcast of Hoffmann. It made me wonder. Is a Catholic still excommunicated if he watches Jane Russel’s number “I’m Looking for Trouble” in ‘The French Line’? Will the announcer in the Hoffmann broadcast say that some scenes will not be shown because they will melt all the ice in Alaska?
We are living in strange times indeed.
I think censoring is a good idea for the HD broadcast. Given the main demographic of broadcast viewers, i.e., ones who can remember Albanese’s debut at the Met (at least at the theater I go to), the excitement of seeing in-your-face perky boobage might just be too much. Those oxygen tanks hold only so much.
I think this whole mess reflects a lack of foresight by by Gelb if he wishes to cultivate the next generation of opera lovers, as he has claimed.
I’m willing to bet that many of today’s opera lovers were first taken to the opera by an older friend or relative.
Most children ( or adolescents) are not uncomfortable with nudity on the stage. But surely it is more difficult for an older person to explain to a child what Scarpia was doing ( or having done to him) in the new production of Tosca. Salome is much easier to explain. I’m not advocating prudity ( is that a word?) but I’m asking the management to USE ITS HEAD!
The next generation of opera lovers is not going to be turned on by Hansel and Gretel or mini-Magic Flutes ( just like the nutcracker alone will not make a ballet fan) Young people need to experience the opera that adults love without being confused by subtexts provided by directors who need to find something new to say.
In closing, it’s ironic that the fear than many of us had that the HD adventure would dictate productions ( singers hamming it up to the camera, etc) is now being realized in a way we didn’t anticipate.
You know? The mention of Bondy’s Tosca made me think:
If it was OK for the Met to show the whore with a bare brest in the Tosca, wht is the problem here? Surely it can not be the nudity since in the Tosca there was a bare brest and here it is covered.
Could it be that the suggestive movements of the dancers in the Hoffman might prove too much for the blue haired ladies?
I am having a hard time getting my heard around how was one nudity Ok and the other less nude not.
Was the naked breast shown in the actual HD broadcast? I’m not sure that it was (I’d read that wasn’t going to get camera time).
Yes it did. And at least in the theater I went, there was no need for 911 or oxygen tanks (at least not above and beyond what already was)
I found the Hoffmann nudity very un-erotic. The dancers in pasties looked like bored models, shoulders sunk, and dragging their feet across the stage.
Now, for why the less nude shocks more, I am not surprised. A picture of a woman in a G-string excites straight men more than a nude woman. The fact that there is still suggestion, as opposed to full disclosure, is very enticing. What is left (no matter how little in this case) to the imagination is what it erotic. However, in this case, although the women were beautiful, I looked at them as pretty, desexualised objects. I was quite unsettled.
What, so no t, just a? My deity, who does Gelb think they will offend? Anyone who has ever attended ‘grand opera’ live and in living flesh should be offended. Lest we forget the MET circa 1985 Aida with nearly naked corp d’ballet men, or some of the very scantily clad gentlemen in Michigan Opera productions, supers who responded to ‘hunk alert’ postings in gyms, steam baths and leather bars to carry a spear (over and above the prop) across the great stage—but no t in HD. PC be damned.