# Our own reviews of operas we HAVEN'T attended



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

If you like criticising productions that you haven't seen then this is the thread for you.

Feel free to grind the peppercorns of gossip in your rumour mills and speculate on how opera managements may or may not be trying to dismantle the art form from the inside. Feel free to comment on how opera house boards have tried to stop this awful state of affairs, but to no avail as those at the very top strangely wield little power when it comes to the world of opera.

N.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I know I shouldn't pre-judge but from watching the Lucia di Lammermoor Insight I have a good idea what it'll be like.....


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

sospiro said:


> I know I shouldn't pre-judge but from watching the Lucia di Lammermoor Insight I have a good idea what it'll be like.....


But that's because a female is playing the lead role :lol:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It just seems to me that men standing naked at urinals, chopping off a woman's nipple and draining the blood in a glass and forcing her to drink it, psudo-fornication taking place onstage whilst the baritone is attempting "di provenza", a Violetta in a higher than high miniskirt showing everything she had for breakfast with 5" high heels (that she kept tripping over), her lover Alfredo in dreadlocks with a torn (Stanley Kowalski) undershirt, Violetta's last act where she simulates Exorcist-style vomit all over the floor, a Scarpia humping the Madonna statue, are just some of the reasons I cannot cuddle up cozily to these kinds of productions.
So call me a party pooper.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> It just seems to me that men standing naked at urinals, chopping off a woman's nipple and draining the blood in a glass and forcing her to drink it, psudo-fornication taking place onstage whilst the baritone is attempting "di provenza", a Violetta in a higher than high miniskirt showing everything she had for breakfast with 5" high heels (that she kept tripping over), her lover Alfredo in dreadlocks with a torn (Stanley Kowalski) undershirt, Violetta's last act where she simulates Exorcist-style vomit all over the floor, a Scarpia humping the Madonna statue, are just some of the reasons I cannot cuddle up cozily to these kinds of productions.
> So call me a party pooper.


The point is how do you know that they are "these type of productions" before you've seen them?

N.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Pugg said:


> But that's because a female is playing the lead role :lol:


Haha! You know me too well. I have a B- Bias. Basses and baritones.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

This is a ridiculous thread. Why do you get so annoyed that most opera fans prefer to watch and listen to what the composer had in mind? Rather than be subjected to gratuitous sex and violence, portrayed by some modern directors. I'm truly struggling to understand your agenda. Can you try to explain it to me?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Don Fatale said:


> This is a ridiculous thread. Why do you get so annoyed that most opera fans prefer to watch and listen to what the composer had in mind? Rather than be subjected to gratuitous sex and violence, portrayed by some modern directors. I'm truly struggling to understand your agenda. Can you try to explain it to me?


Please don't take it so seriously. I am parodying the ridiculous notion that one can judge an opera by its cover (in other words from reviews, previews and news snippets). Who says that most opera fans prefer to watch what "the composer had in mind"?

I don't have an agenda, do you?

N.

N.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Have no worries, I think we both enjoy a robust conversation, and see it only in those terms.

Yes, I sure do have an agenda, and I think it's good to have a starting position. I love opera, and more than the singers, conductors, producers and designers, I love the composers and their works. If I don't feel their creations are being treated with respect to their original wishes (I didn't say reverence), then I'm going to be concerned and will make my feelings known in relevant conversations. Which is not to say something great can't be added.

I'm not sure I have an agenda concerning graphic sexual depictions and violence in general, although I'm certainly not a Tarantino fan for example, so you can take that as another starting point. To clarify further, I have no issues at all with the porn industry, which often operates with more integrity than other businesses. You'll have to take my word on that one


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> The point is how do you know that they are "these type of productions" before you've seen them?
> 
> N.


Well obviously in some cases I have read just enough to be able to make up my own mind. Don't feel like watching a bloodied nipple being drunk by a victim.
In other cases I DID start out seeing a production and left in disgust. Didn't feel like staying around to see the green vomit in the last act of Traviata thank you.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> W
> In other cases I DID start out seeing a production and left in disgust. Didn't feel like staying around to see the green vomit in the last act of Traviata thank you.


Fair doos, but that is off topic as this is the thread for providing critics of performances you HAVEN'T attended.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Fair doos, but that is off topic as this is the thread for providing critics of performances you HAVEN'T attended.
> 
> N.


Well in that case I will simply state that I do not consider myself that much of a dolt that I am unable distinguish what I like from what actually either disgusts or turns me off just from seeing a few images and snippets and hearing the way the original intent of the composer was severely damaged or changed.

I have actually gone to a few regie productions with trepidation to find that I actually liked them but I knew in advance that they would likely be palatable for me to take even if I didn't end up liking what I saw. (cases in point: updated Sinatra _Rigoletto_ and the "clock" production of _Traviata_. Both of which were handled "un-Bieito like.)

Of course this last you would consider off the original subject because I actually saw these productions but the reason is because I first saw snippets of them and made my decision to give them a try.

In cases where I was turned off by what little I saw with my own eyes, I believe that I am fully capable and intelligent enough to make my own fair decisions and choices.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Here are my reviews of the opera productions I've never seen:

...................................................................................


I believe I can speak with some authority here, as my experience of not seeing opera productions stretches over half a century of nonattendance at the greatest opera houses on six continents.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Is my leg being twisted here? Somehow, I smell a rat.
Signed: Pollyanna


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Verdi's Macbeth

Not enough death, 3/10, would not recommend.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Cosmos said:


> Verdi's Macbeth
> 
> Not enough death, 3/10, would not recommend.


Well then, you need to see the production in which, during Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene, she goes berserk, pulls an assault rifle out of her nightie, mows down all the sympathetic bystanders, and wanders off to bed - whereupon her bloodcurdling scream on a high D-flat is heard offstage, after which a blood-covered Macbeth staggers in carrying the rifle, takes out the conductor and the prompter, aims the gun at his face, and blows his brains all over the set.

I didn't see that one either, so I can't give you a review.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Well then, you need to see the production in which, during Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene, she goes berserk, pulls an assault rifle out of her nightie, mows down all the sympathetic bystanders, and wanders off to bed - whereupon her bloodcurdling scream on a high D-flat is heard offstage, after which a blood-covered Macbeth staggers in carrying the rifle, takes out the conductor and the prompter, aims the gun at his face, and blows his brains all over the set.
> 
> I didn't see that one either, so I can't give you a review.


Macbeth (2016), directed by Quentin Tarantino


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Is my leg being twisted here? Somehow, I smell a rat.
> Signed: Pollyanna


I can just control myself not the w.... in my boxer short :lol:


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