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Iphigenia - a NY-Met/Seattle co-production - WOW


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All you NY'ers get ready for a treat in late November.

I saw the new production of Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris last nite at the Seattle Opera. It is simply spectacular -- everything about it. I give the lion's share of the credit to director Steven Wadsworth for making this potentially stiff opera into a living, breathing piece of art that is relevant to all -- whether one lives today or back in the time of Euripides. The story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and their offspring might be considered to be a bit heavy, filled with people who are helpless other than to obey the pagan Gods' relentless pursuit of vengeance, but this most basic of drama's stories and myth is really about family -- the strongest experience we all share in common (as General Director Speight Jenkins said at the Q&A).

I can't say enough about how Wadsworth made every character come alive -- even the chorus was active, engaged, part of the story. Of course, there were other contributors; most notably, Gluck himself who supplies exquisitely beautiful music: music that seemed light years ahead of its time. Listening to a pre-Mozart opera composer I thought would be harpschorded recitative with action-stopping arias with the singer center stage. Not a bit of it. This was more like Wagner with the story and music thru-composed as a unit. When I hear most composers I feel very strongly tied to "their century", to their place in the development of music, but Gluck in this opera somehow created a time machine. Bach was unmistakable as a baroque foundation; Handel naturally was there (some pieces of choral music almost were the Messiah); but WHOA where the heck did Wagner come from? There were times I even thought I was listening to early 20th century music. Gluck somehow tapped into all of that future. My next credit must then go to conductor Gary Thor Wedow who found all this in this music and communicated it. It wasn't only the sort of "intellectual" prisine-ness I love about baroque music (tho it was that too), but Wedow also makes this music passionate, expressive -- his dynamics alone were astonishing. And I have to applaud Tom Lynch too for the marvelous set. If ever there was a dark and foreboding inter-sanctum of a Greek-like temple, this is it. Yet by dividing the stage into 3 distinct areas, Lynch was able to create a space were Wadsworth could vary the action, present differing points of view, and create spacial tension.

So 3 cheers to the Seattle Opera and the Met (more precisely to Jenkins and Gelb) for collaborating to make this new production a reality (as I understand it, the first complete collaboration the Met has ever done). As a Seattlite, I am very proud to be sending this production to the great, mighty, paragon that is NYC. I know ya'll will love it -- even in NYC.....the audience of audiences. We have something going on out here where trees still grow; and you're going to say WOW too. (But then, we do share Wadsworth, don't we? :bow:.)

P.S. Be prepared for the visual as the curtain drops at the end of Act II. If that don't send shivers up and down your spine, NYC has finally jaded you.

Later edit -- I now read that this is the first co-production the Met has ever done with a regional company.

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Sandy, your excitement about Wadsworth's work is shared by an article in the latest Opera News (Nov. 2007): "The Real Thing," by James C. Whitson. This issue is not online yet.

Stephen Wadsworth, whose staging of Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride arrives at the Met this month, has had it with the gimmickry that has plagued opera production for years.

The article quotes Wadsworth who has given serious study to this piece and the period in which it was written.:

There is something magnificantly purist about Iphigenie en Tauride. It is 100 percent authentic. There is not a false bone in its body. Gluck had this revelation, he just came to this place when he had to stop, to reform, to say, "This is such a betrayal of the idea of theater ass conceived by the Greek tragedians of the fifth century B.C., and then as celebrted so brilliantly in the seventeenth century by Racine" -- another reformer. Racine had a huge reaction against the showy heroics of Corneille and the nearly social comedy of Moliere, and his last series of plays are exactly equivalent in mission and rigorous style and period vision to Glubk's last run [of oepras]. That was where the enregy of Gluck's greatest work was coming from. This was a highly principled move, an authentic gesture that came from a real conviction about the purpose of theater, and a sort of revulsion with the excesses of the 18th century, where it was art as decoration and art as ornament.

That's a kind of confusing quote, taken out of context. But the article is a fascinating glimpse at Wadsworth and the material he values.

To bad this opera is not one of the operas included in Met's Live in HD series this season! :) It will, however, be braodcast on December 8 on the Met's radio network, including many PBS stations.

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I saw Iphigenia last Sunday with the Silver Cast, and was supposed to see it last night, too, with Nuccia Focile in the title role, but I got swamped by work and will have to see that cast on Saturday night. Last night I had to make do with listening to the Minkowski recording on the car ride home.

I found the opera to be a frighteningly powerful and, despite the godly and royal character, intensely personal work. Gluck was a master of creating almost unbearable tension, and releasing to an island of peace, such as in a phrase that could have come from "Dance of the Blessed Spirits."

In this take on the story, Iphigenia is whisked away instead of being sacrificed by Agamemnon, but the price is that she is under the rule of Thaos, the Scythian, and must murder strangers to the realm on demand. In comes the newest lot, Pylades and Orestes, the brother who was a small child when she was abducted, and in whom she recognizes kinship. The analogy of Gluck to Wagner is apt in a couple of ways: Orestes, being driven mad by the Furies and wanting nothing more than peace, could be Tristan in Act III, trying to rip off his bandages to die at last. Even though there are clear places where arias begin and end, if there was any interruption for applause, it was once at the begining of the first act, and I don't even remember that. It is rare that outside of Wagner (at least for works written until the 30's), an audience will listen intensely for an entire act, and you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium.

I mentioned the Minkowski recording. In it Simon Keenleyside sings a powerful and beautifully sung Orestes, but it did not prepare me for the tormented psychogical portrait sung by Brett Polegato. While never distorting the vocal line, he stretched it to the breaking point to portray Orestes torment and imprisonment, and then retreated into softly sung, temporarily cathartic lines.

I love Marie Plette, a wonderful Wagnerian singer, who filled McCaw Hall with a brilliant, dramatic voice that portrayed the full range of Iphigenia's emotions. William Burden has one of the most beautiful tenor voices I've heard live, and while his character, Pylades, isn't close to being as developed as the two siblings, he made the most of what drama he was given, and he sounded divine. Michele Losier, a Merola graduate, was a coup in the role of Diana, dynamically charged in her lone aria at the end. The orchestra was brilliant under the direction of Gary Thor Wedow, and the chorus was superb.

I was less impressed with the staging. I thought the choreography (by former Boston Ballet choreographer Daniel Pelzig) stilted and cramped on the set. The drama, for me, was in the ways the lead singers portrayed it in their voices and in their encounters with each other.

There is a short preview video on the Seattle Opera website that is well worth watching:

http://www.seattleopera.org/tickets/2007-2...hts_sounds.aspx

The singers and conductor will be different at the Met.

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We had this production in San Francisco a few months ago, with different singers but the same productoin --

I saw it twice -- the audience was completely riveted, and at the end theentire house stood and cheered -- which doesn't happen a lot in the opera house.

The whole time I was watching it, I found myself thinking, Marie Nntoinette probably saw this when it was new -- I was partly feeling that way because it seemed as urgent now as it must have when it WAS new.

I too was really moved by Pylades -- his music is so beautiful, his devotion to his friend is so poignant and so touching. he's the only person whose emotins are not tormented -- Orestes is hounded by the Furies, Iphigenia is so torn by her conflicting loyalties -- without Pylades, there would be no sympathetic character who had a simple good emotional nature.

Our Iphigenia was Susan Graham, who was a fine singer and an equally fine actress/dancer -- and the whole show was choreographed, every move was set to the music -- the moment the knife first appeared was thrilling.

I'd urge EVERYONE who has a chance to see this to GO GO GO.

I suppose everybody knows that Balanchine choreographed Gluck's other famous opera, Orfeo, for the Met over 50 years ago (it was a huge success wit hthe critics, though management hated it), Mark Morris has also staged it -- twice; for his own group a decade or more ago, and just recently for the Met. Gluck is a seriously under-rated creator of TOTAL THEATER. Every move is choeographed.

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Yes -- and Domingo will be singing Orestes, the baritone role.

We had this production in San Francisco a few months ago, with different singers but the same production

Paul, the production in San Francisco was a different one. Physically, it was much starker than the Lynch sets and Pakledinaz costumes for Seattle/Met:

http://theoperacritic.com/reviewsa.php?schedid=sfoiphtau0607

The Robert Carsen staging was shared between San Francisco Opera and Chicago Lyric Opera. I wish I had been able to see that production last June, but I was travelling for work.

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Wow, Domingo -- that will be really something. Orestes is truly haunted -- the Furies comee up out of the floor and crawl all over him, it's like a nightmare -- but the character is SO twitchy, only a very great singer can temper the rawoutbursts and make him likeable --

Pylades really helps, since he's so devoted to his old friend, it calms US down some -- but Orestes is like a soldier back from Iraq who's SEEN THINGS , really disturbed (remember, he's killed his own mother, becaue she killed his father) and is a really jagged study in character disturbance -- bo Skovhus wrestled with it here and did fine but wasn't great -- but Domingo has a chance to make it great.

Will Levine conduct in New York? The conductor is the real story-teller here -- everything really depends on all that - -the orchestra is such a participant in hte drama, it's thrilling.

Fantastic productoin -- and I have to say, i LIKE the choreography -- yes, the moves are often arbitrary, kinda telegraphese, but the way it's all orchestrated pays off. It looks more than a little like Mark Morris's Dido and Aeneas -- the black dresses, the stabbing moves in particular -- but they're appropriate, totally appropriate to the ambiance and hte progress of the action, and some of hte quiet moments, when meaning accumulates and the sense of consequences working out logically and inevitably, just simply overwhelms you -- these are really awesome, real total theater.

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Wow, Domingo -- that will be really something. Orestes is truly haunted -- the Furies come up out of the floor and crawl all over him, it's like a nightmare -- but the character is SO twitchy, only a very great singer can temper the rawoutbursts and make him likeable --

The Furies in this production don't really show up.

I wouldn't say that Brett Polegato made him likeable, but he did make us sympathize. (He was great.)

Is Levine conducting?

Louis Langree will conduct. (Thanks to zerbinetta for that info.)

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Thank you, Helene, for posting the link to the Seattle promotional video. They did a wonderful job. As to the dancing, however: it seems there are lots of static figures in caftans, a bit of arm-waving, and a few oddly out-of-place pirouettes, each of them academic and rather dainty. Could this really be a glimpse of the dancing as a whole? :flowers:

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The set is broken into three parts: about 60% is the temple of Diana, where the dancing you saw took place. (The last scene shows dancing through the open doors of that set.) A little more than half of what's left is an antechamber, and to stage right of that is the alley outside the building.

With a fair large set piece taking up at least a quarter of the width of the temple, a large statue of Diana, and a number of choir people, there wasn't a lot of space on stage for the dancing to take place, even the more "set" pieces, which weren't shown on the video.

I didn't think much of the choreography, and didn't think the other pieces were any more effective than what you saw.

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I just hit some errant button while doing a "fast reply"and lost my much more comprehensive reply. I only have the patience to re-do it briefly.

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I see the dance in Iphigenia differently than Helene and Bart. I saw the video after having seen 2 live performances of this production (the silver cast on 10/14 and the gold cast on 10/24). I didn't find the dance space cramped because I expected it to be cramped: set as it was in a pagan temple. Also I think more classical or even more modern and familiar ballet moves would have been out of place. The time setting of this production is about the time of the Trojan War (this could be argued, but that how I saw it), and I thought the rather unusual moves and use of space to be pagan-like and added to the tension of the emotions of the action. (Well, I will admit that the guards dance was less convincing.) The video doesn't convey the impact of the dancing very well.

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I saw the Gold Cast last night, which was the closing night of the run. After silence (except for a few coughers) throughout the first act, through the final fade out on the faces of Iphigenia and Orestes, the audience burst out with applause and yells as if it were a Mariners game (baseball). Same after Act II. It was a bigger ovation than I've heard at many of the standards. Who'd have thought that Iphigenia in Tauris would have elicited such a response?

Nuccia Focile has a sweeter and softer voice than Marie Plette, but I thought the two interpretations were equally valid. Both Burden and Polegato sounded a little more raw than last Sunday afternoon, but each had sung every performance, and they pulled out all of the stops in the last one. It certainly fit with the emotional and physical states of their two characters.

I saw the opera from the Gallery Upper, and my seat is, essentially, the far right of the front of the first level up. The staging is more impressive from up close; many of the details were unintelligible from the back third of the Second Tier. The stillness in contrast to the intensity of the music came through; from the top of the house, it was impossible for me to see the concentrated, theater-like energy the singers used to react to one another, which made it virtually indistinguishable from "park and bark" ["and lurch"]. Up closer, the tension came through.

I've never seen any opera in which there is some type of pagan ritual or religious service set to dance -- Aida, Sampson and Delilah, Tannhauser, etc. -- and where the choreography was successful. Iphigenia in Tauris was no exception. bart, the dancing and gymnastics you gleaned from the video was for the Scythian men, which wasn't even integral to the plot, unlike the faux pounding by the priestesses. It moved some people around the stage and mixed it up a bit.

I am even less convinced of the pantomime that Wadsworth imposed on the final dance music than I was last week. Everything up to the last scene in the score and libretto suggests that Iphigenia does not harbor negative feelings towards her brother: even after Orestes, whose identity is unknown to her, tells her that Clytemnestra has killed Agammemnon, and in return, Orestes killed Klytemnestra, she is horrified that the only living member of her family is Electra, not that Orestes killed her mother. Towards the end, after Orestes reveals himself as her brother, he asks her, how can she bear him after he's killed their mother, and she replies, pretty much, "let's put that all behind us and be glad we're together." Iphigenia has had no hesitation until this point to hide (sing) her true feelings, yet there's no "I'm torn" aria. There's not even an aria about how much she loves her mother, who tried to intervene when her father agreed to sacrifice her.

At the end of the opera, while the final dance music plays, Iphigenia retreats and sinks against the side temple wall, holding the green scarf tat represents Clytemnestra. Orestes tries to console her, and she lashed out physically against him, until he subdues her, she embraces him, and she drops the scarf in acceptance. (The end of this scene is shown on the last part of the video.) There's nothing in the score or libretto to suggest that she lashes out against her brother. Psychologically, I agree that after her father tries to murder her as a sacrifice, Diana "rescues" her only to be dropped on enemy soil, whose king forces her to murder for him, and she learns that everyone in her family but her sister, Electra, has been murdered, she'd be due for post traumatic stress syndrome, but as in the first scene, staged before the overture, where she is having a nightmare, I'd expect her to be alone in her grief for her mother, until she put it aside and acccepted that she was no longer alone. I'd expect her to reject Orestes' attempt to comfort her as she comes to terms with the death of the mother she loved -- a simple gesture like an outstretched arm to say emphatically "don't come near!" would have done the trick -- but I thought the physical fight rang especially false.

One of the miracles of this production was how Gary Thor Wedow got a completely different period-like sound from the same orchestra that plays Wagner, Puccini, and Strauss. Hopefully Langree will be able to perform and similar one at the Met.

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Helene, let's do a little "point, counter-point" shall we? :angel_not:

I enjoyed both Nuccia Focile and Marie Plette as you did, but if I went back 2 more times, I go to see Focile both times. I just thought Focile made a better Iphigenia in acting, singing, and presence. Iphigenia "ought" to be sweet (and very feminine) in my mind. Plette's voice was huge and powerful.......Wagnerian I think you mentioned (better for a Clytemnestra perhaps). Iphigenia's role is mostly about lamentation and suffering (well, I guess the whole opera, being a Greek play, is essentially that), and I found Focile's abilities conveyed such emotions in a more poignant way.

A detail.......the "final fade out on the faces of Iphigenia and Orestes" which I found so visually powerful is at the end of Act II. This opera has 4 acts, but only one intermission which is between Act II and III. So the first applause you heard is after Act II and the last you heard was after Act IV.

The major difference in our reactions is clearly about the dance. I'll be very interested in how others react to the dancing once this production goes to NYC. I suspect my views will be in the minority. As I indicated before I loved the dance in this opera. I don't hold it up as great ballet or even great dance, but I found the dance a wonderful addition to the mood of the opera, and it moved the story forward in a very physical way. OTOH, I will admit again that the Scythian men dance was the weakest part of the dancing (in terms of being appropriate).

Enough on that, now to the new point you raise: "the pantomime that Wadsworth imposed on the final dance music". I see where you are coming from (I think I do at least), but my interpretation is very different than yours. I liked the pantomime very much. I thought it "glued" together the two contradictory emotions found at the end of the opera. Allow me to explain. Iphigenia in Tauris is a Greek tragedy, and based as it is on the dark story the House of Atreus, is immersed in a vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge as demanded by the "law" of the Gods. But at the end Gluck suddenly switches to reconciliation and happiness (far more happiness than Euripides has at the end of the original play). To my mind, the pantomime is Wadsworth's attempt to provide a believable transition between these two contrary emotions. I don't read Iphigenia's emotions in that pantomime quite the same way you do. I don't see Iphigenia struggling with her brother over his murder of their mother, but rather a completely internal struggle as she must let go of the anger, suffering, uncertainty, and cynicism that has sustained her all these years in Tauris; and instead to be willing to accept the new possibility of a meaningful life filled with family love, optimism, and satisfaction. I was very moved when she dropped that Clytemnestra green scarf since I saw that action as symbolic not of forgiving Orestes, but rather as symbolic of a wholly internal struggle where she must choose to either hold on to the lamentation of past wrongs, or to once again embrace the positives she once knew before her sacrifice. To give up such cynicism, and to believe once again in possibility, after all she has gone through, takes great courage and does not happen without an internal struggle. The near-violent struggle we see her going thru in Orestes' arms results from her internal struggle, which shakes her utterly, not from a struggle with Orestes -- he is there supporting her in his arms while she fights off her own "furies" that tempt her to hold on to the vengeance of the past.

As an aside, I felt that the love she felt during that struggle to be more for her brother than for her mother. Her mother represents the never ending vicious cycle of revenge. Iphigenia's releasing of that scarf was a rejection of her mother's vengeful ways (which, as the chorus says during the opera, can only lead to ever more killing and bloodshed).

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Your reasoning is exactly what I thought should be the point: Iphigenia has an internal struggle, one that isn't focused entirely on the acceptance or denial of her brother -- it's bigger than that: what happens when she returns home? (She's already accepted him, implicitly and explicitly in the story, after she learns he's killed her mother.) That is why I thought the physical struggle and the reconciliation between the two of them muddied the waters. I think it would have been as effective if she had gestured to him to leave her alone, leaving him to watch, but unable to act, and she could have come to her conclusion and dropped the scarf representing Clytemnestra, and walked off with him at the end, instead of them being on their knees and looking deep into each others' eyes after a physical struggle. I think that would have been psychologically more true and more true to the original. The happy dance music would then be for the Scythians, who were freed from the tyranny of Thaos and who were given direct instructions from Diana, so that they didn't have to second-guess what the gods wanted by killing all strangers in their midst, while the real drama would be the return of Iphigenia and Orestes to Mycene.

Thank you for the explanation of the acts: I still think of the work as CD 1 and CD 2 :angel_not:

It was impossible for me to tell the difference in acting between Focile and Plette; the staging did not play well enough to the back of the house, in my opinion. Focile was a more tender and sweet Iphigenia in her vocal interpretation. I wish I hadn't had to miss last Wednesday for work, but, gotta pay for the tickets somehow.

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Well, it sounds like we interpret the emotions at the end of the opera in much the same way after all. To boot, I will grant you that the quality of the Iphigenia/Orestes "physical struggle" that Wadsworth directed did appear too much like a dispute between Iphigenia and Orestes instead of him comforting her while she dealt with her "furies" (note that Diana had just freed Orestes from being further tormented by the Furies; Iphigenia must still somehow deal with her own internal "furies" without the Godess's help).

One last difference is that I don't see Iphigenia's love or grief for her mother figuring in at all. I don't remember any proclaimation of love for Clytemnestra by Iphigenia during the course of the opera, and her laments were primarily for all the ill-fated members of the House of Atreus.

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I seem to catch the broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera at the end of the first act (a couple on Sirius, this morning's over commercial radio), and I hope to hear the entire opera from the Met, but from what I've heard so far, I am loving Susan Graham's performance as Iphigenia -- her voice is gorgeous and steady as a rock -- and Louis Langree's conducting -- idomatic and rich. I think Domingo sounds remarkable, but it's a tenor version, and I prefer the baritone version and Polegato, though the singing is superb.

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I seem to catch the broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera at the end of the first act (a couple on Sirius, this morning's over commercial radio), and I hope to hear the entire opera from the Met, but from what I've heard so far, I am loving Susan Graham's performance as Iphigenia -- her voice is gorgeous and steady as a rock -- and Louis Langree's conducting -- idomatic and rich. I think Domingo sounds remarkable, but it's a tenor version, and I prefer the baritone version and Polegato, though the singing is superb.

The Met production on the radio today sounded great (with an exception, more below) but perhaps those who have seen it can tell me what the opening pantomime looks like.

The exception? The Met chorus, which I find myself disappointed with more and more these days, especially in pre-Verdi operas. The placement of the broadcast mikes only exacerbates balance and intonation problems.

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The staging in Seattle and New York is the same. The set is divided into three parts: the interior part takes up almost 80% of the stage, with about 20% of the stage(right) an exterior outside the temple of Diana. About 75% of the interior (stage left) is the temple of Diana, with 25% an antechamber (stage right) which also serves as the holding cell for Pylades and Orestes.

The scene opens with Diana asleep upstage next to the wall that separates the temple interior from the antechamber, which puts her about center stage. On the opposite side of the temple (stage left) is a rectangular box, the long part going up and downstage, that is the altar to Diana. In the mime, Clytemnaestra hugs the young Iphegenia, when Agemmemnon blusters in, pulls Iphigenia away, puts her on top of the altar, and starts to stab her. Diana descends from the flies, grabs Iphigenia, and carries her towards the heavens, as Clytemnaestra rails (physically) at Agemmemnon.

The adult Iphigenia awakens from the nightmarish reliving of the attempted sacrifice.

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The staging in Seattle and New York is the same. The set is divided into three parts: the interior part takes up almost 80% of the stage, with about 20% of the stage(right) an exterior outside the temple of Diana. About 75% of the interior (stage left) is the temple of Diana, with 25% an antechamber (stage right) which also serves as the holding cell for Pylades and Orestes.

The scene opens with Diana asleep upstage next to the wall that separates the temple interior from the antechamber, which puts her about center stage. On the opposite side of the temple (stage left) is a rectangular box, the long part going up and downstage, that is the altar to Diana. In the mime, Clytemnaestra hugs the young Iphegenia, when Agemmemnon blusters in, pulls Iphigenia away, puts her on top of the altar, and starts to stab her. Diana descends from the flies, grabs Iphigenia, and carries her towards the heavens, as Clytemnaestra rails (physically) at Agemmemnon.

The adult Iphigenia awakens from the nightmarish reliving of the attempted sacrifice.

Thanks, Helene! Is that scene included in the libretto? If so, I wonder if Paul can tell us how the other production (the SFO one) handled the scene, if they included it. I can imagine the use of video here, grainy and horror-filmish.

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The mime at the beginning and end of the opera was a creation of Stephen Wadsworth. Speight Jenkins explained in a post-production Q&A that everyone in the audience at the time the opera was created would have known the stories of the House of Aetreus backwards and forwards, and wouldn't need that backstory to establish the opera's context.

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The mime at the beginning and end of the opera was a creation of Stephen Wadsworth. Speight Jenkins explained in a post-production Q&A that everyone in the audience at the time the opera was created would have known the stories of the House of Aetreus backwards and forwards, and wouldn't need that backstory to establish the opera's context.

Well, it might be more accurate to say that there was an expectation that they would know, especially the class who would normally attend the opera. But I'm sure there were plenty of new-money burghers in the original audiences who didn't know an Aetreus from their elbow.

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