Comments on: Ten Rules for Stage Directors

By: La Cieca

La Cieca — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:35:29 +0000

La Cieca can only dream of a time when her writers were simultaneously top-notch and stable.

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:19:14 +0000

Cassandra,
To be fair to Lindoro, La Cieca did tell us to stop criticizing productions “sight unseen.”

By: Alto

Alto — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:44:52 +0000

I was once in London during a stagehands’ strike and all the plays had to be performed in whatever set had been left on the stage. Was quite thrilling in its way.

By: Alto

Alto — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:42:34 +0000

“Hard” and “fast” were two words that came to mind when I saw the pic at the top of this page.

By: Alto

Alto — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:41:05 +0000

Of course this was before surtitles, but I’ve been told that in Steber performances, a change was made for “Tosca blonda.”

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:30:41 +0000

Fact is that even if it was directed at me, I have been saying the same thing. So either one of us would have given you the same answer

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:26:44 +0000

So sorry Cassy, I forgot that among us you are the only one with any stage experience and the knowledge to make any such judgments.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:30:58 +0000

Was that aimed at my post, then? Because it most certainly isn’t what I was saying. I never suggested that there was no such thing as a composer’s intention, nor did I argue in favour of total literalism. My point, which I would have thought was clearly enough made, was that great works of art can stand many and various interpretations, and to say ‘this is what the composer intended’ is a very dangerous thing indeed.

By: The Logical Tenor

The Logical Tenor — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:20:32 +0000

Wrong name in the post. This will teach me.

By: The Logical Tenor

The Logical Tenor — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:18:38 +0000

Lindoro, you are attempting a reductio ad absurdum here. You are trying to prove that there is no such thing as a composer/librettist’s intention because what the characters *say* do not seem to happen in a literal sense.

Therefore, I must assume that every time you have said you felt blue, your skin has literally turned cerulean – or when you have said you have felt light-hearted, your heart has literally lost significant amounts of blood and thus it feels lighter in your chest. When someone says they are so hungry they could eat a horse, do you dial the humane society to report a possible case of animal brutality?

It is the only explanation for someone to come up with the kind of reply you tried to pass as an argument. Either that, or in your cynicism you *are* defending Derrida’s approach here which, let’s be frank, is ridiculous to begin with (how Derrida was ever considered a philosopher is beyond me).

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:50:26 +0000

Yes, sight unseen I criticize it because in the eternity it seems I’ve been performing and sitting in an audience I have never once seen this amateur, eye-rolling cliche work. Based on what you described, I’m fairly sure it’s easy to make that assessment.

By: prunier

prunier — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:29:29 +0000

It’s a Stephen Wadsworth trademark not just to stage the overture but sometimes to begin the stage action before the music has even started at all (or continue it after the final notes of the opera).

By: RDaggle

RDaggle — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:47:34 +0000

Somebody correct me if I am wrong* but didn’t Renata Scotto direct a Traviata for City Opera with a staged prelude?

Well, maybe staged is the wrong word. But I seem to recall a tableaux vivant where the curtain rose on the scene as soon as the music began.

I do love me a tableaux vivant.

*like you have to ask for that around here.

By: Violetta

Violetta — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:13:41 +0000

I have to disagree that it is at all a good idea for directors to try being “new” by taking some expression in the libretto literally.

By: The Logical Tenor

The Logical Tenor — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:28:26 +0000

‘Struth, these self appointed overseers of the Derrida approach- where there is never any original intention but only what you want to see – are getting tiresome.

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:16:21 +0000

I meant that I posed the question here some months ago …

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:11:13 +0000

I posed this question about Verdi and the reunification here some months and commenters then could only identify a handful of his operas where the Risorgimento was a factor. Not all of the Verdi operas are about reunification, people.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:02:29 +0000

Wee you involved in it in any way? Did you see the performance?

If not, then you are criticizing sight unseen and you have criticized people for doing just that.

By: louannd

louannd — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:47:47 +0000

I vote never for Traviata. It’s one of the few I really know well, and I want to hear all the subtleties of the conductor’s interpretation without distractions. I think I feel the same way about Mozart overtures as well. All of them.

OK …maybe…more like never.

By: louannd

louannd — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:27:37 +0000

If you truly do live in the southwest (?) then I highly recommend you find yourself in Santa Fe next summer for some “professional” and, in my opinion, mostly wonderful opera.

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:51:43 +0000

More like never.

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:50:00 +0000

The commedia dell’arte staging within a staging cliche is the worst of the worst. I would have killed everyone around me and myself if I’d had to do a production like that, ESPECIALLY of Giovanni, which doesn’t need that kind of bullshit.

By: Verdilover

Verdilover — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:23:19 +0000

More like 1 out a 100 in my experience.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:35:59 +0000

This comment should’ve been in the elektra chat. I have several pages of parterre open at the same time.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:30:40 +0000

Help! Confusing positioning of posts. I think we’re on the same page.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:25:18 +0000

Lindoro- per your post below, which I can’t for some reason reply to, I utterly agree. That, I hoped, was my point- that there are endless possible interpretations for what the libretto is saying (and even more for what the music is) therefore to say ‘this is wrong’ is a sterile approach.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:24:50 +0000

OK, take that back. Damn!

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:21:40 +0000

How many times have composers set the words morir mi sento, or the more poetic mi sento morir, or sento la morte per me avanzar to music and yet the women do not drop dead? I agree with you that it can be argued, but taking those words that literally seems shortsighted.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:15:18 +0000

This is the kid of tirade that is non sensical. Why spew this much poison when Daggle is actually right on the comment.

If we were to take Verdi’s comment literraly, then the new cause would have been the Unification of Europe and the fact that more and more countries choose to join the union and the fact that in a future, distant or not, the countries of the EU will find that some of their differences are strong enough to have one of them threaten with leaving the union.

These self appointed overseers of the composers intentions are getting tiresome.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:06:53 +0000

Sorry for double post, but I’ve just noticed the reference to the Komponist shooting himself in a production of ‘Ariadne’. Again, it’s perfectly arguable as an interpretation of the work: his last words, roughly translated, are ‘Who has dragged me into this world, let me die in my own’. It may ‘go against the comic grain’ but bringing a tragic moment into a comedy, or a comic one into a tragedy, is the oldest trick in the book.