# Operatic Anachronism in TV Show Endeavour



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Do any of you watch the opera loving detective in Endeavour? The first season is set in 1965 but he listens to Lakme and the album booklet is the one with Sutherland which is not released till the late 60's. I bet I am the only viewer to catch that.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Do any of you watch the opera loving detective in Endeavour? The first season is set in 1965 but he listens to Lakme and the album booklet is the one with Sutherland which is not released till the late 60's. I bet I am the only viewer to catch that.


I loved *Inspector Morse*, of which *Endeavour* is the prequel. I suppose whomever chose the prop was not a Sutherland fan and didn’t know much about the recording’s timeline!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> I loved *Inspector Morse*, of which *Endeavour* is the prequel. I suppose whomever chose the prop was not a Sutherland fan and didn’t know much about the recording’s timeline!
> 
> 
> 
> I never got into Inspector Morse but I loved the early series. He was cute in a scruffy sort of way. I think he uses a not big name soprano for the opera bits. He was obsessed with a soprano.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I liked Endeavour but I am not enough of an opera nerd to spot this. As I am also too young to have experienced the 1960s it seemed mostly to capture the era quite well (except for a few very slight bows to current PC, the black nurse gf in one season might not have been that outlandish but that it was made to appear completely unremarkable was IMO also anachronistic).

I hadn't even known the later Morse series or the books before encountering the Endeavour series. I since read the books and watched a few of the 80s series (that were findable for free online). Both seem good but also somewhat dated (and while I am rather old-fashioned and not overly squeamish in that respect, the books are also rather sexist, maybe in a way that was common in the 70s/80 but without the charm of another era like Archie Goodwin's casual machismo in Stout's Nero Wolfe). The books also tend to be a bit lengthy and repeat some plot elements despite not being such a long series (IIRC the very first book was surprisingly one of the best although the character of Morse and his assistant are still a bit different than in later ones.)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I never got into Inspector Morse but I loved the early series. He was cute in a scruffy sort of way. I think he uses a not big name soprano for the opera bits. He was obsessed with a soprano.


In *Morse *most of the time the arias played were specially recorded for the programme, possibly for copyright reasons, though in the one that had *Tosca *as a recurrent theme, they used the Callas recording, as she was referred to more than once in the programme itself.

If we are talking anachronisms, another that shows my geekiness is a scene in _Bridges of Madison County. _The Meryl Streep character loves opera and classical music and she is always listening to it on the radio. The movie takes place in 1965 and at one point the aria on the radio is Callas singing _Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_ from Callas's first French recital, only that particular aria was not approved by Callas, didn't appear on the original album and was not released until after her death in 1977. I doubt anyone else would have noticed though.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

In such a case it seems really odd how they came to pick one of the few aria a) in French and b) not published in the early-mid 1960s...

In the 1980s Morse series there is one fairly crazy episode involving the Magic Flute, and I think there is also one (maybe even the first episode of the 1980s) with Morse singing in a church choir (forgot the piece) and getting to know a woman (this constellation is different from the book, but actually better in the TV show, I think). 
In any case, what I liked about both Endeavour and Morse was that the opera love of the character was shown in a believable way, not just to get some "high culture/bourgeois" atmosphere or a reason for investigating a crime within an opera ensemble or similar things. 
The 1980s Morse is even less likeable than its younger version (although neither is as insufferable as the book Morse) but now that I think about it, it was also a pretty good series, at least the half dozen or so episodes I watched.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> In such a case it seems really odd how they came to pick one of the few aria a) in French and b) not published in the early-mid 1960s...
> 
> In the 1980s Morse series there is one fairly crazy episode involving the Magic Flute, and I think there is also one (maybe even the first episode of the 1980s) with Morse singing in a church choir (forgot the piece) and getting to know a woman (this constellation is different from the book, but actually better in the TV show, I think).
> In any case, what I liked about both Endeavour and Morse was that the opera love of the character was shown in a believable way, not just to get some "high culture/bourgeois" atmosphere or a reason for investigating a crime within an opera ensemble or similar things.
> The 1980s Morse is even less likeable than its younger version (although neither is as insufferable as the book Morse) but now that I think about it, it was also a pretty good series, at least the half dozen or so episodes I watched.


I've never read the books, but I loved the TV series *Morse*. I suppose it does seem rather old fashioned now (but then I'm quite old myself) and Morse himself is depicted as quite old fashioned, with his love of opera and classic cars. I do like the way that classical music was used throughout the series. I remember the Magic Flute episode. Also one which took Morse to Verona, where he fell for an opera singer (Frances Barber was the actress, if memory serves me correctly) who was singing the role of Liu in *Turandot*. In another, which dealt with the death of a child, Puccini's _Senza mamma _was sensitvely worked into the narrative.

I enjoyed *Endeavour *too, but not quite so much as the orginal series


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> In *Morse *most of the time the arias played were specially recorded for the programme, possibly for copyright reasons, though in the one that had *Tosca *as a recurrent theme, they used the Callas recording, as she was referred to more than once in the programme itself.
> 
> If we are talking anachronisms, another that shows my geekiness is a scene in _Bridges of Madison County. _The Meryl Streep character loves opera and classical music and she is always listening to it on the radio. The movie takes place in 1965 and at one point the aria on the radio is Callas singing _Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_ from Callas's first French recital, only that particular aria was not approved by Callas, didn't appear on the original album and was not released until after her death in 1977. I doubt anyone else would have noticed though.


I thought I was a geek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I don’t see it in reruns here in the U.S.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I did appreciate it when watching Inspector Lewis, the series about the low-brow detective assisting Morse who was eventually promoted to that position, how he showed that sometimes Morse did rub off on him. Like when asked who he preferred conducting Parsifal, he replied, "Knappertsbusch." (Of course, I think really he just liked saying the funny name.)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*Lewis *is another good series I loved to watch. Didn’t he have an opposite as well, a posh Sargeant?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

MAS said:


> *Lewis *is another good series I loved to watch. Didn’t he have an opposite as well, a posh Sargeant?


He did. And his sergeant, Hathaway, was a classical music lover. One time someone tried to kill him by drugging him and setting the house on fire, and his assailant asked him in his drug-induced stupor, "Do you know what's playing?" Without blinking, Hathaway replied, "The Firebird Suite." That's what I'd call a classical music fan.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> In *Morse *most of the time the arias played were specially recorded for the programme, possibly for copyright reasons, though in the one that had *Tosca *as a recurrent theme, they used the Callas recording, as she was referred to more than once in the programme itself.
> 
> If we are talking anachronisms, another that shows my geekiness is a scene in _Bridges of Madison County. _The Meryl Streep character loves opera and classical music and she is always listening to it on the radio. The movie takes place in 1965 and at one point the aria on the radio is Callas singing _Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_ from Callas's first French recital, only that particular aria was not approved by Callas, didn't appear on the original album and was not released until after her death in 1977. I doubt anyone else would have noticed though.


I don't doubt that it was Streep's suggestion to use the recording, since she's a great admirer of Callas.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I don't doubt that it was Streep's suggestion to use the recording, since she's a great admirer of Callas.


I suppose it was an easy mistake to make. They got the right album (released in 1962) but the wrong track from it.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> I liked Endeavour but I am not enough of an opera nerd to spot this. As I am also too young to have experienced the 1960s it seemed mostly to capture the era quite well (except for a few very slight bows to current PC, the black nurse gf in one season might not have been that outlandish but that it was made to appear completely unremarkable was IMO also anachronistic).
> 
> I hadn't even known the later Morse series or the books before encountering the Endeavour series. I since read the books and watched a few of the 80s series (that were findable for free online). Both seem good but also somewhat dated (and while I am rather old-fashioned and not overly squeamish in that respect, the books are also rather sexist, maybe in a way that was common in the 70s/80 but without the charm of another era like Archie Goodwin's casual machismo in Stout's Nero Wolfe). The books also tend to be a bit lengthy and repeat some plot elements despite not being such a long series (IIRC the very first book was surprisingly one of the best although the character of Morse and his assistant are still a bit different than in later ones.)


You're happy to identify sexism, but describe the casting of a black actor as PC.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Forster said:


> You're happy to identify sexism, but describe the casting of a black actor as PC.


I think it's a ticky area when you are producing a period piece and are striving for authenticity. Sexism was rife in the 60s, but very few thought of it as such. It's also true that a black nurse having a relationship with a white man would have been very unusual and would not have gone without comment. Do you exercise colour blind casting, or do you make the improbablity of the relationship intrinsic to the plot?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

TBH, whilst I watched all episodes of Endeavour, I can no longer remember whether the improbability of the relationship was intrinsic to the plot. But then, I suspect that whilst such relationships might have been less common than they are today, they were not "improbable". In 1966, my father's sister, a white woman, married a black man from Nigeria. I went to the wedding.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Why can't you read? I have no problems with a black actress appearing in a 1960s Britain setting, but I said it was strange that the interracial relationship (NB in a time when unmarried relationships would have been strongly frowned upon by the establishment regardless of race) was uncommented on and taken as not unusual at all. Such relationships were highly improbable from sheer numbers with only a percent or two of black people in Britain in the 1960s, how could it be otherwise? 
If you have seen the series you might also remember that this is a "loose thread", it's not very well integrated into the plot, as if they didn't really know what to do with it or didn't dare developing the relationship. It smells very strongly of a token appearance. So one can condemn it as artistically poor and dubious for the opposite reason, namely of abusing a black person as token.

And have you read the Morse books? The book Morse is a lecher who fantasizes almost all the time when he encounters women. Unlike many other people I have no problem of reading older material as of its time (and I don't think that our time is much better than most of the past) but in several of the Morse books it becomes almost embarrassing (it's mostly in Morse's head or in remarks by him and others, though).

I am not continuing such a discussion before you bring actual arguments from the books or TV series because that's not worth the time and space.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> Why can't you read? I have no problems with a black actress appearing in a 1960s Britain setting, but I said it was strange that the interracial relationship (NB in a time when unmarried relationships would have been strongly frowned upon by the establishment regardless of race) was uncommented on and taken as not unusual at all. Such relationships were highly improbable from sheer numbers with only a percent or two of black people in Britain in the 1960s, how could it be otherwise?
> If you have seen the series you might also remember that this is a "loose thread", it's not very well integrated into the plot, as if they didn't really know what to do with it or didn't dare developing the relationship. It smells very strongly of a token appearance. So one can condemn it as artistically poor and dubious for the opposite reason, namely of abusing a black person as token.
> 
> And have you read the Morse books? The book Morse is a lecher who fantasizes almost all the time when he encounters women. Unlike many other people I have no problem of reading older material as of its time (and I don't think that our time is much better than most of the past) but in several of the Morse books it becomes almost embarrassing (it's mostly in Morse's head or in remarks by him and others, though).
> ...


I don't agree that the portrayal was 'token', but even if it was, I don't agree that this constitutes "PC". I don't need to have read the Morse books. I only need to have watched the series and have a sense of the character portrayed there. YMMV (and it obviously does).

As tsaraslondon suggests, casting for TV these days needs to be less mono and more multi. This does present particular problems for producers wanting to create TV series set in the past, but commenting on current issues (rather than just being nostalgia).

As someone born, brought up and permanently resident in the UK since 1959 and with a black uncle and black cousins, I feel I have at least some consistent and direct sense of racial matters here, as well as personal ones.

Remind me of your UK experience.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Forster said:


> TBH, whilst I watched all episodes of Endeavour, I can no longer remember whether the improbability of the relationship was intrinsic to the plot. But then, I suspect that whilst such relationships might have been less common than they are today, they were not "improbable". In 1966, my father's sister, a white woman, married a black man from Nigeria. I went to the wedding.


It probably depended on where you were in the country. Where I was born in the North East, it was quite unusual to even see a black person in the street. My mother, who is Greek, came over with my father (who had been an army captain during the war) just after the war itself and she was considered exotic back then. She used to give talks about Greece to various WIs and organisations as very few people had even been out of the town we lived in, let alone abroad.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It probably depended on where you were in the country. Where I was born in the North East, it was quite unusual to even see a black person in the street. My mother, who is Greek, came over with my father (who had been an army captain during the war) just after the war itself and she was considered exotic back then. She used to give talks about Greece to various WIs and organisations as very few people had even been out of the town we lived in, let alone abroad.


Undoubtedly true. I was born near the South Coast (not London) and I can't recall any black children at any of my schools...well, one of South Asian heritage out of 750 boys at my secondary school. I don't know for sure, but I think my aunt met her husband in London, though the family lived in the next county along the coast from us: more rural, even less likely to have a black immigrant population.

By the time I went to Manchester for teacher training in the early 80s, things looked much different, especially in cities, but rural counties still had few black people (Caribbean or African heritage) in their communities.


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