# Opera Today



## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Does someone here read BBC Music magazine? If so, in the June issue, on page 29, is Richard Morrison just being funny or does this really happen?


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Hazel said:


> Does someone here read BBC Music magazine? If so, in the June issue, on page 29, is Richard Morrison just being funny or does this really happen?


Haven't got it, haven't read it. What does he say?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

A Link to the article in question is always the most useful.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

PetrB said:


> A Link to the article in question is always the most useful.


I'm sorry. I do not know that the article is online. I have the magazine.

As for what it says, Sospiro, I'd rather not say. Have you ever heard something that you'd rather not repeat in mixed company? That's why I was hoping there would be someone who had the magazine and had read the article. Perhaps I should not have ask????


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Hazel said:


> I'm sorry. I do not know that the article is online. I have the magazine.
> 
> As for what it says, Sospiro, I'd rather not say. Have you ever heard something that you'd rather not repeat in mixed company? That's why I was hoping there would be someone who had the magazine and had read the article. Perhaps I should not have ask????




I'm really curious now! I'll have a look in WH Smith's on Monday.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

sospiro said:


> I'm really curious now! I'll have a look in WH Smith's on Monday.


Please do and let me know. I cannot believe this is what today's operas are like. He must be poking fun in some way.

For reward, there is also an excellent analysis of Holst's The _Planets_. My old LP also had a good analysis but this adds more since it tells what each instrument is doing. That's something LP producers did that many CD producers do not do - analyze and explain the music.

I look forward to your reply.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Hazel said:


> Please do and let me know. I cannot believe this is what today's operas are like. He must be poking fun in some way.
> 
> For reward, there is also an excellent analysis of Holst's The _Planets_. My old LP also had a good analysis but this adds more since it tells what each instrument is doing. That's something LP producers did that many CD producers do not do - analyze and explain the music.
> 
> I look forward to your reply.


Apologies, I just noticed where you live & WH Smith won't mean anything to you! It sells books, magazines etc. I was only to going to read it but might buy it as that thing on The Planets sounds very interesting


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

sospiro said:


> Apologies, I just noticed where you live & WH Smith won't mean anything to you! It sells books, magazines etc. I was only to going to read it but might buy it as that thing on The Planets sounds very interesting


That's all right. I had good reason to know what L H Smith is. I used to order books from them. Then, some years ago, the exchange rate got so out of balance that many UK stores stopped shipping to USA. W H Smith was one of those. I wonder if they ship to us today.

Their suggestion, though, was a bit wacky, if you don't mind my saying so. They suggested that we find a friend in UK who would buy and ship the book and we'd pay the friend. So, you send me a book I want and then try to cash my check at the exchange rate? Plus pay your bank their fee for cashing it for you?

I don't think so.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Hazel, are you talking about Babur?


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Hazel, are you talking about Babur?


No, BBC Music has a column: _The Full Score_. In June, Richard Morrison wrote the column titled "Opera companies' shocking productions just make me yawn". A footnote says that Richard Morrison is chief music critic columnist of The Times. So, perhaps this first came from The times. I do not know.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Richard Morrison contributes original material for BBC _Music magazine_ as well as _The Times._
Babur is an opera about terrorists - thought that might be what you were referring to.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Richard Morrison contributes original material for BBC _Music magazine_ as well as _The Times._
> Babur is an opera about terrorists - thought that might be what you were referring to.


Oh! Thanks. But, no, he names many operas: Castor and Pollox, The Tsar's Bride, Rusalka, A Midsummer Night's Dream and onward. I was thinking that, for someone who doesn't care for these productions, he was attending an awful lot of them. But, then I remembered this is part of his job.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Now I'm also curious and will stop by the local magazine shop -- which carries this publication -- to see if the June issue has arrived yet.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

If someone has read the magazine and is not afraid to repeat its contents here then please do so...!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

I found what she was talking about yesterday. The columnist has seen a number of very provocative productions of operas and he's written a column rebelling against sex acts and torture on stage. I've never seen any very provocative productions but it always disturbs me to see sex or even too much nudity on stage. I get distracted from the production, not sure what the point is. I've been going to operas regularly for the last 3-4 years and never seen one that was that provocative, so I'm sure it's not as common as the columnist seems to claim.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Disgusting, isn't it? Is it possible that these are at lower class theatres, not at theatres of real class? I know it turned my stomach to read it. "The times they are a-changin'". Was that Peter, Paul and Mary?


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Hazel said:


> Disgusting, isn't it? Is it possible that these are at lower class theatres, not at theatres of real class? I know it turned my stomach to read it. "The times they are a-changin'". Was that Peter, Paul and Mary?


I don't think it's anything to do with the class of the theatre, just the type of director. Calixto Bieito for example.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Ive seen a production of Die Soldaten where smeone was raped, not very explicit, but it is actually called for in the original playscript which is from the 18th century. 
In a production of Il Prigioniero they showed the man being burnt on a stake, he was actually up on the stake and the 'fake' fire was around him.

To me these were both powerful and disturbing images but they were important to the work and I see them as acceptable things to show in those contexts.
is the author talking of things similar to this?

I certainly wouldnt want torture to be depicted as explicitly as it is in mainstream cinema.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

sospiro said:


> I don't think it's anything to do with the class of the theatre, just the type of director. Calixto Bieito for example.


So it really is happening? Sad to see opera done that way. Thank you, guythegreg, for putting it down. I just couldnt think how to say it. Maybe it got to me too much.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

Hazel said:


> Disgusting, isn't it? Is it possible that these are at lower class theatres, not at theatres of real class? I know it turned my stomach to read it. "The times they are a-changin'". Was that Peter, Paul and Mary?


No that was Bob Dylan.

I think the problem Richard Morrison describes is unfortunately becoming all too common in opera. What bothers me is when opera companies try to "modernize" a classic opera or they try to be "innovative" by adding such ludicrous crap as Morrison relates. I would not attend such an absurd production and if I did I would walk out. He gets paid to attend these degenerate and course productions and probably can't leave even if he wanted to because of his occupation. I don't know what's worse....the opera companies who perform this crass and torrid crap or the people who attend them? 

Kevin


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Kevin Pearson said:


> No that was Bob Dylan.
> 
> I think the problem Richard Morrison describes is unfortunately becoming all too common in opera. What bothers me is when opera companies try to "modernize" a classic opera or they try to be "innovative" by adding such ludicrous crap as Morrison relates. I would not attend such an absurd production and if I did I would walk out. He gets paid to attend these degenerate and course productions and probably can't leave even if he wanted to because of his occupation. I don't know what's worse....the opera companies who perform this crass and torrid crap or the people who attend them?
> 
> Kevin


The producers would tell you it's what people buy. The people would tell you it's what producers sell. Both wrong and both guilty. I know some little towns in our Bible Belt that would shut them down - if the unfortunate laws of today allowed it. If they want to produce such trash, why don't they just write their own operas, not destroy the classic ones? A poor commentary on today's society, I fear.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

In Russia also: http://themoscownews.com/local/20120410/189613885.html


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

All depends on the country. In Europe there are a lot of provocative productions, is in vogue in these days. Always when I'd like to go to see an opera I need to check about the production because I don't like too much if the opera is too strange. That is normal in Barcelona, Frankfurt, Berlin and Helsinki, for exemple. In Italy the settings are normal yet.

I would have wanted to go to see Un ballo in maschera and Aida at the Opera of Helsinki, but it was too risky. In un ballo in maschera the count (or king) was Berlusconi, the anterior president of Italy, Aida was not in the ancient Egypt, it was in a hotel in the 1930's. But, I went to go to see Giulio Cesare in Egitto, the romans were american soldiers in the actual Egypt, the violence, blood, torture scenes, trange humor and sex was too much, anyway the music was good and the lights wonderful, Patrick Woodroffe was the light director (he worked in the past with Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones).

In Germany, Berlin, a production of Idomeneo was a total scandal, and there was fear of terrorism even.

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/German_opera_house_dumps_Mozart_ope_09252006.html


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

More about the Berlin's Idomeneo from some time ago, a real scandal in Europe.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439393,00.html


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

emiellucifuge said:


> Ive seen a production of Die Soldaten where smeone was raped, not very explicit, but it is actually called for in the original playscript which is from the 18th century.
> In a production of Il Prigioniero they showed the man being burnt on a stake, he was actually up on the stake and the 'fake' fire was around him.
> 
> To me these were both powerful and disturbing images but they were important to the work and I see them as acceptable things to show in those contexts.
> ...


I attend a lot of theatre (also part of my job) and from time to time I see fairly graphic depictions, particularly of rape scenes (South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world, and that's not a boast but a terrible indictment on our society). The one which disturbed me the most, however, was not "real" in any way. A number of years ago South Africa experienced a horrific rape allegedly by six men on a baby of nine months old. One of our playwrights wrote a heart wrenching account of the story from the mother's point of view (the mother was mute throughout the play). When they enacted the rape they thrust a broom stick into a loaf of bread and tore the bread apart with it. The image was so startling it left me feeling raw for several days and it has stayed with me for years. In fact, as I type this I can recall quite vividly the trauma I felt both at hearing the original news and at seeing the play. Unfortunately I don't have a link to the review I wrote at the time, but I expressed my distress quite clearly back them. At the time a film was made about it and in that work the horrible nature of the rape is depicted by the fact that the paramedic who came to fetch the baby vomited and cried when he saw the baby. If you want to Google this story the words "Baby Tshepang" will give you a number of links.

I am not usually shy or coy in any way, and I tend not to be squeamish, but sometimes the explicit is not necessary. The awful reality of the above story was done well (as in shockingly) but without need to depict it accurately.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

These garbage productions will disappear literally overnight if people _stop buying tickets to them. _The slim operating margins of opera houses ensures this.

Unfortunately, out of sheer interest or some inane sadomasochism people do buy tickets and these directors are high in demand... we only have ourselves to blame.


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## Hazel (Oct 23, 2010)

Couchie said:


> These garbage productions will disappear literally overnight if people _stop buying tickets to them. _The slim operating margins of opera houses ensures this.
> 
> Unfortunately, out of sheer interest or some inane sadomasochism people do buy tickets and these directors are high in demand... we only have ourselves to blame.


All so true. And this new idea of total freedom of speech regardless of what is said has made it worse.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Hesoos said:


> More about the Berlin's Idomeneo from some time ago, a real scandal in Europe.
> 
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439393,00.html
> 
> View attachment 5656


Yes, you can offend your audience all you wish (after all, they're only paying your salaries, through ticket purchases and in this case as taxpayers). But, for heaven's sake, don't offend someone who may become violent.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

MAuer said:


> Yes, you can offend your audience all you wish (after all, they're only paying your salaries, through ticket purchases and in this case as taxpayers). But, for heaven's sake, don't offend someone who may become violent.


You will note that several religions were offended but the powers were only afraid of one.   You can insult Christians with impunity for they need to practice turning the other cheek.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

MAuer said:


> Yes, you can offend your audience all you wish (after all, they're only paying your salaries, through ticket purchases and in this case as taxpayers). But, for heaven's sake, don't offend someone who may become violent.


If in the opera there is violence, ok, a bit of blood on stage is convincing (but no real blood). 
But I don't like if the opera is reinvented. Muhammad or Buda don't make sense in Idomeneo.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Hesoos said:


> If in the opera there is violence, ok, a bit of blood on stage is convincing (but no real blood).
> But I don't like if the opera is reinvented. Muhammad or Buda don't make sense in Idomeneo.


The folks in Berlin weren't worried about violence onstage. They were afraid that they would become targets of violence themselves because of some of the individuals who their production was likely to offend. Moira is right; had there not been the possibility of a violent reaction from one of the offended groups, the powers that be in Berlin wouldn't have given a flip who they offended.


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