Rear view
“The Met at this point is not a place where even a talented opera director can make good, strong work, let alone a place where a director inexperienced with the genre — as so many of Mr. Gelb’s favored artists are — can be guided toward an understanding of it.” Gadfly-at-large Zachary Woolfe takes “A Look Back at Peter Gelb’s Met.” [New York Observer]
OH and a parting thought:
Advocates of Regieoper (and opponents of traditional stagings) must argue more acutely than to say that the composer’s intentions are no longer relevant. The composer indeed had some vague intentions and some assumptions about theatrical production. There exists a broad variety of ways to satisfy them. And there are limits. That we’ve ossified the “Standard Repertoire” is no excuse (unless you dislike that repertoire – and even then…)
I never said the composer’s intentions are no longer relevant. As you point out, the composer’s intentions sometimes are vague, or, as I would prefer to put it, broad and even contradictory. The intentions that matter more are the general ones, e.g., that Verdi wanted Aida to be an exciting theatrical experience, rather than the more specific ones, e.g., that he approved costume designs in which ancient Egyptian priestesses wore bouffant tutus.
Bouffant tutus not quite. But he probably wanted them to be Egyptian priestesses. By desiring Aida to be exciting theater (I would argue that he wanted it to be stirring polemic, and that is all) this does not give license to dress them as nurses clutching enema bags. Maybe I’m being hopelessly mundane here, I’m just trying to rein in the argument about “opera as theater” as decidedly other from “Regieoper” which, I believe, satisfies a totally different kind of viewer in a totally different way.
There should be a place called Germany where the priestesses clutch enema bags under red fingernail polish. But where do we go if we want to see a variety of intelligent, subtly divergent stagings of the piece? I’m stumped.
But Squirrel, what’s an “Egyptian priestess”? If we’re going to be really historical, if she was dancing she could very well have been a mostly naked 14-year-old. Too Regie for me! So we’re still floundering around in muddy categories on the banks of the Nile. You’re still implicitly defining the composer’s “intent” in terms of your own (surely sophisticated) taste.
I’ve adored good blood-and-thunder performances by the greats of the past, but I also love me some *good* Regie. I don’t think I’m two totally different kinds of viewers.
This is a great discussion…
You saw a production where this happened, or is this a hypothetical (or, under the circumstances, a hypodermic?)
I suspect that the intentions of the vast majority of composers reflected their intention to get paid. I would guess that back in the days of singers bringing their own damn clothes (and competing via the size of the headress feathers), and the theatres recycling sets for all productions, the intentions of the composers went exactly as far as ensuring that whoever had commissioned it made good on the commission part. I can actually imagine Mozart saying something along the lines of “ja, ja, Cosi could be in ein diner, oder ein palace – you have mein money, right?”
Pirate J: sometimes I think that some people haven’t read their history. Yes, composers of the past, even the masters, had to make compromises or were unhappy with the premiere productions of their works. Someone earlier noted that Verdi was much happier with the 2nd prod of Traviata than with the first. (I fail to name the commenter not as a slight, but because the iPhone doesn’t make searching for text within a Web page very easy.) And of course, money played a role in compromising composers’ intentions, at least sometimes.
I always thought that Verdi was genius in that he slipped a very compelling chamber opera wholly inside the “extravaganza” that was needed to fulfill the commission for the opening of the Khedive’s new opera house.
The problem with traditional stagings in the current repertory system, I think, is that we no longer know how to do them convincingly the way we did once upon a time. The current theatrical language is far from the theatrical language of the bulk of the standard operatic repertory.
Moreover, the whole system of repertory opera, as it has evolved in the past century and a half, rests on the assumption that you have a bunch of more or less gifted performers in one place who by background, training and/or experience have enough in common that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every production. Outside perhaps of Germany (the home of Regie!), you just don’t have that any more. Whatever the style of the production, you have to re-invent the wheel each time.
Really, I think it’s the repertory system that’s at fault rather than any preponderance of traditional or revisionist productions.
I am not particularly in favor of the “standard repertory system” nor have I ever seen any Regie opera live, but I have to say that if the acting and singing are of high standard, I think it is enough (at least for me) to see the same production over and over. The unique talent inherent in each singer (when reached to at least its potential)is such a wonderful experience that the rest of it is usually just frosting or dog poop (depending on the production)on the cake. On the other hand, when the singing and acting is downright awful, a lively theatrical experience can often make up for it, though in my very limited, regional American opera going experience, this is highly unusual. I find the quality of singing very very high among young American and Canadian singers in this day and age, though imagination in directing IS very limited, due to the constraints of the “standard repertory system” in this region of the US.
“The composer indeed had some vague intentions and some assumptions about theatrical production.”
The composer’s assumptions about theatrical production . . hmm, let’s see. For most of the repertoire that would mean: no electricity; no A/C or central heating; eating during the performance; loud conversation by the spectators during the boring parts; and so on.
I’m arriving a little late to this party, but…
1. I would like for someone to justify the Eboli’s Dream ballet in that Vienna Don Carlos of a few years ago. I like the dvd and cds of it because it is the most note-complete Don Carlos around, but I am very unhappy at what the director did to the ballet. Having Don Carlos shout “Pizza!” when the doorbell rings strikes me as something of which Verdi would disapprove. Yes, there is ultimately audience applause and the production was a hot ticket, but didn’t Verdi expect more than that?
2. It seems there are some operas that the public sort of expects directorial “anything-goes” as far as sets, costumes, and action — Salome, Hoffmann, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos, Frau ohne Schatten, even Traviata in a SoHo AIDS ward.
Yet there are other operas that seem to be so historically time-set and specific that I would hate to think about updating and radical deviation from the libretto: Andrea Chenier, Adriana Lecouvreur, Rosenkavalier. (I had the chance to see a Rosenkavalier updated to right before WWI, and I skipped it. If you walk into a pancake house expecting pancakes, you don’t want to be told the only thing on the menu that day is sushi.)
I enjoyed (in Houston) the WW II Tosca (even though the surtitles were rewritten to eliminate references to Bonaparte and Melas) and I enjoyed a Fidelio set in a Banana Republic prison camp (with jeeps, German shepherd dogs and women carrying their signs with the pictures of their “Disappeared” loved ones). But in these cases, the director was not changing the stage action to something in conflict with what we understand to be conveyed by the libretto.
Having the baritone stab the tenor to death at the end of Puritani (Serban, San Francisco) is one of the worst directorial interpolations I’ve ever seen (after the Eboli’s Dream Burned Dinner ballet).
I’ve seen YouTube clips of the Domingo-Baltsa Prophete in Vienna (giant mice dancing around? Jean blows the place up instead of Berthe?) and I simply don’t understand the Bumblebee Nabucco. And I certainly don’t understand Posa delivering pizza after Eboli (Mrs Don Carlos) burns their supper.
It seems there are some operas that the public sort of expects directorial “anything-goes” as far as sets, costumes, and action…
Allegories and fantasies, in other words. What updating does, it seems to me, is put the emphasis on the mythic, allegorical features of a particular plot that transcend time and place. Of course, as you say, not all operas are equally mythic; some are very much about a particular milieu.
rysanekfreak: Will you say a little more about what appealed to you in the WWII Tosca, why you were willing to give that a chance when a WWI-eve Rosenkavalier failed to earn that chance? Tosca would seem to me to have one of the most specific settings in the repertory.
I love this discussion, BTW. Ideas are being discussed and shared with nary a name called or an insult thrown.
I found the NYCO’s Fascist-era Tosca (as seen on Live from Lincoln Center) tremendously gripping. I also saw a more modest production of Tosca in Mendocino a few years ago that used the same concept, again to strong effect. Political repression, political resistance, apolitical divas trying to find love and stay out of trouble…what’s not to like? Ir certainly worked for me.
However, I’d be willing to give that Rosenkavalier a look too. Doesn’t sound promising, but you never know…
Opera in Mendocino? I simply must head into the hinterlands more often.
Cruz–Re: Mendocino–they put up a tent every summer for a two-week music festival, which includes two performances of a standard rep opera. (This year it’s Carmen.) This year’s festival runs July 10-24; details are at http://www.mendocinomusic.com, if you’re interested. So far, Fanciulla is the least standard rep opera I’ve seen there, but they usually do a good job, and in recent years have added supertitles to the mix. And the scenery is gorgeous.
SF Guy: you rock! Thanks.
A Fascist era Tosca is not unusual these days. It sort of serves to illustrate a point that isn’t often made.
It will resonate with audiences who lived through those times ( or have heard about it from their parents) How much more interesting,though, to set it in the original time and let the audience think”oh, I recognize this – it’s just like the times we lived through” – thus giving a sense of the timelessness of the ideas behind the opera.
Konwitschny took a different in his May 2002 Rosenkavalier for Hamburg – it was a “time-progressive” production in that Act One took place in the traditional time, Act 2 in the 1920s, Act 3 (except for the final trio) in the present day. Ochs (Kurt Moll, brilliant musically and acting)singly remained in rococo costume throughout, emphasizing his out-of-place nature throughout.
The view of the Marschallin was quite acerbic, maybe too much so – she contemplated suicide via an overdose of pills at the end of act one, but relented. And she was NOT gracious in “giving” Octavian to Sophie …. not at all.
Interestingly, when Simone Young became both Intendatin and GMD of the Hamburg State Opera, she quickly revived several of the iconic Konwitschny-Metzmacher productions (Lohengrin and Freischutz especially) but quickly replaced Konwitschny’s production with a different one.
Last sentence: “…. but quickly replaced Konwitschny’s Rosenkavalier production with a different one”.
A. Poggia Turra: who sang the Marschallin in that Konwitschny prod? I can imagine it being great, but it would need the right singer (or at least, not the wrong singer).
CruzSF – the Marschallin was sung by jjGerman soprano Brigitte Hahn, who gave a multi-hued performance – most importantly, she didn’t over-act, with would have been too much in this concept of the role.
She was 38 at the time of the performance, a good age for that particular role; by coincidence, I caught a webcast of her singing Elena in La Donna del Lago on France Musiques a few months later, so the voice was (at least then) quite versatile.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Hahn
BTW – the Italian singer was Beczala, who appeared shirtless (he literally popped out of the Marschallin’s bed) – let’s just say that, although he sang like a god, he needed to spend some time in the heavenly branch of Crunch!
The problem with that Konwitschny Rosenkavalier was a purely financial one. I saw it the following season after Moll & Co had gone and I attended the sixth performance and it was only about 75% full. That’s almost unheard of for such a popular classic in Germany. People were still booing it over the music so that even people who liked the production couldn’t enjoy it. Hamburg can’t do without a Rosenkavalier – the Konwitschny staging wasn’t selling and the politicians were getting restless about box-office receipts.
CruzSF
The WW II Tosca worked because Scarpia was obviously one of Mussolini’s henchman. Cavaradossi was an underground resistance fighter. Tosca was an opera singer. No problem.
The costumes worked because she was wearing opera diva outfits. Scarpia entered the church as the choirboys were throwing paper airplanes, and as luck would have it, one flew right near his face, and he grabbed it like King Kong grabbing a plane, immediately bringing the whole stage under his complete control. The audience was chilled by his power. (When he later went face down and kissed Tosca’s shoe, the whole audience got this frisson of “Wow…kinky man!”)
People thought Scarpia was listening to the cantata over this large radio and when he stopped listening by closing the windows, people (later during the post-performance discussions) actually said they were disappointed that he didn’t lurch over and turn off the radio instead.
Everything else followed the libretto. It was just a case of what happened in 1800 could just as likely happen in 1944. It’s one of those timeless triangles that doesn’t HAVE to be confined to 1800. If you could have seen Justino Diaz crawling across the floor of the church to kiss Eva Marton’s foot, you would have seen something unforgettable and very indicative of his character.
This is the famous Tosca where people claim they saw a surtitle reading “Give her black eyes,” but the dramaturge who wrote the titles says that never happened. (There was laughter at other surtitles at the first performance, so that by the time I saw it, lots of surtitles were missing because Marton was not happy at the laughter at inappropriate moments.) But now, to hear Texas opera queens talk about it, you’d think that opera house seated 8000 people because so many people will tell you they were there that night and they read that surtitle “Give her black eyes.”
The reason a Rosenkavalier set in 1913 wouldn’t work (for me) is that the whole way of Viennese aristocratic life was already gone by then. Did rich women really have levees in 1913? Were marriages still arranged that way? Would a rich woman still have a little blackamoor waiting on her? Taking the characters out of their lavish costumes and replacing them with drab outfits wouldn’t convey the opulence and luxury of the period.
As a footnote, I want to mention that I used to go to New York 3 times (sometimes 4) a year for opera at the Met. I would always hope for overlapping at NYCO so I could crowd 6 or 7 operas into one trip. I would also go to the Met Museum of Art every trip just to ogle the El Grecos, Rembrandts, Raphaels…. Only once did I go to the MoMa, and that was for the Warhol exhibit (where I was thrilled to see the Liz, Jackie, and Marilyn pictures…so much more stunning in person than photos suggest). I treated opera the same way. The Met was the museum full of old masters (Don Carlo, Gioconda, Andrea Chenier). I wanted the Victrola Book of Opera approach. The NYCO was the modern museum. I enjoyed seeing Moses und Aron, Mathis der Maler, Doktor Faust there. I also saw Rondine, Attila, Pearl Fishers, Tote Stadt, Mefistofele, at a time when it was thought that none of them would ever make it to the Met. The Moses und Aron was really impressive and I liked the idea of seeing something like that at NCYO one night and maybe a Zeffirelli Turandot, Tosca, Boheme, or Traviata at the Met the next night.
As a second footnote, today I came across an old bound volume of Scribner’s 1892 magazine and there is an article about opera houses in Paris. The author tells us that a certain soprano once sang both Isabelle and Alice in the same performance of Robert le Diable and is amazed, saying something like that will never happen again. And you want to tell him about the famous Frau ohne Schatten with Jones that we were discussing a couple of weeks ago.
rysanekfreak: Thanks for such a detailed explanation! I’m so worked up right now I could kiss you.
From you descriptions, I’m persuaded that the Tosca was truly a wonder to behold, thought out clearly (I really like your line about Scarpia evoking King Kong snatching paper planes out of the air).
I can understand your problem with the Rosenkavalier. I felt a similar problem with the Traviata last year in SF. It was set during the “flapper” era and despite some very good singing and orchestral playing, I was skeptical that, during the Roaring 20′s, a free-loving woman would have cast such a shadow over Alfredo’s sister’s wedding/marriage.
Side note: during last fall’s Otello, the audience laughed (at inappropriate times) whenever Desdemona was referred to as a “strumpet.”
CruzSF: The OCP production Of Traviata was also set in the ’20′s. They felt, according to their spokesman, Mike Bolton, that the suffragette movement and the change from pre-WWI social mores to that of the flapper era was a significant watershed. In fact, I inserted the “Gerry Flapper” into the discussion and Mike went with it right away and explained to several others, who were not up on the phenomenon, how it fit right into the operatic world and therefore into the ’20s era as well.
This is why I keep hammering on experimentation. No composer of any work that we will ever see wrote it without a thought to his audience. Verdi found Traviata to be a dog on opening night but with little change in the music or plot but with an entirely different cast (and house too, I think,) it was a great success a year later in the very same city. No, Traviata may not work for you in a 1920 setting. If it works for just one person (the instigator, let’s say) it works! It may not be commercial but it works. There is more than one opera where the piece was very loosey-goosey until the last moment and things were changed because that cast that would do it was different from the cast the composer wanted to do it. (Traviata is one example.) Verdi also had to change things to meet the censor’s demands. If the composer revised his work one note, and indeed Strauss revised Salome much more than that for the French language, If the composer were no longer available, could not the words and music to fit them be revised by later artists to the kind of dialog that would appeal to a different audience? An audience such as the “post valley girl” set that we were privileged to discover just yesterday on this site? How about a revision for Tibetan? Who can complain that the composer’s “intent” was suborned? Strauss’ intent, in his reworking of Salome, (and it was carefully and painfully done, I read) for the French language suited his purpose. Could that purpose not be projected forward to a conversion into “Strine” for Harry, who says and spells his words differently than Manou and I? If not, why not? Strauss may not even have been aware of this dialect but just might have enjoyed the challenge to fit it to an antipodean mode. A whole new musical format might be born!
bluessweet, I’m open to a flapper era Traviata if someone makes a convincing argument for it. The production and the program notes in SF didn’t convince me, but maybe that hot discussion in Philly would have. It certainly sounds stimulating.
Well Bluessweet: Strine dialect conversion for opera….. Perhaps a New Years fireworks display on the Sydney Harbour bridge for the end of Gotterdammerung? The Sydney Opera House depicted as Valhalla!!!??? Manon Lescaut dying in the Great Simpson desert? No F….king way!I am already quite capable of accepting and understanding the finest nuances that a composer put in his opera, when he wrote it and what geographical region it is set. Accepting not only the time of its creation but the associated historical and social outlook as well.
Years ago, There was a bastard ‘Australianesee’ (there , a dose of strine for you !)slant, given to one production of Hansel & Gretel. Even down to references, to that god awful black muck salty sandwich spread ‘Vegemite’ (a derivative of English Marmite – Oh, Vicar, how could they!). Talk about SHIT KITSCH! I loath the fact that people cannot leave an opera alone, and just let the singers & orchestra ILLUMINATE IT in our own mind’s eye. That is THEIR JOB, ISN’T IT? Otherwise they should take a day job, sweeping floors. Do we want some soprano screaming out something that might as well be sounding like ‘Is he smart?’ rather than ‘Vissi d’arte’…? Sound recordings allow one to get away from this problem and that is why I ,(being happily -heretical) prefer them to most live opera performances. I create the ideal setting in my mind as it suits me. After all here: look at what first and foremost everybody is concerned with. The question is : when any aria they hear or see performed, DOES THE SINGER convey its meaning through its words and their artistry? Does the regie fan brigade yo wish to start an argument that only through the support of some stretched detracting concept point of view can one appreciate or comprehend what some opera is all about? Let’s get ridiculous as this argument has become, anyway.
Do we see artists at a concert recital needing a diversionary regie update setting in the background on the concert platform to show off their artistry. Do we need ballet dancers in the background prancing around during say a Mahler 6th Symphony.To unleash its own internal power, so a new modern audience for it, might understand or accept it? Just look at the televised kindergarten crap mentality of the Viennese, presenting their pretty young dancers in pretty museum ballrooms and Johann Strauss Waltzes a la New Years Day concerts! Plus all that clap -clap, crap = crap audience participation….Vomit bags ready, please!
I honestly believe the reason all this regie sets and direction shit developed, was because of a desperate need of opera companies to divert attention from the average to poor singers performing in their operas and lack of money to provide for the number of operas they want to schedule. Then, have the audiences sitting there, not LISTENING PARTICULARLY to the singers, but to be mentally detracted, musing and contemplating off on some far out mental tangent – ‘ the ideas, the confusing meanings, the supposed internal codes’ why some director took the audience ‘for a ride’. Depending on the extent of the violation: it belongs in the realm of imposed mental graffiti.
Like someone going into an Art museum, walking up to a Rembrandt, cutting pieces out of it and then patching and replacing the vacant spaces with bits of ‘mod’. Then standing back, inviting people to admire it, saying..’Come folks, look at this wonderful new brilliant mosaic I just created’. The original creator can just get fucked in their eyes.
I am proud of the best critique I ever gave a regie director. On opening night of a straight play, I sat at the end of the second front row to the stage. Luckily dead tired that night, -for the last half hour of it , I snored loudly. Friends there at the other end of the row, told me I was plainly audible. Let’s hear more of it, when we are confronted with such manipulative rubbish!
The night I saw that Serban Puritani, some audience members erupted into boos at the unexpected slaughter of the hero, which made Elvira’s joyous final outburst wacky in a way the composer never intended. (Elvira dear, please explain why seeing your true love stabbed in front of you puts you in such a good mood…) I still remember the look of surprise on June Anderson’s face at the outburst. Duh…
Not having seen the pizza dream ballet, that Puritani is at the top of my list.
Well, okay, here’s a question. Which is better: Don Carlos with the ballet staged as a sitcom, or Don Carlos without the ballet?
The best way is Don Carlos with the ballet done traditionally! It’s not an either/or world out there. I have never seen the ballet except on that one dvd. I would like to think that someday someone is going to stage it without gimmicks.
Easy, DC without the ballet. Trashy music, written only to satisfy the conventions of the Paris Opera. Plus if the includes the ballet, with their 45-50 minute intermissions, the fucking thing will end at 2PM.
“if the MET includes the ballet…”
Okay, assuming that a topic can be narrowed down to just two alternatives, which would you rather have: a)a director who knows the opera very very well presenting it to people who do not know it at all; or b) a director who does not know the opera at all presenting it to people who know it very well?
I’ll give the Don Carlos ballet explanation a shot, having seen the production live twice. There are some other things in this production I don’t think I really can explain, but I think the ballet totally makes sense.
The ballet, as you said, is entitled “Eboli’s Dream.” It’s Eboli’s domestic fantasy, in which she is living in domestic bliss, married to Carlos. The in-laws (Elisabeth and Philippe) come over for dinner. She’s a perfect 50′s housewife, except for being a lousy cook, and burns the chicken, hence the need to order pizza. Remember, the whole thing works according to DREAM logic. Posa, despite his importance in the actual opera, doesn’t really mean anything to Eboli, he is purely a figure of politics and Eboli doesn’t care about politics at all. But she has seen him around, so he pops up in her dream doing something insignificant, delivering pizza.
Then everyone gets drunk and things go kind of crazy. The baby stuff is because Eboli is pregnant--as indicated near the beginning--but I think also because Carlos has never really grown up.
Opera ballets usually have only a tangential relationship with the plot, and I think this one actually is really fun. It gives us some insight into a supporting character, and it’s a nice break from the otherwise very serious action. What’s not to love?
By the way, Carlos doesn’t say pizza when the door rings, it’s when he’s on the phone, as you can see below. Out of all the things to find shocking in this ballet, I’m kind of surprised you chose that one.
Part One:
Part Two:
P.S. I think this ballet is just delightful and am always surprised as to the number of people it pisses off (it seems to always come up here). The more significant and radical moment in this staging is in the auto de fé, but somehow no one ever mentions that. But it’s provocative and interesting, and central to Konwitschny’s interpretation. The ballet is a fun dance break.
Maybe it’s because the auto de fé is more complicated and too obviously engages with significant issues, while it’s easy to say “Posa is a pizza delivery boy” out of context and use that as an argument for the entire staging’s idiocy.
So Eboli is so psychic that she can dream about things that haven’t been invented yet? Modern kitchens? Pizza? Telephones? Pizza delivery? Champagne?
If she’s so psychic, why can’t she find a way to dream herself into a safe world of non-regie?
This reminds me of the Houston Madama Butterfly in a Brothel by Ken Russell. During the Humming Chorus, we get Butterfly’s dream of her idyllic life-to-come in the US: pouring cornflakes out of a giant box for Trouble, who is wearing Mickey Mouse ears. But if it’s the early 1900s, Mickey Mouse doesn’t exist yet, so how would she know he’s symbolic of the Good Life in the US?
Have you seen the rest of the production? It has an ambiguous relationship with time and place.
I actually did like Eboli’s Dream (on DVD). Just entertaining the possibility that they might have clowned around in other circumstances really drove home to me that in this opera – which I’ve loved for years – none of these complex personalities could ever possibly have a straightforward, happy existence, and it made their yearning for happiness even sadder.
Rysanekfreak – I have to say that Eboli’s Dream was one of the funniest 20 minutes I have spent in the opera house. Of course, Konwitschny is being slightly facetious about the jauntiness of the ballet music in Don Carlos, but it was perhaps the best directed sequence in the entire show. It may have little to do with Verdi, but it is a “fantasy” moment which throws light on Eboli’s personality. The Pizza moment is a bit cheap, but it was definitely worth seeing once. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch it repeatedly on DVD. What would you do if you burned the supper for your in-laws? I bet you’d send out for pizza! lol
My two cents: If you are talented and have interesting ideas for a theatrical performance, then create your own work. No one precludes anyone from writing a new opera where nurses hold on to bags of any sort, or women are raped and shot, or interplanetary aliens land in Egypt, etc. But to take someone else’s work and change it for the sake of changing it, to me that’s cheap. Using someone else’s idea is one thing; using someone else’s music and libretto for a different purpose, is stealing.
If these guys are so talented and have such clever messages to communicate, why don’t they create their own works?
” Using someone else’s idea is one thing; using someone else’s music and libretto for a different purpose, is stealing.” Bravo.
Too bad there’s not a critic out there with enough guts to say something like that. It needs to be said, since the composers can’t defend themselves.
This makes me wonder if in 50 years, we’ll see Dr. Atomic set in a cupcake factory.
Cupcakes are nearly as overrated as John Adams.
In 50 years, if someone mentions cupcakes, the response will be “that’s SOOOOOOOO 2008!!!!!”
But nothing is as overrated as “composer’s intentions.”
Is DocAtom one of those so time specific works? Or in 50 years when the fashion is to costume retroactively, will it be re-framed around the invention of ‘the turtle’ in Ancient Rome?
“using someone else’s music and libretto for a different purpose”
Yes, Shakespeare should always be played straight.
iltenore: one of the brightest comments in an overall excellent thread!
Where are the new composers, where are the new operas that make a difference today?
I have never seen so many things I disagree with, but I am in an unusual torpor and am not moved to say anything, although I am mulling the subject(s). Rather than sit it out entirely, I rather like the post about the alternate versions of various operas being presented side by side (thanks to — who?) Seems like a feasible option.
Betsy Ann, A. Poggia Turra suggested the side-by-side productions.
I hope you feel up to commenting soon. If you disagree with me, being reasoned and gentle. If you disagree with others, let ‘em have it good!
In a sense (and La Cieca really is commenting too much today) every production staged today is a “side-by-side” production: if you don’t care for (for example) Bondy’s take on Tosca, there are a couple of dozen alternatives on video. For that matter, it’s not like “traditional” Tosca productions are hard to come by in the US. (Maybe not so much in Germany. But they also have DVDs there.)
Where is the side-by-side Attila? The side-by-side Armida?
That was my objection to the Serban Puritani. People who were seeing it for the first (and probably only) time will always assume that the baritone kills the tenor. If you tell them, “Nobody dies in Puritani,” they will say, “Of course somebody dies!!! I saw it.”
Not to be overly argumentative here, but wasn’t Armida done more or less straight? As far as I could tell, the stage directions were followed very closely, with the only exceptions apparently due to budgetary reasons.
I have to respectfully disagree with LC here. You ARE NOT commenting too much. This is a serious discussion and no one is trying to just “make points,” which happens far too often on Parterre. Since that is the case, and since you have seen flaws in some of the thinking, at least in your experienced and well-qualified view, why wait to see if another poster might offer a counter argument? You have the counter, why not let us see it? No one here is forced to agree with you and sometimes I, myself, do not. For example, I think you can get down on some of the more popular performers and take what might be valid and useful criticism to an “I’ll deflate this artificial balloon right now” approach. Nevertheless, I respect your right to express yourself and I respect your opinion, since you have much more knowledge and experience than I do. That is not to say that, once heard, I believe the reverse of the old expression “from your lips to God’s ears.” I don’t believe that you (or anyone else) get it straight from God.
So, LC, fire away. There are plenty of contributors who will chime in, either in agreement of refutation, as indeed, it appears I am doing the later right now!
Hmmm, let me see if I understand this right. Are you telling us, Dear La Cieca, that opera performances now should be judged according to how they look on DVD? DVD now the medium through which opera productions are to be judged? If so, I gather then that productions ought to be designed for DVD viewing and not for live viewing in an actual theatre, right?
How about having “legitimate” actors on the screen miming the singing of real singers? That would really give the director the ability to develop his/her concept all the way. Wow, just think of all the possibilities! Let’s see, who would look good as Manrico? (With Bjoerling, Corelli or Pavarotti singing.) As Aida?
No, I am not saying that opera productions should be judged by how they appear on DVD. What I am saying is that there was a time only a generation ago when the only way to get the visual experience of an opera production was in the theater. At that time, an argument could be made that an overabundance of experimental productions might prevent an audience member from ever seeing a given opera done “straight.” (This was, I think, an argument often made about the so-called Neu-Bayreuth style which was so widely imitated in the 1960s and 1970s.)
The same sort of argument could be made about musical performance prior to the 1930s or so, i.e., the only way an audience could have the experience of hearing, say, Tristan was in the theater, and so it was expected that any musical choices made by the conductor and singer should be conservative, without risking “distortion” of the score.
But now we have both audio and visual recordings, a really huge variety of both. Neither is, of course, a complete replacement for the experience of hearing and seeing a work live in the theater, but they offer valuable supplementary information. So, you see a peculiar Don Carlos in the theater and you wonder what a more straightforward production might look like, it’s easy. Not like in the old days, when you might have to wait 10 years or more to see the opera again.
The first production of an opera should follow the composer’s intentions. The production with the homosexual pygamies can follow later.
-Sir Harrison Birtwistle
I once did a side-by-side showing for university freshmen of two versions of Don Giovanni – the “traditional” Zeffirelli Met production from 1990 and the one by Peter Sellars set in Spanish Harlem. I was supposed to be introducing opera to a group of undergraduates who had come from tough neighborhoods and poor high schools, but who had shown enough promise to be admitted to the university under a special program. I thought I was so clever, and that they would prefer the Sellars version. Lo and behold, when I asked them which version they preferred, they said the Met’s. They said they see that other stuff all the time and it depresses them. The Met’s version was “prettier.” A lively discussion followed, and well, I learned the true meaning of aesthetic distance and why sometimes the daring new stuff grates. Based on that experience with the toughs, it’s clear that opera companies don’t need to tart up their productions in order to attract new audiences.
Sonofamoll: From your moniker, I’d say you might have had an experience similar to that of your students. No matter. I have the same view about “West Side Story.” I get no romantic vibes there. I lived in the toughest part of town during my High School years and to me, it was not charming in any way. Thankfully, it was a walk in the park compared to the street gangs of today.
La Cieca can never comment too often for my tastes and this entire thread is an important one. I hope observers from the MET are taking note of it, but they are more likely to do so if comments were registered on the New Yorker website as well. So far there are only two comments there:
http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/look-back-peter-gelbs-met?page=0
“…wasn’t Armida done more or less straight?”
I doubt if the libretto calls for the ballet to have men in tutus on point. To hear Margaret and Will describe it each night, it sounded more like The Cockettes/San Francisco than Rossini/Naples.
Men in tutus would be the less in “more or less,” I guess.
To sort of get back to the original topic of Gelb and his new productions, in looking at next year’s seven NPs, I really can’t imagine any of them getting booed.
Ory and Nixon will be such rare unknown works that very few will know if any tinkering has been done.
Boris and Carlo are so grand that it’s hard to imagine the Met letting any hints of regie creep in.
I really doubt anyone would boo a Ring opera at the Met.
And I doubt if Traviata would be booed, even if the Zeffirelli vestals want to mourn the loss of another huge eyesplash.
So I’ll go out on a limb here and say that Gelb will probably get through the next season unscorched, even with all the inevitable cancellations.
But will they be able to sell tickets to Armida?
If it’s not Fleming
All of you Renee haters who’ve been saying Armida is a commercial failure, based strictly on hearsay, should have checked the seating charts for each performance on the Met site. I would say that at least 90% of the seats were sold for this run. That is definitely a success by Met standards.
And, if she doesn’t come back next season, you’re going to have empty seats galore.
Are there any Armida performances on dvd? I’m sure Pesaro has done Armida, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about a Pesaro Armida.
I guess I need to go over to amazon.com and check.
ROF has only done Armida the one time, in 1993 (I assume that the critical edition AFAIK there was no RAI telecast. The clips on YouTube are from the “archival” tape – you can tell as there is no visual movement of the camera, or any cutting to any alternate view.
BTW – if you ever journey to Pesaro, the museum at the house where Rossini was born will play, on request, any of these archival tapes in a small “viewing room” in the back of tjhe museum – first come first served.
I was at Armida the other night and realized, to my surprise, that I am actually excited about quite a lot that is coming next season: all the new productions other than Ory – which I know exactly nothing about – and quite a few of the revivals as well (although what were they thinking with all those Bohèmes?)
I’m a little confused by what exactly we should conclude from the Woolfe piece. The NYCO Don Giovanni was fantastic, there is no doubt in my mind, but it seems crazy to me to assert, without the tiniest sliver of an argument, that, say, From The House of the Dead didn’t attain the same standard.
But that aside, it’s true that everyone wants the Met to become a “dependable source of the kind of opera we dream of,” even if we don’t all dream the same dreams, but I just don’t see it happening with such a behemoth of an institution, and maybe it is too much to ask. We can hope that they do better work more of the time, but it seems to me that these attempts to construct an overarching narrative of the Met’s downward spiral under Gelb, and how to save it, are based on pretty flimsy stuff. (Much as with Nina Munk’s article in Vanity Fair, where it seems to me she is trying to shock people with the Met’s “$47 million deficit”, which is the accumulated deficit for many years, when in fact we are in a period in which all arts organizations are suffering, and the Met’s annual deficit, $4 million, is no worse than that for the much smaller NY Philharmonic. Although, frankly, I don’t really understand how all this accounting works.)
Well, we’ll see. I sort of suspect that the Traviata is going to have a lot of people saying “why did we do this”. Originally it looked like an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of what was a very successful production with two very charismatic singers. Now it’s going on with two replacements, much less starry. Sort of like a fake designer knockoff or a Chinese Rolex.
And the Zeffirelli widows will be screetching. Although I would be happy to set a match to that mess .
Does the Met really need to feature Poplavskaya in TWO new productions next season? Is she this decade’s Marina Mescheriakova?
The Don Carlo deserves to be booed. It was seriously underdirected and it looks hideous.
Oh, dear. And I am so looking forward to it.
I’m wondering how many of the posters here who are all in favor of protecting a composer’s dramatic intent, being opposed to regieopera, also favor protecting the musical intent. For instance, Gilda frequently ends the quartet an octave higher than written even though it throws off the balanc of the voices. Similary, the end of Ah, Forse Lui is frequently sung up an octave. And I’m watching the HD Carmen with Garanca (she is just gorgeous) and how many times have we heard a tenor actually sing the end of the Flower Song with dynamics as marked… or the end of Celeste Aida? Alayna is pretty thrilling, by the way. He just finished the duet wih Frittoli.
Hark! Are those crickets I hear?
Silly Sanford, composers intent only applies to the frocks!
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the two arias in Act IV of Figaro…
I can’t remember the last time I was as riveted to the TV as I just was watching “Carmen”, which was unusually well-directed for TV. Maybe that’s where my fellow NYers have been.
Very chastening. This has been one of the best threads we’ve ever had, and I found that if I just sat back and read (listened?), sooner or later someone would put into words everything I was thinking.
Except one point. I’ve been back through the whole thing but I can’t find who said it; roughly the post expressed the idea that The Met is not a museum; it is a place for living, breathing theatre. Two things bother me about that. First, I posit that The Met IS a museum, and second I disagree with the assumption that being the one precludes being the other. That’s when I realized that we’ve been over all this before,, and the pleasure we all seemingly took in the discussion depended very heavily on its familiarity. When we visit a museum we visit and examine relics of the near and distant past in the hope that by becoming familair with where we have been we can understand not only where we are now but where we might be going. The past is inevitable, and hence unquestionable. The Met can deal only with what is past, with what has been created, and while each living, breathing performance might seem to be taking place in the now, it becomes past the instant it occurs. For example, the upcoming LePage RING, from what I’ve seen, is already dated, firstly because it cannot occur without planning, construction, and rehearsal, and secondly because I have already seen the sketches and designs. The only way to make them “living and breathing” is to make them totally unpredictable, to announce for instance, “Tonight a member of the audience will be chosen by lottery to be impaled on Wotan’s spear.” Yes, human sacrifice sells tickets. I can picture our winner winner chicken dinner girl and her friends eagerly lining up for tickets to this very hip experience and grousing that the virgin chosen was the totally unpopular Emma Schlotbum. Carrying a sarcastic umbrella (thanks Maury, loved it.)
Okay, so what’s wrong with asking The Met to embrace its museumness and present theatrical occurences in a wide variety of styles, comfortable familiarity for those who treasure the comfortable, sterile vapidity for the vapidly sterile. Must everything be cutting edge? Especially in light of the fact that five minutes after the final curtain goes down, the totally insatiable ultra-hip will decry the production as being hopelessly Thursday night as they gambol off down the street in pursuit of new virgins to impale.