Ed Waffle
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Posts posted by Ed Waffle
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Link below.
A few questions:
1) What are sixth graders doing at a performance of Don Giovanni? While some preteens may enjoy and even benefit from such an outing, it is not the opera for schools matinee.
2) How seriously should the indignation of the parents of the sixth graders be taken? And did these parents have any idea of the nature of the work they were attending?
3) The scene in question is one in which the Don is shown at his most vile. If anyone in the audience still empathizes with him after this scene, that person should also be dragged down to hell by the statue of the Commendatore. In this scene Don Giovanni satisfies his hunger and his lust almost simultaneously and on the same table. It is meant to shock and disgust (and possibly be funny, which it can be and still work). A food fight could not have the same stark effect.
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Originally posted by kfw
I know directors have been redoing the classics for a long time, but this was ridiculous. At least the singing and playing held up. Ed Waffle, are you reading? Does anyone have any other theories?
The singing and playing almost always hold up, even in some of the most dreadful stagings imaginable. It seems as if the conflict between the director on one side and the singers and conductor on the other (transmitted to the orchestra by the conductor) gives the performance a special edge. An "us against the world" type of attitude.
People who saw the Zembelo production of "Lucia di Lammermoor" several years ago at the Met thought the contribution of the singers was wonderful, despite them sharing the stage with piles of coffins.
One almost wishes it weren't so--that the singers and musicans would react to insanity that some directors throw their way by being distracted by it. It is a shame when the singers and musicians do well in spite of the staging.
Re-imagining classic pieces can work--the Patrice Chereau directed and Pierre Boulez conducted "Ring" in Beyrueth was a real revelation and every bit as good and as true to the work as was the Met/James Levine production a few years earlier.
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Originally posted by dirac
I read recently that the contestants in international beauty pageants tend to conform to Western (in pageants, that usually means Barbie-like) standards in figure and features
While criticizing beauty pagents is a bit like shooting fish in a barrell, a recent Miss World (or Miss Universe, or something else international) was a Nigerian woman who conformed to all the Western standards but few if any Nigerian standards of beauty. She was tall and thin and probably could have hit the catwalk in Paris or Milan. According to a NYT article, people in Nigeria were shocked that such an odd looking person could have been Miss Nigeria in the first place.
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Regarding Phillip Morris funding dance:
I am pretty irrational on the subject of smoking as such for reason that have nothing to do with the subjects of this board.
However dance and other performing arts organizations should do whatever they can to get to the front of the line when Phillip Morris (I know they have a new name now) is making grants.
State funding is drying up very rapidly. Here in Michigan the arts budget has been cut very deeply. While arts administrators, patrons and other interested parties are lobbying to ameliorate the cuts, so is everyone else. And since other cuts include funding for adult education, wetland preservation, early childhood nuitrition and just about anything else you can imagine, they will not be successful.
Short of getting a gun and holding people up, arts organizations should get the money where it is available and from (almost) whomever offers it.
Those in the audience should be aware that if the ballet company they are watching does not take money from Phillip Morris, sign deals with Calvin Klein or otherwise sup with the devil that they will not be in the audience.
Everyone (including me) would like art to be somehow more "pure" and less involved in the difficult, frustrating, grubby work of getting and spending. It would be nice if ballet were above that. But it isn't.
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Originally posted by Calliope
And is it really product placement?
Yes. There will be a lot more than just a press release if Calvin Klein is going to get value for his money, which he always does. I would imagine there will be feature articles in the papers, including the Times. Morning chat shows will be asked to cover it. There may well be articles in trade journals like Women's Wear Daily and the publications that serve the advertising industry.
There will be a real effort on the part of CK (and possibly the ABT) to create a buzz.
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Originally posted by Victoria Leigh
[there is a lot of speculation that the very acrobatic work of some of the choreographers could be causing more injuries.
It certainly is causing injuries to the art form.
This is a most intriguing thread, even to one who has a hard time putting names to steps. Victoria Leigh gives a very clear description of the lack of line and, most importantly to this reader, exactly why there is no discernable line in the arabesque. One phrase that jumped off the page is "The one in the tutu has a supporting leg that is not turned out". Turnout is so basic--it is like saying that a singer can't sing a diatonic scale.
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Originally posted by Watermill
[if UAL were the official airline of the Metropolitan Opera and the airport scene in "Nixon in China" was dominated by a United Airlines 747, wouldn't that be over the line? (Ed, what do you think?) I'm probably over reacting a bit, but this feels almost as bad to me.
As I get older (but no wiser) I find it more difficult to view issues like commercialism in the arts as absolute. My ossifying brain draws fewer lines than in the past.
In the example above, if it were the only way the Met could produce "Nixon in China" and there were important artistic reasons to to do it, then bring on the 747.
I think this is much less a problem in ballet then in opera, though. The oprera world is rife with directors and producers who re-interpret classic works until they are unrecognizable. Some, like "A Masked Ball" or "Cosi Fan Tutti" have been particular targets of updating.
A quick quiz: which of those two operas opened with the male chorus sitting on toilets, trousers around their ankles and which featured one of the female characters leading two members of the chorus on leashes while they crawled on hands and knees?
Answer--it doesn't matter, since they are just the most recent outrages, soon to be eclipsed.
So "Nixon in China" with a UAL 747 constantly on stage would be a relief, since it meant the opera was actually being presented as written and not as, for example, Madame Mao's dream.
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The Michigan Opera Theatre still has ads and slogans that are at least not embarassing.
The next season for example the theme is "Surrender to Love".
The five works and their tags are:
"Masked Ball"..................Fatal Love
"Madame Butterfly".........Unrequited Love
"Pirates of Penzance".....Everlasting Love
"The Magic Flute"............First Love
"The Pearl Fishers".........Forbidden Love
Obviously a bit of mixing and matching could take place--especially since most erotic love in opera is either fatal or forbidden. Or both.
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Arts organizations, including a LOT of dance companies, have been partially funded by Phillip Morris.
Anything else pales in comparison.
Cigarette manufacturers are merchants of death. They produce and sell a product that, if used correctly, will make the user ill and shorten his life.
I am not saying that they shouldn't have taken the money but once they did, as far as I am concerned, anything goes.
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Originally posted by Watermill
But who's going to stand up to the marketing weasels and show some leadership, draw the line? Obviously, I'm laying some blame at McKenzie's feet but there should be some upper management, some board members who disdain this creeping commercialism. Someone upstairs has to have standards, no?
I am not in marketing (although I may be a weasel) but I have to take exception to that part of the post I excerpt above.
A board member of an arts organization may well disdain commercialism of the art form he supports, whether it is creeping, galloping or has already breached the walls. However unless that board member is willing to do something about it his or her disdain will have the same impact as that shown by members of Ballet Alert.
If the board member decides to do something it is a different story. And what the board member can do is simple. Tell the artistic director, general manager, whomever makes the ultimate decision, that in order to keep commercialism at bay he or she will donate the funds lost when the commercializing sponsor is shown the door.
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I live in a suburb of Detroit where the city council must have passed a law making it illegal to operate a motor vehicle unless one is talking on the phone. It is maddening.
My solution regarding my cell phone is to not turn it on. It stays off unless I call someone, which isn't very often. Since I haven't bothered to learn how to answer a call I just make sure I don't get any.
The humming problem is more pernicious, because generally the person humming isn't aware (or at least fully aware) that he is doing it. Especially during the warhorses--"Swan Lake", for example in ballet. Or most Puccini operas and many by Verdi or Mozart, Beethoven symphonies, the big 19th century violin concertos, most Mozart piano concertos.
Anything with a great melody line, particularly if it has been used in commercials or movies.
And very often the hummers are doing so almost unconsiously, so even if they stop they will start again.
With cell phones in theatres, the offenders usually know they are being loutish and don't care.
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Originally posted by Leigh Witchel
I'd argue that High Art is at its best when it's a distillation of the culture and the times.
I would agree--it is difficult to think of any real art that survives the centuries that, ironically enough, wasn't firmly rooted in its own time and place. One can read the Aeneid for a number of reasons. But an accurate account of the founding of Rome is not one of them, although that is what Vergil says that describes in it.
One of the things High Art does is take the temporal and place it outside time.Also full agreement--an example with which many will be familiar is the Mozart opera "The Marriage of Figaro." Mozart's music is as much a part of 18th century Austria as was the Holy Roman Empire. It is also as universal as any music can be.
And it is so truthful in its particulars. Take one example only--the relationship between Cherubino and the Countess. Cherubino is about fifteen years old. The Countess is in her early to mid twenties. He is completely, over the top, head over heels infatuated with her (he thinks it is love). She thinks he is a cute young boy but certainly not worth risking her already difficult position for.
He is of noble stock, since he is a page in the Count's court and is made an officer in his regiment. She is not of noble blood, a countess by marriage, although was the ward of a gentleman and is a cultured person and valuable consort to the Count.
The Count is a lout and jealous to boot. He has a tremedous amount of power over everyone, including his wife, Cherubino, Figaro, Suzanna, etc.
However, the power of Cherubino's infatuation is too strong for any of these obstacles--he needs the Countess in a way he has never needed anything or anyone before. He is being ridiculous and is a made fun of by the servants. It is dangerous and the Count is already suspicious. The object of his affection has made it clear that she is not interested in him in the way he is in her, and never could be.
None of which is important to Cherubino, of course. Anyone who has ever been in love with someone unattainable knows what Cherubino feels. Mozart and Da Ponte portray not only that someone could be in love with a person who is in some way beyond his grasp but also why he would continue to yearn and pine for the other person.
One of his arias "Voi che sapete" is a masterpiece of composition. Mozart suggests the clumsiness of youthful ardor but does so with some of the most sublime and sophisticated pages anyone has ever written.
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Originally posted by Old Fashioned
I would like to learn how to engage my parents.
You might have better luck with your friends. My contempararies, I would imagine, are people around the same age as your parents. With very few exceptions they are not interested in ballet or opera. Some are aggressively not interested.
A few years ago in Chicago one of my nieces told me how "hip" it had become to go to the opera. Part of it was acting like adults and doing an adult thing that didn't involve alcohol, drugs or sex, part was the commotion in front of the opera house, with some people queing for tickets (the Lyric sells out almost every performance but has tickets turned in by subscribers for resale) others selling tickets they couldn't use.
But the real attraction was that they all really liked opera. There may be some people at school or otherwise that you know who would have the same interests in serious music.
And check to see if the opera company has student rush tickets available and if there is some type of outreach program that meets in your neighborhood--again, using the Lryic Opera of Chicago as an example, their "Friends" group is all over the place.
I know that running an opera or ballet company is very difficult, especially in these horrible economic times. However, few of them have real "outreach" programs that work the schools and colleges to make sure that seats are filled and that a new audience is being created.
Many if not most of the students who start attending opera or ballet will continue to do so as adults. Some of them will stay in the area or return after college. A few of them will become wealthy and be able to contribute significantly to the company. One or two may become really rich (or marry someone who is) and donate a few zillions.
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"Don Giovanni" has a lot going against it these days. Many of the themes are familiar to the general public since movies and commercials have used its endless stream of exquisite melody. It is a repertory work that many opera fans have seen, the score is beautiful but treacherous in unskilled or inattentive hands and only a few of the roles can be properly interpreted with the "stand and deliver" acting style that opera singers often fall into.
The big problem with this opera, though, is Mozart and Da Ponte. Masterworks by geniuses have become fair game for directors who think they need to modernize them, either to make them palatable to today’s audience or to show how much on the cutting edge the director is. Or perhaps to show how much more about music the director knows than did Mozart, about text than did Da Ponte and about what works in the theater than both of them. The Don has recently been portrayed as a drug dealer in Spanish Harlem, a third world dictator, and a 1930s matinee idol. He has been a figment of Leporello’s imagination, has snorted cocaine and has had sex in the back of a wrecked automobile.
The Michigan Opera Theatre decided on a daring approach to this problematic work. In its production the Don is a dissolute 17th century Spanish nobleman, exactly what he was in the first production of the work. We were at both the Friday and Saturday evening performances to catch both casts. We saw and heard a production that did not attempt to impose itself between the work and the audience but let all its dark beauty, human pathos and heavenly music come through.
The humor was very well done—chiefly Leporello’s “Catalog” aria, in which he reads to list of Don Giovanni’s sexual conquests to Donna Elvira: “640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and in Spain, 1003”. Donna Elvira’s name is somewhere on that list. One often forgets that some in the audience are seeing the work for the first time—a lot of people were both shocked and amused by this gem.
Donna Anna is the daughter of the Commendatore. The Don rapes her, then kills her father in a sword battle when the he attempts to rescue her. It is the first among equals of the three soprano roles and has some ravishing music. There isn’t much dramatic range for Donna Anna, but the artist who takes her on must have a voice that is both beautiful and powerful. It can be a light role for singers who also do Turandot or Brunnhilde, a heavy role for singers who usually spin Handel’s tricky notes. It lies very well for the lyric voice with a touch of spinto metal. Mary Dunleavy, the “A” cast Donna Anna, is a singer worth going out of your way to hear..
Donna Elvira is a different story. Like Donna Anna a noblewoman, she is also obsessed with the Don, having followed him across Spain after she was seduced and abandoned. She swings from wanting to see him dead to a willingness to forgive him. This is a wonderful role, full of hit parade melodies. Dramatically she must show strength of character, vulnerability and obsessive love—sometimes within one aria. Her first aria establishes her character. The singer portraying Donna Elvira needs a voice that can be edgy without being strident. Pamela Armstrong, the “A” cast Elvira was superb. She does a lot of Mozart and does it very well.
Zerlina, the peasant girl that almost falls into Don Giovanni’s clutches on her wedding day, is a typical “ina” role—a soubrette soprano with high notes to burn. One of Zerlina’s big arias, in this era of supertitles, is one area where updating is necessary. It is, of course, “Batti, batti” sung to her new husband Masetto, and, in English, begins “Beat me, beat me”. Translating it to “Torment me” in the supertitles does not do any great harm to Da Ponte’s prose (supertitles are summaries) and doesn’t distract the audience.
Everyone loves Leporello. He is the original “take this job and shove it” guy, is a counterbalance to the evil dissipation of the Don and forms the third part of the lower class triplet of the opera. A talented clown with a ringing bass/baritone can do wonders with this role.
Don Giovanni himself is a monster and a monster of a role. He constantly makes it clear that he is driven by his need to conquer, subdue and denigrate women. He a great representation of sheer id—but with the combination of sublime music and constant, manic energy, one can also see how he can be attractive to Donna Elvira and Zerlina.
There were a few bobbles in the pit and some disagreement on tempo between stage and conductor--especially in Elvira’s showpiece “Mi Tradi”, which stopped the show on Saturday. The winds, particularly the oboes and bassoons were marvelous.
It is hard to go wrong with Mozart and Da Ponte—almost impossible if the director follows the text and stage directions and the singers, orchestra and conductor know what they are doing.
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The "B" movie--generally shot and edited more quickly than the "A" features, starring contract players who may or may not become stars, often of an easily recongnizable genre, like western or ganster and shipped to distributors and exhibitors as the second part of double feature--no longer exists.
Some of the B movie functions have been taken by DTV--direct to video--although they are often of the horror or soft-core porn variety.
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In the "Los Angeles Times" article quoted in the original post, Lewis Segal wrote:
"Stalinism in the arts is always bad news, and Stalinism coupled with ageism...."
and BW asked:
Is the ballet world subject to its own form of Stalinism,No.
or is this just hyperbole?Yes.
No critic who confuses the practices of Joseph Stalin and his henchmen with the hiring and retention policies of a ballet company in the 21st century is worthy of the space he is granted by his newspaper.
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EGAD!
What a way to start a thread--two detailed, well written and informative posts.
Together, although obviously written at different times and in different places, they give a delicious sense of being there.
Music, lighting, costumes, personal impressions, limitations caused by the performing/viewing space, description of movement, comparisons with works that are more familiar to the reader than those presented.
BalletTalk has a real depth of observing and writing talent.
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According to the "People are Talking about" section of Vogue she has a "life that reads like a fairy tale", including being discovered at age nine by a talent scout for the then Kirov at a gymnastics camp in the countryside.
It does sound as if she has the world (at least the ballet world) by the tail, being promoted to principal dancer of the Royal Ballet by Anthony Dowell while taking curtain calls for Giselle.
In a not untypical Vogueism, she is lauded because she always "treated company classes like a performance instead of a warm-up". This probably means more to the author, Kevin Conley than it does to me.
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Originally posted by Old Fashioned
she was very well received by the audience (I'm not sure if it's because it was great performance or because she's a big opera star, or maybe both [/b]
From the way the opera boards are buzzing, it seems to be both. The Fleming flappers were out in force--they love anything she does. Many others think that while whe may not yet be the new Violetta for the ages, it may be a role for her. She will bring it to the Met next year.
Pirate tapes of the performance are already circulating. Those who have never liked Fleming still don't.
Violetta is one of the most difficult roles in the Italian rep. In order to do it full justice a singer must be able to sing bel canto type coloratura complete with trills, exact staccato and fioratura; have a dramatic voice with the strength and cutting power to soar over or slice through the sound of the massed orchestra for page after page; and have a real lyric quality, always meltingly beautiful and expressive.
And by the way, she should be able to do all the above with no obvious register breaks, hit every attack dead on the middle of the note, have the breath control of an underwater swimmer and be a convincing actress.
She should also be physically beautiful and wear a size 8 (or smaller).
If she is all of that, she will still be compared unfavorably to some conveniently retired or (even more conveniently) dead soprano, who "owned" the role at the Met, La Scala or Covent Garden.
And she better do the unwritten by Verdi but generally interpolated high Eflat at the end of "Semper Libre", or her entire performance will be judged a failure.
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While on the subject of Dead British Actors:
Harley Granville-Barker-- the name might be enough to cause some significant eye rolling. I have encountered references to his "Prefaces to Shakespeare" a lot recently. I have been re-reading the Roman plays and the histories, along with some critical works.
He was an actor who toured with Mrs. Patrick Campbell and made his first London appearance in 1892. He was a brilliant actor-manager in the day when there were still a lot of them. A favorite of George Bernard Shaw, he starred in the first performances of many plays by GBS at the Court Theater. If he accomplished half as much in these honor happy times he would at least have some initials after his name, if not "Sir" in front of it.
His stripped down staging of classics there, harkening back to the open stage of the Elizabethan playhouses. He also insisted on a much more "realistic" delivery of both verse and prose in Shakespeare--less ponderous and actorish, quicker and sharper. It was a necessary revolution--much like the extremely spare post-World War II productions at Beyreuth by Wieland Wagner.
As it happens, he really knows Shakespeare--knows him in a way that both constant reading and constant playing will bring. I have finished his preface to "Antony and Cleopatra", which is a brilliant approach to this play. The preface to "Coriolanus" is next on the list.
The next time you decide to pick up Shakespeare, take a look at Granville-Barker.
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So did anyone watch the first two hours last night?
I caught about 45 minutes of it--some of it was quite compelling, especially Malkovich as Talleyrand. The domestic scenes between Napolean and Josephine were a bit much, but I would be pleased to see and hear Isabella Rossellini recite the alphabet.
I had trouble with the extreme cleanliness of it all, especially the battle scenes. It may have been done to show its opposite during the Grand Army's retreat from Moscow, although that is yet to be shown. However the idea of everyone in parade ground uniforms with all buttons buttoned and neckclothes in place after losing a desert war (the Egypt campaign, when Nelson burned his fleet at the Nile) was just too strange.
I won't be able to see the conclusion tonight, but A&E may show if another 20 or 30 times in the near future.
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Gadzooks!! Did she really say that?
What happened to Washington Irving? If the author of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow isn't an American author, I will eat my tri-cornered hat.
And James Fenimore Cooper, of The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer?
Not to mention Benjamin Franklin, Julia Ward Howe, Emily Dickinson (who makes it in under the wire), Orestes Brownson or a lot of others I could mention but won't.
Mark Twain remains my favorite U. S. author--I re-read "Life on the Mississippi" every four years or so. Twain and Franklin were among the first "serious" books I read as a young boy, so they have a personal importance as well.
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In a thread on another topic and in a different context, cargill wrote:
Originally posted by cargillI think with a great choreographer anything can be danced, and with a poor one, nothing works
Which I thought of while reading a biography of Prokofiev. While writing the score for "Cinderella", Prokofiev "had concentrated on writing a ballet that was as danceable as possible. He wanted to create dances that would merge naturally from the story line, and whoud be caried, that would allow the dancers to do enough dancing and to exhibit their technique. No doubt Prokofiev wanted to avoid the arguments and humiliation he had encounterd in 1940, when the supposedly difficult and undeaceable score for "Romeo and Juliet" was disfigured and simplified against his wishes."
Since one of the dancers who objected in 1940 was Galina Ulanova, "R&J" must have been very radical at the time.
Arlene Croce called the repeated revisions by Leonid Lavrovsky, Adrian Peiotrovsky Sergei Radlov a "dramaturgical nightmare."
The author of the biography, Harlow Robinson, describes one scene when Lavrovsky had inserted a movement for Prokofiev's second Piano Concerto into the score. When Prokofiev refused to orchestrate it, Lavrovsky told him they would simply play the insertion on two pianos!
I recount this struggle that Sergie Sergeivich had because it seems with the immense technical resources that dancers have now that no score, as such, would be considered undanceable.
In much the same way that conservatory trained (perhaps overtrained) opera singers can pick up an incredibly complex score and credibly sight read it, I would think that dancers today, forged in the unforgiving crucible of competitions, would not find any piece of music too difficult.
Which is not to say, of course, that today's competition winner is superior to Ulanova, but that the current standards are much different than in the past and that these standards may make more music available to the ballet stage.
I would appreciate being corrected on this if wrong.
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One of these things that one runs into while looking for something else:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml...ixartright.html
Don Giovanni at the Michigan Opera Theatre
in Other Performing & Fine Arts: Performances, Exhibits, Films, and Events
Posted
Updating is the least of the problems. Actually it isn't a problem at all. Mary J points out "Rigoletto" in Little Italy, which was a great production of one of Verdi's darkest and most terrifying operas.
Andrew Porter translated the "Ring" for the English National Opera and did a wonderful job. The ENO and St. Louis Opera are the two companies that still do opera in translation of English and generally use his work.
The "Cosi fan tutti" set in a diner on the New York State Thruway was also effective.
Some of the best type of "updating" happens when the work is set in the time and place that it was composed, instead of the time and place in the libretto. It often is very effective. Verdi and his librettist didn't know much about (for example) ancient Babylon, but they were very much a part of--or at least affected by--the nationalist revolution in Italy in the middle of the 19th century. So setting "Nabucco", a work which describes how a subjagated people is able to free itself, in Italy at the time of its composition does no violence to the opera.
The problems arise when the production ignores or contradicts the music and the text of the drama and when it forces the singers to work around instead of with the direction they are given and the space in which they perform.