# A Sign of Opera's Decay...(?)



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

_"For Abbate and Parker, the radical restaging of old operas is a sign of the art form's decay"_

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/opera-abbate-parker-wendy-lesser/


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Apropos to which: "Audiences fed up with a radical director's take on an opera usually save their rage till the final curtain calls. Monday night at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in the first of four performances of Cherubini's "Médée," the audience couldn't wait and interrupted the performance. There are limits, it would seem, on just how far a director can go, and for many those limits were breached."

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/mele-at-the-opera-catcalls-for-paris-mde/


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

KenOC, I try to be open-minded about modernized stagings of operatic works, so long as the music is not altered.

However, I think I would have been very bothered by the odd reinterpretation of Cherubini's masterwork. I can only imagine Cherubini's spirit scoffing in contempt...

I saw Fidelio at the Opera Garnier in 2009, which was produced with a modernized staging. Prop modern rifles rather than arquebus. I think it worked very well, considering the plot of that opera. But I can't imagine how Médée could be given a modern interpretation without seriously altering the effect of the story.

Edit: I wouldn't at all appreciate the re-written dialogue. I'm not a musical prescriptivist, but such a wide deviation from the glorious product of the great Cherubini is difficult for me to swallow.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Even Shakespeare's plays have had modernized staging in recent years . Not too long ago, I saw an English production of Hamlet on PBS which wa sstaged in the present day in modern clothes. It even had some futuristic elements ,such as electrical computerized light searches by police. I didn't mind it too much, and it didn't seem to do any danmage to the play .


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Even Shakespeare's plays have had modernized staging in recent years . Not too long ago, I saw an English production of Hamlet on PBS which wa sstaged in the present day in modern clothes. It even had some futuristic elements ,such as electrical computerized light searches by police. I didn't mind it too much, and it didn't seem to do any danmage to the play .


It's interesting to see how little controversy there is when plays receive considerable reworkings compared to the (relative) OUTRAGE when operas are staged like that.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

There is a fine and invisible line. The hard-core traditionalist is often scoffing at what was originally done with those operas -- at least from the mid-baroque and later: they were most often staged in contemporary dress of the time they were first written and performed, regardless of their being a story from 'antiquity.'

That part of the repertoire now being antique and 'traditional' (it was once contemporary, after all) many audiences have come to expect 'the old staging,' not so much a matter of being historically correct, the general opera crowd not particularly keen on actual HIP performances/ They do seem to more than like the trappings and costumes of the older stagings. Some of that audience get very upset when anything is performed in modern dress.

Contemporary settings, then, should not really rattle anyone's cage, but many treat art, and music and opera, as an escape, 'romanticize' much of the repertoire if it is from 'long ago.' In the genre of opera, one gets all the visual trappings, and if those are disturbed, many an opera fan is at the least, disappointed.

We now have the opera director sometimes assuming the role of the Nouvelle Vague French film directors, i.e 'Auteur,' director as librettist / screenwriter and director - trouble is the opera director is not the author of either score or libretto, and some have taken things to pretty ridiculous heights, having layered on to the drama or the appearance of the production elements which obscure or totally undo the original intention of both the composer and librettist, or a production visually throws the work so far out of its own context that it actually no longer makes sense.

When it gets to the classical literature and dramas of antiquity, I'm very keen on not giving, say, Oedipus Rex, a contemporary spin by trying to view it from the point of feminism -- because it is utterly insupportable, there being no such thing on anyone's mind (or agenda) when the legend originated or when Sophocles turned it into a theater piece. That sort of imposition is just that, an imposition, and a spoiler of the work being mounted.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*The Sky is Falling*



superhorn said:


> Even Shakespeare's plays have had modernized staging in recent years . Not too long ago, I saw an English production of Hamlet on PBS which wa sstaged in the present day in modern clothes. It even had some futuristic elements ,such as electrical computerized light searches by police. I didn't mind it too much, and it didn't seem to do any danmage to the play .


Last Novemeber, 2012, my wife and I attended a production of Mozart's _Magic Flute_ staged by the Opera Department of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. It appeared to take place in a room from the set of the movie _The Matrix_ with contemporary clothing. Sarastro looked like the sentient "Agent" Smith. I have not figured out the symbolic connection. 

It was a bit weird but it did not make us feel that Opera or Western European Classical Music was coming to an end.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I am all for a fresh take on things but many of these directors feel themselves to be in a better position to know what the composer and librettist wanted than the very creators themselves. Some of the lunatic modern takes on Mozart, for example, where a director wants to show that he knows better than Mozart and Da Ponte are simply ridiculous, often missing the whole point for a whim. If we must update then let's at least start from what the creators wanted rather than impose our own totally foreign concept on it in the mistaken belief we are promoting art.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Authorial intent and authority are overrated.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aksel said:


> Authorial intent and authority are overrated.


Conversely, and famously, those put in a position of authority overrate themselves


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Aksel said:


> Authorial intent and authority are overrated.


How on earth can this be? Surely the intent and authority of the people who actually composed the music is of paramount importance. It is surely the job of the director to interpret their wishes rather than impose his own. I seen a production of Mozart's marriage of Figaro in which the intentions of Mozart and da Ponte were totally subservient to the directors perverse vision. I know that people like me who actually want to see what the composer intended are described as reactionary. But I would actually rather watch and listen to what Mozart and his librettist intended than what some third-rate director with a series of hangups is trying to put on the music


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I cannot stand and will not support the modernised settings of either operas or stage plays.
Fairly recently mention was made of the infamous English National Opera's Chicago gangster version of Rigoletto---ridiculous!
I once saw,on the BBC, a televised Richard 111 where the main cast were all portrayed as SS officers in Hitler's Germany.But they were still speaking the ancient English of Shakespeare's original---how can that be explained away??
I want to see the productions set in the time that the authors meant them to be.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I have to agree with Moody - if modernising or updating an opera's setting doesn't actually enhance the experience then I really can't see much point in doing it other than to indulge the whims of the pretentious arty-farty element involved in the production. A stage designer with a penchant for 'sexing up' the old works may think that he/she is enabling us to think of the work in contemporary terms but I would argue that this would never have entered the actual composer's head, especially so if the opera in question was composed before this line of thinking became prevalent.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I can accept modernized staging of operas as long as they aren't perverse . It's one thing for a director to have a "concept" , but when they reduce the production to ridiculously arbitrary gimmicks, it's extremely annoying . 
The Met , for example has current productions of Fidelio and Macbeth which update the action but don't do anything stupid . Its upcoming Rigoletto will set the action in - Las vegas ! I wonder how it will work .


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

superhorn said:


> I can accept modernized staging of operas as long as they aren't perverse . It's one thing for a director to have a "concept" , but when they reduce the production to ridiculously arbitrary gimmicks, it's extremely annoying .
> The Met , for example has current productions of Fidelio and Macbeth which update the action but don't do anything stupid . Its upcoming Rigoletto will set the action in - Las vegas ! I wonder how it will work .


But what's the point--who has demanded these "updates",I've never heard anybody ask for them.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

moody said:


> But what's the point--who has demanded these "updates",I've never heard anybody ask for them.


I may be mistaken, but can it have something to do with the goverment funding of European opera houses? I am not saying it should be cut altogether, but maybe if the opera directors were more dependent on ticket buyers for their sustenance, they would be more inclined to take the demands and tastes of those same ticket buyers into account, instead of using government funds to satisfy their whims? At least, as far as I know, American opera houses receive much less state support, and this kind of "updating" is much less widespread there.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

moody said:


> But what's the point--who has demanded these "updates",I've never heard anybody ask for them.


I'll put my hand up for them. I haven't contributed yet because I don't want to get into a bitter argument, but I often enjoy updated performances. The Rigoletto set in the Mafioso 50s little Italy you are so scathing about was actually brilliant, with the mores and two-faced morality of the new setting working better than a court of Mantova chosen arbitrarily by Verdi to beat the censor. Of course not all updating works, and some Regie productions are an egregious waste of money, but some are interesting and thought-provoking and can co-exist happily in my world with more traditional productions.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I may be mistaken, but can it have something to do with the goverment funding of European opera houses? I am not saying it should be cut altogether, but maybe if the opera directors were more dependent on ticket buyers for their sustenance, they would be more inclined to take the demands and tastes of those same ticket buyers into account, instead of using government funds to satisfy their whims? At least, as far as I know, American opera houses receive much less state support, and this kind of "updating" is much less widespread there.


There may be another side of this involving the ticket holders themselves. There is a lot more opera in Germany (the fount of Regie) than in the States (and certainly where I live). So ticket goers are probably exposed to a lot more opera, and are a lot more familiar particularly with the warhorses.

Now personally speaking there are some operas I feel a bit over-exposed to, and it would take the promise of something new and different to entice me to fork out money to see say La Boheme or Aida or Rigoletto (which is why I wish Regie would come to NZ because the productions are always warhorses and played pretty straight). Maybe these over-exposed audiences feel the same about works they know too well. And once you get used to Regie you start to get more open-minded about it in all settings. Certainly the ticket-holders that I hear on DVDs of these productions seem often genuinely enthusiastic. I've just finished watching the rat Lohengrin from Bayreuth and the audience absolutely erupted at the end (so would I, if I'd been there, although it took me two viewings to get the rats).


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

mamascarlatti said:


> There is a lot more opera in Germany (the fount of Regie) than in the States (and certainly where I live).


It seems, we owe that development in musical history to the Wagner family as well, not to Richard but to Wieland though 



> I've just finished watching the rat Lohengrin from Bayreuth and the audience absolutely erupted at the end (so would I, if I'd been there, although it took me two viewings to get the rats).


Judging by the reviews and opinions of other Wagner fans, most of that applause was thanks to the Bayreuth orchestra and the singers, not the rats. But I guess this is too much a matter of taste to argue over it.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

moody said:


> But what's the point--who has demanded these "updates",I've never heard anybody ask for them.


From the moment they were conceived and at their premiere, the concept was that they most operas were done in modern dress of the time, i.e. 'contemporary' dress of the times, even the 'historical period' operas were done in this fashion. Then, as now, keeping the productions 'timely' was so the audience could more readily / directly connect with the stage personae and the story.

Doing opera in contemporary settings is then _'the convention.'_ I agree that there are far too many shallow and sensationalist 'takes' by a director deluded that they are 'Auteur.'

Don Giovanni done in contemporary dress and setting, without 'gimmicks' is traditional. So as long as that works, your objection to a production of that sort is a titch sentimentalist, imo.

Those ridiculous productions? Audiences, en masse, have to be brave enough to boo, hiss, and walk out of the theater at the first sight of stainless steel, the dramatis personae in all black rubber S&M costumes, and realize that several hours spent after money already ill-spent does not recover the cost, but only increases the losses. Only then may that director either get the message, or not be hired again.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

PetrB said:


> They were updated at the time of the premiere - done in modern dress of the time, i.e. 'contemporary' dress of the times, even the 'historical' ones. So, doing opera in contemporary settings is 'the convention.' I agree that there are far too many shallow and sensationalist 'takes' by a director deluded that they are 'Auteur.'
> 
> But.. Don Giovanni done in contemporary dress and setting, without 'gimmicks.' _is traditional._ So as long as that works, your objection to a production of that sort has you being a a titch sentimentalist.
> [...]


So... If the staging and dress were of the period represented by the story, that would be revisionist? And the producers instead go in the other direction? Jeez, opera is a strange beastie.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

PetrB said:


> From the moment they were conceived and at their premiere, the concept was that they most operas were done in modern dress of the time, i.e. 'contemporary' dress of the times, even the 'historical period' operas were done in this fashion. Then, as now, keeping the productions 'timely' was so the audience could more readily / directly connect with the stage personae and the story.
> 
> Doing opera in contemporary settings is then _'the convention.'_ I agree that there are far too many shallow and sensationalist 'takes' by a director deluded that they are 'Auteur.'
> 
> ...


I think that Don Giovanni was a bad choice,we know when Don Juan actually lived so the costumes I am used to are about right are they not?


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I have always liked that opera lends itself to being re-imagined for the stage and have viewed it as the power of the art form that, in the best examples, safeguards the music of Mozart or Strauss or (certainly) Wagner whether presented in a traditional or an _avant garde/whatever_ style. I saw a video of _Rigoletto_ set in 1950's Little Italy, NYC _ala mafioso_ style, and it is how I always imagine it now when hearing a recording. It was tremendously memorable and the 'setting' was a major part of its effectiveness. The Cherubini _Medea_ did not sound appealing, however.

edit: p.s. I should have read ALL the posts before writing - I now see that others have seen that _Rigoletto_ I mentioned.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

mamascarlatti said:


> I'll put my hand up for them. I haven't contributed yet because I don't want to get into a bitter argument, but I often enjoy updated performances. The Rigoletto set in the Mafioso 50s little Italy you are so scathing about was actually brilliant, with the mores and two-faced morality of the new setting working better than a court of Mantova chosen arbitrarily by Verdi to beat the censor. Of course not all updating works, and some Regie productions are an egregious waste of money, but some are interesting and thought-provoking and can co-exist happily in my world with more traditional productions.


I knew it was you who mentoned the Rigoletto.I taped it off the TV at the time and only scrapped it a year or so back.I am afraid that I could not accept it in the gangster version ,but I am aware that a lot of people enjoyed it.Is it on DVD atall do you know?
I hope that opera people don't get into bitter arguments, the teen weenies avoid the subject.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

NightHawk said:


> I have always liked that opera lends itself to being re-imagined for the stage and have viewed it as the power of the art form that, in the best examples, safeguards the music of Mozart or Strauss or (certainly) Wagner whether presented in a traditional or an _avant garde/whatever_ style. I saw a video of _Rigoletto_ set in 1950's Little Italy, NYC _ala mafioso_ style, and it is how I always imagine it now when hearing a recording. It was tremendously memorable and the 'setting' was a major part of its effectiveness. The Cherubini _Medea_ did not sound appealing, however.
> 
> edit: p.s. I should have read ALL the posts before writing - I now see that others have seen that _Rigoletto_ I mentioned.


If you would care to glance backwards you will see that the Rigoletto has been under discussion.


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## vinniekant (Dec 15, 2012)

When you use language, plots, and characters that are specific to a time period, it is idiotic to "modernize" an opera, or a play. 
The production departments often think that plays and operas will have more mass appeal, in this they are totally wrong. 
The type of people that go to plays and operas are going anyway, a simple modernization isn't going to get a video gamer or footballer to run into the opera house just because its 21st century. I have this same quam with so many churches today, that think they'll recruit more parishioners by playing rock music during service. Pisses me off, royally.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

NightHawk said:


> I saw a video of _Rigoletto_ set in 1950's Little Italy, NYC _ala mafioso_ style, and it is how I always imagine it now when hearing a recording. It was tremendously memorable and the 'setting' was a major part of its effectiveness.


It's funny you say that because the same has happened to me. I saw that production live 4 times in the 80s, and now any version in period costume set in the court of Mantova looks rather quaint and unconvincing to me too!

It is available on DVD with the great John Rawnsley in the title role (but remember, it's sung in English):










and complete on YouTube:


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

vinniekant said:


> When you use language, plots, and characters that are specific to a time period, it is idiotic to "modernize" an opera, or a play.


Well, I think that there are some operas that don't reward updating. Tosca comes to mind - my favourite of this is the one filmed live in the original settings over the course of one day.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

moody said:


> I think that Don Giovanni was a bad choice,we know when Don Juan actually lived so the costumes I am used to are about right are they not?


If Don Juan was a contemporary of Mozart, the staging costumed in the clothing of Mozart's day, and a production mounted as such, costumes, sets, etc? Yes, and No.

You would have to look at the history of productions of Don G. to see if that period costume was held to say, in 1890, 1920, etc. It might have become established to keep it in period dress of Mozart's time, but that was not the 'intention' in Mozart's time.

I still think a lot of opera fans are severely conservative, want the productions to look, at least, like 'historically correct performance.' I know one fellow who is Very Upset if Brunhilde does not have a helmet with horns attached....

Then you get to actual historically correct performance, period instruments, etc. and I wonder how many hard-core opera fans instead want the modern orchestra.

Then, my elitist true snob comes out, I believe a goodly chunk of opera fans -- the kind who listen to only opera -- are more sensationalists than real music lovers -- found so in my experience, anyway.

Yes, though, I think you've developed a sentiment about how these productions should look, contrary to, at least, the original tradition when they were mounted.

As far as Don Juan goes, lord knows there are certainly exactly similar 'players' today.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

moody said:


> I think that Don Giovanni was a bad choice,we know when Don Juan actually lived so the costumes I am used to are about right are they not?


Do we know when he actually lived? Did he live at all? From Wiki: "El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the Don Juan legend."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Do we know when he actually lived? Did he live at all? From Wiki: "El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the Don Juan legend."


There is also evidence that "Don Juan" was a pseudonym used to avoid the wrath of the 'highly placed' person portrayed.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Do we know when he actually lived? Did he live at all? From Wiki: "El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the Don Juan legend."


Well, then, I guess the costume and sets should be either from the 1300's or the 1630's - according to some arguments


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think a contemporary production of Don Juan on Wall Street would be a gas. Don Juan is an equity trader or vulture capitalist, the boss's daughter, and all that.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I may be mistaken, but can it have something to do with the goverment funding of European opera houses? I am not saying it should be cut altogether, but maybe if the opera directors were more dependent on ticket buyers for their sustenance, they would be more inclined to take the demands and tastes of those same ticket buyers into account, instead of using government funds to satisfy their whims? At least, as far as I know, American opera houses receive much less state support, and this kind of "updating" is much less widespread there.


I saw an opera in the US and the director changed the story. I won't say which opera house or which opera but it was a classic & the director changed the libretto because he thought it was 'weak'. He simplified it & added bits because he thought the audience wouldn't understand/be bored. I thought that was patronising but he understood his audience & he needed them to keep coming back.

Zürich Opera often stage updated and Regie productions & the audiences seem to like them. When I saw Jenůfa it was sold out.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Yes, in my post 'edit' I note my neglect of reading all the posts. Sorry.



moody said:


> If you would care to glance backwards you will see that the Rigoletto has been under discussion.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

superhorn said:


> Even Shakespeare's plays have had modernized staging in recent years. Not too long ago, I saw an English production of Hamlet on PBS which was staged in the present day in modern clothes. It even had some futuristic elements, such as electrical computerized light searches by police. I didn't mind it too much, and it didn't seem to do any danmage to the play.
> 
> 
> Aksel said:
> ...


I respectfully assert that this is an "apples & oranges" comparision. In support, I hasten to make clear that the stage directions for Shakespeare plays are famously (or notoriously?) terse. On those grounds, one may present a number of backdrops for many Shakespeare plays and in no way act contrary to the instructions given by The Bard.

To me, the most famous contrary example is (surprise) Wagner. I've long argued that his detailed stage instructions were not only an example to subsequent opera composers, but to subsequent _playwrights_, as well. Wagner clearly put a lot of effort into his written instructions- and I (for one) don't think he did so with the idea that they could or should be blown off with impunity.


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## AndyS (Dec 2, 2011)

To me it's all a matter of taste

I've been unfortunate in that my only exposure to live opera has been Scottish Opera. The last 2 I've seen, Magic Flute and Tosca, I really enjoyed (albeit Magic Flute was in English). The former had been updated into Victorian steam punk style, and would say that the production was far more interesting than some of the singers (Tamino and the Queen were poor). The latter was transported into WW2 and I thought it worked really well. Yet I saw their traditional production of Rigoletto - the Gilda was terrible (small, thin, uninteresting voice) and he Duke had a terrible risk act (although the rest was much better) - and it bored me stiff. And I would say I'm a traditionalist

One that I didn't get at all (yet many seemed to have loved) was he Valencia ring. Too strange a production for me, and yet the singing and playing we're of a great quality


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I respectfully assert that this is an "apples & oranges" comparision. In support, I hasten to make clear that the stage directions for Shakespeare plays are famously (or notoriously?) terse. On those grounds, one may present a number of backdrops for many Shakespeare plays and in no way act contrary to the instructions given by The Bard.
> 
> To me, the most famous contrary example is (surprise) Wagner. I've long argued that his detailed stage instructions were not only an example to subsequent opera composers, but to subsequent _playwrights_, as well. Wagner clearly put a lot of effort into his written instructions- and I (for one) don't think he did so with the idea that they could or should be blown off with impunity.


Mozart or Händel's operas aren't exactly brimming over with stage directions either.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I respectfully assert that this is an "apples & oranges" comparision. In support, I hasten to make clear that the stage directions for Shakespeare plays are famously (or notoriously?) terse. On those grounds, one may present a number of backdrops for many Shakespeare plays and in no way act contrary to the instructions given by The Bard.
> 
> To me, the most famous contrary example is (surprise) Wagner. I've long argued that his detailed stage instructions were not only an example to subsequent opera composers, but to subsequent _playwrights_, as well. Wagner clearly put a lot of effort into his written instructions- and I (for one) don't think he did so with the idea that they could or should be blown off with impunity.


This orange print you are using is damned difficult to read.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

moody said:


> This orange print you are using is damned difficult to read.


It's the colour of Big Brother :devil:


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

Quote from the opening of the article:

"Opera must be one of the weirdest forms of entertainment on the planet. Its exaggerated characters bear little relation to living people, and its plots are often ludicrous."

Really ? And this is not the case in the very popular business of TV series and cinema movies nowdays ? 

This is a total non-argument.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Dongiovanni said:


> Really ? And this is not the case in the very popular business of TV series and cinema movies nowdays ?


"Opera was the television of the nineteenth century: loud, vulgar, and garish, with plots that could only be called infantile."

--Special Agent Pendergast


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