Touch or go?
Mlle. La Taupe continues to report from San Francisco’s Die Walküre: “I neglected to comment about the photos of the fallen heroes, posted upon the jungle gym-like structures on the Walkuerenstein. To be noted as they are photos of fallen soldiers in recent American wars. Pictures are shown by courtesy of and with permission from the families.”
Your thoughts, cher public? (Photo by Cory Weaver)
I have all kinds of reactions, none of them particularly negative. The over-riding one is, “Good. We need to be reminded to remember.” Almost as strong is why it should be confined to American soldiers, but that could lead to a lot of unpleasant political wrangling. The third is that, in my area of the country at least, we honor our veterans on at least five national holidays each year. It would be so nice if we could just once have a Pacifists’ Day. Maybe MLK Day comes close, but not really.
In a superficial way its a nice gesture to the families of fallen soldiers and a smart means of reaching out to new audiences, specifically military families who may otherwise not attend.
But since this is an opera production symbolism matters, especially when you’re taking on Wagner, and I’m taken aback by the tin ear the production team seems to have worn when thinking through the implications of presenting fallen American soldiers in this way.
I’m not sure about which wars were chosen or even the demographics of the soldiers chosen, so I’ve responded to possibilities:
A. If the images are of soldiers who fell during the wars most Americans imagine as “great” or “honorable,” i.e. pre-Vietnam, then it is extremely likely that all of the fallen heroic soldiers are white men. Considering Wagner’s thoughts on race and aryan supremacy it bugs me immensely that the producers would not realize that intermixing images from a racially segregated armed services as revered by the Gods actually reproduces the parts of Wagner’s work that his defenders continually tell us are immaterial to our assessment of him. Not cool.
B. Lets assume that the images include a more racially diverse armed forces that has participated in Vietnam to present conflicts, none of which were defensive or responsive wars, but were wars of aggression. And in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan blatant (and unsuccessful) attempts at modern day imperialism, with all the ugly racial-cultural baggage that goes along with imperial projects. I could accept a presentation of fallen heroes if they represented both sides of the conflict. But by only presenting American soldiers you are suggesting that those on the other side of the conflict lacked honor or were “unheroic” But isn’t how we feel about who are “heroes” and who aren’t rooted in our political ideology and how orient ourselves towards the world?
In response one might say, well then anything that honors America’s fallen soldiers is liable to your critics. However, I think there’s a bright, if fine, line between the rituals of honor that we enact as a culture (mass graves for veterans, wearing american flags twice a year on veterans/memorial day, remembering 9/11 etc.) and suggesting that America’s fallen soldiers are particularly blessed by the Gods. The former is part of how we shore up and define American patriotism and citizenship. The later suggests that omnipotent beings above things like patriotism and citizenship ALSO recognize the inherent superiority of our soldiers, that bugs me. Alot.
Has anyone asked the production team about this? Your idea about superficiality of a marketing ploy seems most plausible, though not having seen the production, I wouldn’t mind knowing from those who were there how it worked for and as part of the production.
Your other points are well thought out and appreciated.
I was unaware of the connection to real soldiers both times I saw the production. it wasn’t mentioned in the program, or if it was I didn’t see it. The Photos were indeed racially diverse; mostly caucasian but not exclusively. As for the era of the photos, I can’t say. As you can see above, they were close-up of the faces of men; there was nothing to indicate they were soldiers or when they served. The Pictures looked older, and were in black and white, keeping with the early twentieth century setting (I would guess the 1930s.)
To address some of the neophyte’s points (which are very well made, here’s how the photos were used:
Act Two scene one: The setting was Wotan’s office, and on his large desk sat a stack of these photos. During the argument with Fricka, she took a photo of Siegmund from this stack. It got a lot of play in this scene, finally being broken in half by Fricka and being thrown on the floor. Brunnhilde picked it up and attempted to put it back together, cradling it as she exited.
During the Todesverkündigung, at the line “Der dir nun folgt, wohin führst du den Helden?”, a group of dead heroes marched slowly across the back of the stage, carrying their photos. They were dressed in uniforms of both World War I and World War II, multiple nationalities including a Wiemarcht Officer and both British and American soldiers. It was quite chilling.
The photos were, as discussed above, most prominent in the third act. They were carried by all of the Walkuren, and were posted on rungs on the aforementioned Jungle gym-ish structures.
Sounds thoughtful to me. Can’t wait to see it.
That sounds a lot more thoughtful than I gave them credit for, particularly showing non-American heroes walking across the stage. Hopefully they threw in some Ethiopians and Japanese. That’s all Id really need to be satisfied. “Heroism” is only the exclusive province of the West if we’re unable to acknowledge that other people have perspectives and cultural values. No matter how we might feel about them, i.e. suicide bombs/kamikazee.
Many non-white persons were killed in both WWII and Korea.
I’m sure you mean well, but I’ve never thought of myself as a negative in terms of another race.
Neo:
I only have one thing to say:
Dumb idea! The production looks dreadful!
It’s not, and it wasn’t. Just like to point that out. See above for a more compleate rebuttal.
Haha. What an asinine statement @3.0
No the production isn’t dreadful, but having seen it, I’d say it’s not particularly insightful or interesting either. The soldier photos seem like many things in Zambello’s vision – neither offensive nor moving. It’s another in a series of crowd-pleasing gimmicks like the parachuting Valkyries that stand in for actual ideas. Worse yet, the direction telegraphs the emotional and dramatic content of the score like some B movie. Got a big musical climax in Act III? Don’t worry, there’s a heart-felt embrace cued to it perfectly. It’s a staging where you are explicitly told exactly how you should be feeling at all times with no exceptions.
The strength of this production lies in its musical value with an extremely good cast. (Certainly better on the whole than what the Met has promised for next season.)
outwestarts–I certainly enjoyed the production more than you did. Those parachuting Valkyries can admittedly be seen as a crowd-pleasing gimmick, but I don’t recall ever seeing a production of this opera where the Ride of the Valyries came across as a big intellectual moment. In fact, this edition was the first one I’ve seen with a staging that matched the energy and excitement of the music. Also, I don’t see anything particularly wrong with cueing big dramatic musical moments to the stage action–I rather appreciate it when these things are in sync.
I liked the fact that this production is so character-driven, and lets the big ideas emerge through their interplay and evolving relationships. Beyond the novelty of the setting, I think a major strength of the direction is that it doesn’t get in the way of the singers–they don’t come across as pawns in some great symbolic vision, but as real people we can recognize and care about. Zambello puts the characters in a realistic and appropriate context, then lets her singers show us their own ideas about these people. With a cast this strong, I thought the approach worked extremely well, and I think the director should be given at least some of the credit.
Hee, despite my ripping into the production team, parachuting Valkyries during the “Ride” sounds awesome!
SF Guy, I enjoyed it very much too. There’s a good deal of overstating of points, but that unfortunately has always been endemic to operatic direction, it’s a rare production that avoids it entirely. And a number of moments between the characters were staged in ways I’d never seen before and that I found very moving. (I won’t be specific, don’t want to leave any spoilers for Cruz!) Nina Stemme mentions in the program how much she liked the person-to-person scene work with Zambello.
As for ethnic diversity – one of the Valkyries is Black, one is Israeli, and another is from India. If we’re going to keep track, doesn’t that count too?
Batty M:
A lot of singers enthuse about the individual direction they get from Zambello – think this is where her strength as a director is.
Batty M: LOVED IT tonight. Can’t wait to go again next Wednesday. Yes, there were a couple of times I thought “huh?” but overall I thought the production really works and the singers were great or (in 2 cases) very good.
And by the way, about note-to-action cueing: the score is full of remarks like “she looks him in the eye here, and apparently the old Bayreuth performance books have every gesture pinned down to the music. “On this note you take one threatening step down left … on this note you extend your hand longingly …” etc. (Wish I could remember where I heard that.) So illustrative gesture is to some extent written into the music and it’s deeply ingrained in the tradition. Accurate timing’s important in any production, but it’s hard to imagine how artists managed to give even the illusion of spontaneity in that kind of a straight jacket. The moves in San Francisco mostly seemed very honest and genuine to me.
Yes, exactly. Plus it would be rather odd if Brunnhilde and Wotan didn’t embrace before he puts her to sleep, and it would be just perverse and counter-intuitive to put it anywhere other than at that huge orchestral climax. One should be thankful for a director who does pay attention to the score and respond to it.
Not that I’m saying that’s the only option regarding direction of the singers at that particular moment – I’m just saying it makes perfect sense if it does happen.
OUTWESTARTS–
I beg to differ. I saw the production on Saturday and thought the cast was good but I don’t believe it is “on the whole” better than what the MET will offer next year. Yes, Stemme was sensational and I doubt that Voigt has a BRUNNHILDE like that in her. But in all other respects the MET cast promises to be even better. Certainly Blythe, Kaufmann and Konig should be better than Bachle, Ventris and Aceto. Westbrook will repeat her Sieglinde. And I think Terfel certainly will at least be the equal of Delavan who has no legato whatsoever and was virtually voiceless in certain parts of Act III.
I also think anything Robert Lepage does would be more interesting than the midlebrow hodge-podge that Mme. Zambello served up. We shall see, as they say…..
Well, I’m going to see this production tomorrow night and I’m really looking forward to it. I can whip myself up into frenzy over things about which I know nothing, just like many others, but I’m going to reserve judgment this time until I see the production in its entirety. On the face of it, given the very few facts given above, I don’t see anything inherently bad or dumb about using the photos of actual soldiers.
O Neophyte has laid out some fine things to ponder, in the abstract and hypothetical.
As for why the soldiers are only American … well, wasn’t this cycle conceived as the “American Ring”? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a factor going into a photos discussion.
Ciesca and her cohorts are SO Andy Worhol with thoes fallen hero mugs
OT: If any of you New Yorkers fancy free tickets to the Met, the very amateur http://www.opera-britannia.com are looking for an amateur opera critic; you never know you might be able raise the bar on this rag and you too may get a lovely (meaningless) title to boot..
Blah blah blah …..absolute trash, bull, how about returning to Richard Wagner’s score & learn what Walküre is all about ? Personally, I have no interest in anyone’s “vision” its insulting to the Master of Bayreuth.
Okay, Papopera, it sounds like you know what Walkure is all about. I wish you’d share, because my feeling is that if I knew, I would never again tolerate the few parts of it I still enjoy.
That you “personally have no interest in anyone’s ‘vision’” makes you sound extremely close-minded, sort of the Jerry Falwell of opera. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is the sort of thing that makes me cross the street abruptly in order to avoid a chance encounter.
I question that anything could possibly insult Big Dick. At worst, he would simply add you to the list of people and things he felt superior to.
In other words, we disagree.
but it is the sort of thing that makes me cross the street abruptly in order to avoid a chance encounter.
Funny, those are the cases when I cross the street a block early so i can have that “chance” encounter…
The #1 rule for opera directors these days is to shatter the audience’s Genre Expectations.
You think Siegmund is going to pull a sword out of a tree? No, he will retrieve an IPod from Hunding’s suit pocket. That sword-in-the-tree cliche is so 19th century.
You think Lady Macbeth will sing her Sleepwalking Scene on a grand stone staircase? Nope. Let’s put her on a trampoline throwing tennis balls at her Lady in Waiting and the Doctor.
You want a blackfaced Aida and Amonasro with little sphinxes and obelisks all over the place? Not tonight, people. This is a blonde Aida in a stewardess outfit in a busy airport.
Wasn’t it many years ago that the Seattle Ring had the Walkyries riding on a carnival carousel?
And the #1 rule for griping commenters these days is to take examples out of context or (as you do) simply make shit up.
Though, to take on seriously your less than well thought out argument, yes, I think there is strong value in contradicting what you call Genre Expectations. An artistic image that is simply repeated verbatim numerous times ceases to carry its original meaning, or, more to the point, it ceases to provoke critical thinking in the mind of the beholder. That his why, for example, composers of the 18th and early 19th centuries generally expected performers to improvise ornamentation and cadential passages, with the idea that no two performances should be exactly alike.
And you’re assuming that the image of pulling the sword from the tree (that you claim you never get to see, but we know that’s not true) is by this point even presented as strongly and vitally as it originally was. Which, in fact, it almost never is: what we get instead is a lightweight aluminum or plastic replica (so as not to tire unduly the tenor and, later, soprano who are asked to wield it) placed delicately in a fiberglass replica of a tree trunk just at shoulder height (so as to avoid the possibility of a humiliating fumble of the magical weapon by a singer who, for reasons of economics, got perhaps one opportunity to rehearse this climactic moment, and that a week before the first performance).
So what should be breathtaking peripeteia turns out to be a mildly embarrassing moment of kitsch.
The director essentially has to find a new way to pull a sword from a tree for each new production, then. And, despite your silliness about the iPod, the fact is that in practically every Walkuere production ever done over the work’s 130 year performance history, Siegmund has pulled some kind of sword from some kind of tree. The sky-is-falling Ringheads, though, are going to whine and act all butthurt any time they are forced to cast their eyes on anything that doesn’t look precisely like this:
And here’s the CORRECT costume for Brünnhilde (note also the superbly realistic rocks):
http://www.isoldes-liebestod.info/Isolde_Jpg_Ordner/M-P/Materna_Bruennh2_Ba.jpg
Rocks? They look like trash bags!
Thanks, but I’d rather ogle Stemme wrapped in leather,
Brava, La Cieca. Batty Masetto’s link doesn’t make me think of the majesty of Brunnhilde, it makes me think of Bugs Bunny as Bwunhilda in What’s Opera, Doc?.
I think it would be interesting for a company to do The Ring exactly as it was staged the first time (if such a thing were even possible) just to get a feel for how productions have changed since then.
Actually, it makes me think of a large armored couch.
I agree this would be very interesting, although also very expensive – if it isn’t an artistic success (which it may well not be given how audience tastes have changed in the intervening 134 years) then some poor company gets saddled with a Ring production which everybody hates and which they can’t afford to replace for ages. Oh wait, that’s been the case anyway here in London for the last 2 productions! Bring it on! Can’t be worse than Brunnhilde having a paper bag over her head in Gotterdammerung Act II.
I once read Lilli Lehmann on the subject of rehearsing the Ring at Bayreuth, but it sounded pretty hair-raising, the contraption she had to use to simulate her swimming in the Rhine!
Zambello has turned the Valyries into Amelia Earhart-type aviatrixes (aviatrices?), but there’s a tree in the middle of Hut Hunding, there’s a sword in the tree, and for better or worse it comes out promptly on cue (and shatters on cue in Act Two). Does everyone feel all better now?
Nenetheless…I miss the shriek Rysenek used to do at that point. It may not have been in the score, and just a bit over-the-top, but I miss it anyway.
Well hey, everybody misses Leonie.
Apologies for my lack of Rysanek knowledge, but did she do that all the time or was it a one-off during the recording of the Phillips Ring? Considering how sexy and virile James King was in those days, I can see why she was orgasmic. I only heard him live once, as Captain Vere at the Met and he was incredible, I wish they would have restored the scene at the end of the old act 2, he could have sung it with no problem.
Does anyone know a) who the Sieglinde is? b) where this is from, a complete staging in a studio or just an excerpt or? Thanks!
Doubt anyone here doesn’t know what we are talking about, but just in case: Forward to about 6:30, crank the volume up, take 2 steps back and close your eyes.
I don’t think Rysanek did it all the time judging by video of the same moment on a concert in Vienna with James King in 86.
At first I thought it might be Berit Lindholm, but she only sang Sieglinde once that I’m aware of – to Nilsson’s Brünnhilde.
Henry H–I saw Rysanek do Sieglinde twice, in 1981 opposite James King and in 1983 opposite Peter Hofmann, in two different SFO productions; she did the shriek both times. She may not have done it at every performance, but she appears to have done it a lot. I remember at least one reviewer commenting on it as one of her signature touches; until I read that, I’d assumed it was in the score.
Why does this fucking commenting software have a reply option for my post with video but not for not for Lindoro, Earl Koenig (haha) and SF Guy’s? Grrrrrrr…….
[Still stunned] Well, that was pretty damn amazing, thanks Lindoro. Who needs sets for something like that? Mein Gott, what a Schrekerian Leonie would have been, she would have been an incredible Greta in Der Ferne Klang and Els in Der Schatzgraber, the voice is perfect for those roles. *sigh*
Because we can only bear three decimal points at a time.
I can see the shriek working in the context of a staged production, and indeed I’ve heard it done by Jessye and found it effective, fully aware that she’d appropriated it from Leonie, but I think in a concert performance it seems kind of contrived. I saw the look on her face and yes, I understand that she was completely in the moment, but without costumes, scenery, props, and similar dramatic involvement from her colleagues, it came across as a bit of a daft diva moment to me.
OK, I take the hint: I won’t gripe again about singing candy bars without seeing them in context!
By the way, here are a few photos (by George Mott) from Christopher Alden’s production of Turandot at Welsh National Opera in 1994.
I saw this production, which was shared with Scottish, and possibly ENO as well. I really enjoyed it and thought it rather good. It was amongst the first few operas I ever saw, aged around 14 or 15.
Nice, a good way to give a face to all those that have faced the executioner before Calaf. I especially like the chap on the left in the bottom picture.
The picture thing has been around. It’s also used in the Wiener Staatsoper production of Moses und Aron (the pictures are of the individual choristers, and give the otherwise faceless mass individual identities) and I think it’s appeared something else I’ve seen as well, though I can’t remember what.
Eaactly! The image remain, but was all crap and still is.