As I sat watching Washington National Opera’s predictably acceptable season-closing production of Tosca with a friend (following a dinner at which an evaluation of the recent, Camp-themed Met Gala and the essay that inspired it was the dominant topic of conversation), it dawned on me why I have never been truly gripped by this ubiquitous piece my “Musical Dramaturgy” professor in Bologna called the “pinnacle of Italian melodrama”: Tosca, as it exists now, can’t be real, spontaneous drama–it’s just Camp. Read more »
Harry Rose
When you think about it, is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact, or, for that matter, a point, than Eugene Onegin? Read more »
“Non mi dispiace” seemed to be the general consensus in the loggione December 7 when Verdi’s Attila came roaring into La Scala to open the 2018-19 season. Read more »
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“Having just the vision’s no solution.”
Though a number like “I’m Still Here” might fall into the trap of camp performance, a deeper look at the structure of the song says a good deal about Sondheim’s postmodern tendencies. In a way, Carlotta is just another example of a Sondheim character whose narrative is presented that of failure in life. Read more »
The singularity of Stephen Sondheim contributes to the conception of him as a camp figure.
Patrice Chéreau‘s Elektra brims with ideas beyond its eschewing of the opera’s standard, hysterical trappings.
Lohengrin descended upon the Wiener Staatsoper this month like American college students to Oktoberfest: loudly, spastically, not especially coherent, and in full lederhosen and dirndls.
The whole performance reminded me of what Butterfly as I have never known it, but often herad about it, can be.
Cher Public