# Sex and Opera



## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

Any comments regarding:
Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" - directed by Willy Decker
Thomas Ades "Powder Her Face"


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

This recent work wins for most sex in opera:






At the end there is a singing *****.


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

Thanks for the video.

However, the two operas I referred to are in a different category
"Moses" is often performed and Schoenberg is reputable - the question is Willy Decker's staging. He was a major success with La Traviata with Netrebko in Salzburg and at the MET.

"Powder Her Face" just finished a sell-out run with the NYC Opera and was also very successful in Phila.

Being an opera lover - is this where opera is headed?
I also give opera lectures and show videos to groups - do you think these are appropriate?


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

gino said:


> I also give opera lectures and show videos to groups - *do you think these are appropriate?*


depends on your audience. Sex permeates most operas old and new; all you need is a modern production to wring it out of the most coy libretto.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Two of the most central themes of all art are sex & death. Certainly this is true of opera. Of course there's always _I Puritani_ .


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

have you seen either of the 2 operas I mentioned?


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I haven't seen either of your two operas, gino, but I wonder what you think of Dmitri Shostakovich's _Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk_? Coincidentally, I started reading about it yesterday. The complete opera (in two parts) is available on Youtube, along with various fragments, and it seems pretty much in line with your two. A couple of sentences from Wikipedia: "One criticism of the work focused on its sexual content, particularly the way in which the action is depicted in the music. A 1935 review in the New York Sun called it "pornophony", referring to the lurid descriptive music in the sex scenes."


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Sex in opera or I'll have what he's having. :devil:


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

this video is more cabaret than an attempt at opera. 
Moses and Aron - Powder her Face; and Anna Nicole make attempts to stay within the genre and have received commendable reviews.


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

I like the Lady Macbeth opera - I've seen it with Galina V in the title role.
Shostakovich has to be respected as a 1st class composer.


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

I have nothing against a modern production that stays within the framework of the composer's intentions.
Powder Her Face and Anna Nicole are new "operas" - or are they?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

gino said:


> Thanks for the video.
> 
> However, the two operas I referred to are in a different category
> "Moses" is often performed and Schoenberg is reputable - the question is Willy Decker's staging. He was a major success with La Traviata with Netrebko in Salzburg and at the MET..
> ...


As if Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, La Traviata, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Vie Boheme, Carmen, or a host of other operas are not, on the surface or beneath, sex-driven. Acted upon, not acted upon, sex is a primal and driving force underlying a great deal of what drives people to do what they do and it strongly affects how they interact, even in matters not directly sexual.

The "full frontal" in your face aspect, current, will continue to thrill until people are less thrilled / titillated / offended by it, at which time the librettists and directors will no longer be able to readily rely on getting those sensational and dramatic reactions from the audiences it presently elicits


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## gino (Aug 3, 2013)

I think you are 100% right.
Since sex sells (movies, TV etc) - does that mean this is what we should expect in opera from now on?

gino


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

gino said:


> I think you are 100% right.
> Since sex sells (movies, TV etc) - does that mean this is what we should expect in opera from now on?
> 
> gino


Certainly "Salome" is very sexy. So is "Carmen" ,but it also depends on who is the protagonist in both of these operas.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

gino said:


> I think you are 100% right.
> Since sex sells (movies, TV etc) - does that mean this is what we should expect in opera from now on?
> 
> gino


From this list: movies, TV, etc. -- opera was the first to sell sex.

No I have no idea of the production of Moses und Aron you mention, and since I am a near illiterate to either old or new testament (other than what I've picked up via art and literature) I don't know the story, or libretto, well enough to imagine where a lot of sex could be "imposed" upon it by some regie director. Perhaps there is opportunity if the libretto includes Moses coming back to camp with the tablets with the laws on them, to find the people worshiping an idol and celebrating a fertility ritual, a former practice within that culture -- there would be logical opportunity for nudity and simulated sex as part of that crowd scene.

I saw Louis Andriessen's The Death of a Composer: Rosa - A Horse Drama, in its first run, the main female lead is onstage almost all the time, and entirely naked. This was in Amsterdam, in a country where most of its people are very matter of fact about sex, the body, etc. And I recall not one ripple of disturbance in the audience, reviews, etc.

So much of any presentation of sex is dependent on the attitudes of the general audience in the culture it is presented, or a person's attitudes as formed by family, culture, etc.

Of course, the more permitted where it was not before, the more you will have until the novelty and shock value wears off. Wait ten years, I bet there will be less of this overt kind of thing in opera productions, the sensation having worn off. I'd worry about what they will have to sensationalize next after that


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> No I have no idea of the production of Moses und Aron you mention, and since I am a near illiterate to either old or new testament (other than what I've picked up via art and literature) I don't know the story, or libretto, well enough to imagine where a lot of sex could be "imposed" upon it by some regie director.


Sex is already part of the libretto, which contains the sacrificing of naked virgins (willingly) followed by an orgy of general debauchery.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Sex is already part of the libretto, which contains the sacrificing of naked virgins (willingly) followed by an orgy of general debauchery.


Expressionism much!


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

gino said:


> Any comments regarding:
> Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" - directed by Willy Decker
> Thomas Ades "Powder Her Face"


Er, it might be more instructive if you were to DESCRIBE what you're talking about. Not everyone can instantly run out to see a particular opera production, so most of us are in the dark here.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

OK, I have read every post in the thread so far, to find that nobody has addressed the significant point: as a concept, sex trumps opera.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

You see,that's all you ever think about--how undignified in a geezer of your age.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> nobody has addressed the significant point: as a concept, sex trumps opera.


how do you mean? I think every post has dealt with sex and opera so far but I can't actually see how sex trumps opera...? maybe I'm being too literal or something, certainly overly tired and some synapses might not be firing.


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