# Difficult Scenes



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Someone mentioned recently that the scene in Don Giovanni in which the Commendatore drags our hero off to hell is a very difficult one to stage. I was wondering: who here has seen that done well? And what scene do you think is the hardest, of the operas you've seen of course, to stage?

It's always gratifying to see a difficult scene done well. The spear trick from Parsifal, for example - I think my favorite staging had a kind of strobe go off when the spear was thrown, and just blink - blink the spear was in our hero's hands. It was pretty effective.

The disappearance of Olympia while she's dancing with Hoffmann seems to present problems for directors too. In the Met's version the stage fills up with alternate Olympias, which I think is kind of neat. In the San Francisco version she comes on stage on rollerblades and escapes him into a crowd.

In Les Troyens I remember being kind of disappointed when the pyre at the end started smoking, and then the sun burst into flames. That seemed kind of weak. I didn't complain at the time - I was too blown away by the production as a whole - but in retrospect, it was a difficult moment to stage. Not that I really want to see Dido burn, of course, but it would be nice to have an awesome spectacle to recall! In my favorite - well, one of my favorite - Don Carlos, the one with Karita Mattila, when the impenitents go up in flames ash begins to drift down from the sky. I thought that was very effective. 

Well? What have you seen in the way of difficult moments done well, or not so well?


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> Someone mentioned recently that the scene in Don Giovanni in which the Commendatore drags our hero off to hell is a very difficult one to stage. I was wondering: who here has seen that done well? And what scene do you think is the hardest, of the operas you've seen of course, to stage?
> 
> It's always gratifying to see a difficult scene done well. The spear trick from Parsifal, for example - I think my favorite staging had a kind of strobe go off when the spear was thrown, and just blink - blink the spear was in our hero's hands. It was pretty effective.
> 
> ...


"Dance of the Seven Veils" in _Salome_. To my knowledge, only Karita Mattila has had the "artistic integrity" to do this scene as it was truly meant to be.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

The arrival of the horse in Les Troyens is hard to stage - but the ROH production did a great job with a huge menacing horse's head made of military components - guns and cannons and so on. It was terrifying, and when the nostrils belched fire I almost fell off my chair.

But the hardest thing to stage is the dragon in Siegfried. Still to see one that is truly terrifying. I think the only way it would work is in a film directed by Peter Jackson.


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

tyroneslothrop said:


> "Dance of the Seven Veils" in _Salome_. To my knowledge, only Karita Mattila has had the "artistic integrity" to do this scene as it was truly meant to be.


I thought Maria Ewing and Catherine Malfitano also did quite a bit of stripping, at least above the waist in some productions.
There was a picure of Ewing in Salome that really bared all but I think she may wore a body suit rather than being truely naked also.

The most difficult to stage, I think the end of Catalani's La Wally where an avalanche came down and took the tenor away!
Not sure what Catalani had in mind as to how to stage that.

For Don Giovanni, I always like the Commanditore's scene as done in Salzburg's production with Karajan, Ramey, Furlanetto, Tomowa-Sintow, Varady, Battle.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> "Dance of the Seven Veils" in _Salome_. To my knowledge, only Karita Mattila has had the "artistic integrity" to do this scene as it was truly meant to be.


that's funny ... not QUITE the kind of difficulty I had in mind, but I suppose it can be hard to convince an actress to take off her clothes - harder with some than with others, I imagine!


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> that's funny ... not QUITE the kind of difficulty I had in mind, but I suppose it can be hard to convince an actress to take off her clothes - harder with some than with others, I imagine!


Why not? Difficulty is difficulty!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

mamascarlatti said:


> The arrival of the horse in Les Troyens is hard to stage - but the ROH production did a great job with a huge menacing horse's head made of military components - guns and cannons and so on. It was terrifying, and when the nostrils belched fire I almost fell off my chair.
> 
> But the hardest thing to stage is the dragon in Siegfried. Still to see one that is truly terrifying. I think the only way it would work is in a film directed by Peter Jackson.


I can imagine. I've never seen Siegfried, but isn't there a horrible monster in Das Rheingold? I remember thinking the Met's version seemed pretty tame. Looked rather like a deupholstered couch, in two pieces, one on the left and one on the right (we were supposed to imagine a kind of wraparound dragon, I think). It didn't work. Be pretty neat if you could get it to pop out at the audience like a jack in the box - add some effectiveness if you could do that, I imagine ...


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

suteetat said:


> I thought Maria Ewing and Catherine Malfitano also did quite a bit of stripping, at least above the waist in some productions.
> There was a picure of Ewing in Salome that really bared all but I think she may wore a body suit rather than being truely naked also.
> 
> The most difficult to stage, I think the end of Catalani's La Wally where an avalanche came down and took the tenor away!
> ...


And how did it go in that scene? (I haven't seen it.) Did they have six or seven imps in black jump out and carry the poor guy off stage?


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

guythegreg said:


> And how did it go in that scene? (I haven't seen it.) Did they have six or seven imps in black jump out and carry the poor guy off stage?







Here it is.


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## Zabirilog (Mar 10, 2013)

Because there are so much of difficult scenes in operas, let's just make movies out of them! Especially the Ring I would LOVE to see as a movie version. But please don't remind me of the budget! 

The ride of the valkyries is actually very difficult to stage, if we think what it should be: eight armored women flying with horses. Sorry, what??? That would be possible only in a goood movie. So that's why directors always ease it as they're own vision of the second possibility.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Finding the right director for the Ring would be difficult. The sort of Peter Jackson figure who would make a good go of things like the Ride of the Valkyrie and the assorted dragons and toads, would find the more introspective sections - when characters are mulling over past events - difficult to cope with.


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

I think the final scene from Götterdammerung is very difficult to execute on stage. Also when Albreich is transformed into a frog.

The problem is that these composers were really ahead of their time. These scenes (as well in Don Giovanni) have som much action that they should be in film rather than on stage.

Also opera singers aren't the best actors. Few of them had excellent acting skills (Peter Hoffmann and Callas come up to my mind). The music have it all... even when staging/acting fails. That's why i prefer CDs rather than DVDs.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

dionisio said:


> The music have it all... even when staging/acting fails.


I'd like to politely take exception to this. Opera was invented at the turn of the 16th century because the music does *not* "have it all"


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Best Don G/Commandore final for me is this (final scence of Don G in hell not on youtube is priceless)










*Many scences in the Ring are vast and technically difficult*, a perfect place for use of creative projected images as demonstrated to great effect in Valencia Ring (if only silly spaceman costumes could be removed)


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

DarkAngel said:


> ...if only silly spaceman costumes could be removed...


Question of trivia, but speaking of removing clothing/costumes, have there ever been any completely _au naturel_ opera performances in history? I don't remember any, but that doesn't mean there were none--for example in Europe in the 60's, etc.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

suteetat said:


> Here it is.


Wow. That was pretty effective. Thanks!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Zabirilog said:


> Because there are so much of difficult scenes in operas, let's just make movies out of them! Especially the Ring I would LOVE to see as a movie version. But please don't remind me of the budget!
> 
> The ride of the valkyries is actually very difficult to stage, if we think what it should be: eight armored women flying with horses. Sorry, what??? That would be possible only in a goood movie. So that's why directors always ease it as they're own vision of the second possibility.


I'm honestly kind of surprised no one has done that yet. Is it possible that Wagner isn't really as popular as Tolkien?


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> Question of trivia, but speaking of removing clothing/costumes, have there ever been any completely _au naturel_ opera performances in history? I don't remember any, but that doesn't mean there were none--for example in Europe in the 60's, etc.


I'd think that would be kind of difficult - costume tells the audience so much about a character. I suppose if you were to relax the rule enough to allow headgear you could get a pretty good Don Carlo done ...


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

On the topic of difficult to perform, one of the most difficult to stage operas will be broadcast on PBS today (in US). The Met's production of _Les Troyens_ will be broadcast at 1:30PM (at least for East Coast PBS stations). :trp:


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Giovanni's descent into hell is actually fairly easy to stage at any good-size venue because all professional stages have traps (doors that open and let the actors "fall" into a lower level). At Houston Grand Opera, Giovanni was "commandeered by the Commendatore" ha ha. and a trap opened, flames shot up around them, and they disappeared beneath. This is fairly conventional stagecraft.

As far as dragons go (Magic Flute and Wagner), there are 2 philosophies. One is to make it totally comic, such as with Ingmar Bergman's wonderful Magic Flute production. And in my Met DVD of Rheingold, the dragon is also somewhat comic, in that it's Alberich "imagining himself a dragon" and it looks much like a Chinese parade paper-mache dragon. In that scene, Wotan has to suppress a laugh while Loge tries to appear frightened.

Houston Grand Opera made no attempt to have a "realistic" dragon in their Magic Flute, and the production instead had a very animated and clever "obviously fake and intentionally comic" dragon which brought laughter from the audience. Of course Magic Flute should generate laughs.

Animals onstage can always be a problem, for obvious reasons related to, er, "waste control". They also can steal scenes. Houston GO has a terrific "elephant" for Radames to ride during the triumph scene of Aida a couple years back. It was a platform on which Radames rode, holding "reins" and it was reminiscent of an oversize surfboard carreied by 4 "slaves" (supers) each of which wore "elephant leg" costumes and the elephant's "body" was decorated like a highly stylized elephant wearing a formal gown. Up front, two more "slaves" (supers) carried a big elephant head on poles and the trunk was waved around by a 3rd person at the very head of the line. And bringing up the rear (literally) was another super waving the tail. It was a pleasant artistic creation and the audience really liked it. After Radames dismounted and the "elephant" strode offstage, it got a round of farewell applause.

If animals (including the occasional dragon) are represented artistically, nobody much cares and if the "animal" is nicely designed, the audience will enjoy it.

Magic onstage can be another problem. I'm thinking about the tavern scene in Faust (Gounod) in which "da Debbil" makes the soldiers' swords shatter. When our small company did this, we simply had the soldiers drop their swords as if they'd become red hot, and that worked okay. Of course you can also have special prop swords that break into pieces, but that can leave debris scattered onstage to stumble over. Houston Grand Opera had some small pyro flash-bangs onstage that made the soldiers scatter in fear, which of course is the purpose of the scene anyway.

At the end of that Faust, HGO's production of Marguerite being welcomed to heaven was beautifully done. As you know, there's that stirring trio between Mephistophele, Faust, and Marguerite, which culminates in her rejecting Faust's offer of escape (damning him) and her subsequently being executed (nasty bits not shown, only guessed at, but her ascent to heaven is thankfully there for all to see).

In the opera the prison scene transforms into a "welcome to heaven" scene, and HGO did it very well, the dark and dreary prison walls "crumbling" to reveal shafts of light that pointed to the silver stairs leading upstage (toward the rear of the stage), and the fog machines went into overdrive, spreading a white and brightly lit mist that quickly obscured the prison floor. Faust having been dragged to hell by Meph., Marguerite did a fast "flip" behind a low wall during which time she zipped off her conveniently velcro-attached drab prison smock to reveal a white floor-length gown (angel type clothing) and she walked slowly upstage and up the stairs amid the fog machines and the offstage heavenly choir. It was a nicely designed special effect transformation and was quite spectacular, considering it was live.

Even small stage theatrics have to be carefully planned, since opera singers aren't exactly acrobats and it's all done live. We all know the (probably apocryphal) story of the over-large Tosca bouncing up and down after she flings herself off the parapet. But even small "stunts" can sprain an ankle, and Tosca's "fall" and Cherubino's "leap of love" out of the Countess' 2nd floor bedroom have to be staged carefully.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Regarding real animals onstage, a few years ago my then-girlfriend operatic soprano and I saw the Houston Grand Opera "Of Mice and Men" by Floyd. Incidentally I'd highly recommend this opera as a first-rate modern composition which most classical fans should appreciate.

Anyway, if you remember the story, Slim is the older ranchhand and he has an aging dog that others are urging him to put out of its misery. There is this extremely intense scene in the bunkhouse where Slim finally relents, and his pals lead the dog out to be humanely shot. The ranchhands (male chorus) have a thrilling role during which the tension builds, vocally and orchestrally, until we hear an offstage "bang".

Well, they had a real dog, a lab, which was very well trained and actually limped around and shuffled like an aging and sick dog might. It was very touching and I must admit that my love for animals overwhelmed my good sense, and I was crying like a kid during the dog-shoot scene.

Intermission and my girlfriend wiped my eyes and consoled me. And no, I wasn't faking to gain sympathy -- the scene was quite powerful, the music stunning.

After the opera was over, curtain calls, and the dog ran out to take bows, spry and happy, no limp or infirmity, and naturally it got a bunch of applause. And my girlfriend turned to me and said "See, Sam, you didn't need to worry, it was just a stunt dog!"


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

tyroneslothrop said:


> Question of trivia, but speaking of removing clothing/costumes, have there ever been any completely _au naturel_ opera performances in history? I don't remember any, but that doesn't mean there were none--for example in Europe in the 60's, etc.


I've never seen an entirely nude opera, but I have seen a couple with figures completely nude:

In this version of Ercole sul Termodonte, extremely buff tenor Zachary Staines, who plays Hercules, wanders around stage wearing nothing but an old mangy lion skin - over one shoulder. Unfortunately his body is much more attractive than his voice. I'd have preferred underpants and a better singer.










More effective is the opening of this great video of Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria. In the prologue Human Frailty is mocked by the gods of Time, Fortune and Love. The singer playing Human frailty was naked, emphasising his vulnerability very movingly.


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

I am not sure if I would like to see Ring Cycle as a film. How would one deal with the singers? Beautiful looking people with dubbing by by opera singers? How many Wagnerian singers would look their parts in a film? Would you accept a 200 or 250 lbs Brunhilde in a film?
I thought the old Otto Shenk's ring cycle for the Met did quite well as far as natural/realistic or literal staging of the Ring Cycle is concerned. The Immolation scene and the flood over by the Rhein was really quite well done, I thought. 
I like the skeletal dragon that was used in Lyric Opera of Chicago production. Choreography was quite well done. I think given the right stage directors and designers, a lot of the Ring Cycles can be staged that looked realistic enough.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

suteetat said:


> I am not sure if I would like to see Ring Cycle as a film. How would one deal with the singers? Beautiful looking people with dubbing by by opera singers? How many Wagnerian singers would look their parts in a film? Would you accept a 200 or 250 lbs Brunhilde in a film?.


I'll have her:


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

mamascarlatti said:


> I'll have her:


Stemme is an excellent Isolde but her Brunnhilde with Gergiev was a bit of a let down but I am not sure if the blame was with her or with Gergiev. Kaufmann should also be ok on film. Blythe for Fricka?


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

DarkAngel said:


> Best Don G/Commandore final for me is this (final scence of Don G in hell not on youtube is priceless)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I saw this production at the ROH and thought the last Commendatore scene was pretty good. Some other parts were not that good.

In regietheater we have seen the strangest things when it concernes the Commendatore scenes... Just to name a few:
-Commendatore stays alive and keeps reappering during the opera
-In the end everybody dies except Don Giovanni
-Don Giovanni is killed by Leporello


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I'd like to politely take exception to this. Opera was invented at the turn of the 16th century because the music does *not* "have it all"


Yes, you're right. Opera is for stage. It's the sum of all arts. I just prefer not to have a some sort of bias in relating an opera to a particular production. Flaws exist always. I just try to minimize them in my mind.


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## Zabirilog (Mar 10, 2013)

Should we have an another thread for thinking who would be the singers in our scenario of the Ring-movie or just do it here?


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Dongiovanni said:


> In regietheater we have seen the strangest things when it concernes the Commendatore scenes... Just to name a few:
> -Commendatore stays alive and keeps reappering during the opera
> -In the end everybody dies except Don Giovanni
> -Don Giovanni is killed by Leporello


That's the thing about Don Giovanni: While the tale of a predatory cad lends itself to all manner of updating, in the end there's no escaping the anachronism of 18th century notions of comeupance when the Commendator comes calling. A few I have seen:

-A mid-20th century setting where a playboy Don was terrorized by a three foot tall African idol sculpture in his bachelor pad.
-An ostensive Las Vegas vice setting, were the Don was set upon in the final scene by a gang of his wronged women wielding knives. In place of the final chorus, we had a silent tableau of a bloodied Don Giovanni hanging by a meat hook. That one caused a serious hiccup in the company's attendance and fundraising from which it took several years to recover.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> That's the thing about Don Giovanni: While the tale of a predatory cad lends itself to all manner of updating, in the end there's no escaping the anachronism of 18th century notions of comeupance when the Commendator comes calling.


The 20th century notions of egalitarianism and social equality have also done h*ll for operas like D.G. In many updates of D.G., the stage director leaves it a mystery why there is such sycophancy when it comes to dealing with D.G. Many directors try to skip past difficult anomalies like this and in the end, it just doesn't work _(for example, when D.G. is updated to the 21st century as one production I attended recently did)_.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

I always find the final act of _Manon Lescaut_ to be a stretch too. For one, its moral message about what happens to a woman who goes against her male minders is dated to say the least, and well...the whole notion of Manon dying of thirst on the outskirts of New Orleans will always be a hard sell. :lol:

I don't have the same problem with Massenet's Manon though. She's both more bold _and_ more sympathetic, and we are spared dealing with the Great Louisiana Desert.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Zabirilog said:


> Should we have an another thread for thinking who would be the singers in our scenario of the Ring-movie or just do it here?


I think you should start a thread.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> I always find the final act of _Manon Lescaut_ to be a stretch too. For one, its moral message about what happens to a woman who goes against her male minders is dated to say the least, and well...the whole notion of Manon dying of thirst on the outskirts of New Orleans will always be a hard sell. :lol:
> 
> I don't have the same problem with Massenet's Manon though. She's both more bold _and_ more sympathetic, and we are spared dealing with the Great Louisiana Desert.


Actually, well-known opera maven, La Cieca dealt extensively with the topic of the Great Louisiana Desert... somewhere. She says:


> The scene description in the libretto of Manon Lescaut says _"Una landa sterminata sui confini del territorio della Nuova Orléans. Terreno brullo ed ondulato; orizzonte vastissimo; cielo annuvolato."_ That is, a bleak, uneven landscape: to an Italian, that might mean an actual desert, or it might just as well mean a prairie or a steppe.


...and more stuff.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> I always find the final act of _Manon Lescaut_ to be a stretch too. For one, its moral message about what happens to a woman who goes against her male minders is dated to say the least, and well...the whole notion of Manon dying of thirst on the outskirts of New Orleans will always be a hard sell. :lol:
> 
> I don't have the same problem with Massenet's Manon though. She's both more bold _and_ more sympathetic, and we are spared dealing with the Great Louisiana Desert.


It is interesting to wonder what Puccini was thinking. He had to know better - perhaps he felt the mythology of the original novel just "worked" better than the truth! Dickens wrote a novel about America that was full of similar geographical mythology - Martin Chuzzlewit -some 50 years earlier than Puccini's opera.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> It is interesting to wonder what Puccini was thinking. He had to know better - perhaps he felt the mythology of the original novel just "worked" better than the truth! Dickens wrote a novel about America that was full of similar geographical mythology - Martin Chuzzlewit -some 50 years earlier than Puccini's opera.


See my note above about what La Cieca says about this "myth".


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Regardless of the way it's presented, the Rheinmaidens can be tricky in the first scene of Rheingold. I've seen various TV and video productions in which they were suspended from cables, simply roamed about on the "underwater" rocks and pretended to swim, and so on.

I don't really think audiences care, so long as the mechanics don't get in the way of the opera itself. I'd be perfectly okay with seeing the maidens perched on the rocky riverbed and not doing any swimming at all.

Likewise the scene change from the rocky outcrop where the gods first appear to the descent into the, ha ha, workers' paradise that Alberich has concocted. The musical interlude is a delight and if the production team wants to have a panoramic display of Wotan and Loge descending, fine. If they simply use a scrim and play the music and let the singers take a break and kick back for a minute, I'm okay with that too.

But for traditional opera, I'm thinking that the Rheinmaiden scene can be one of the more challenging, especially if the production team "insist" on the maidens doing some faux-swimming.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> Actually, well-known opera maven, La Cieca dealt extensively with the topic of the Great Louisiana Desert... somewhere. She says:
> 
> _The scene description in the libretto of Manon Lescaut says "Una landa sterminata sui confini del territorio della Nuova Orléans. Terreno brullo ed ondulato; orizzonte vastissimo; cielo annuvolato." That is, a bleak, uneven landscape: to an Italian, that might mean an actual desert, or it might just as well mean a prairie or a steppe. _
> 
> ...and more stuff.


Be that as it may... New Orleans sits in the middle of a vast river delta, at or below sea level, next to a lake. When DeGrieux goes off in search of water leaving his parched Manon to sing "sola, perduta, abbandonata", I can't help thinking he should be sloshing away in hip waders.


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