# The Kindest Cut of All



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Having just been asked to consider a statement that Wagner's operas are "vastly overlong," it occurs to me that if someone believes an opera is too long they ought to be clear about where they feel the longeurs are, and should be able to specify what they would cut to make a performance less tedious to them or less tiring to their gluteus maximus. 

So I'm posing this question: IN OPERAS THAT YOU OTHERWISE ENJOY - any opera by any composer - are there passages that you don't enjoy much, or feel that the opera would be better without? I emphasize "operas that you enjoy" because this is not an invitation to take gleeful potshots at things we dislike. Presumably, if we don't care for an opera it won't much matter to us whether our least favorite moments are cut. It would be very interesting, though, if there are works we greatly love, yet still feel would be improved by a little pruning.

Sometimes a little tough love is needed. What opera would you shorten for its own good, and how do you think the condensation would help?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I have an example I've mentioned before, the Mime-Wanderer question-and-answer game in _Siegfried._ We recall that Wagner wrote the _Ring_ libretti in reverse order, realizing at each stage that another opera was need as background to what he'd already written. I think this scene was a leftover from the stage at which he'd finished the libretti for _Gotterdammerung_ and _Siegfried,_ and hadn't yet determined that _Walkure_ and _Rheingold_ would be added. Thus there's a lot of information in the Mime-Wanderer scene intended to fill us in on things we wouldn't have known otherwise had _Walkure_ and _Rheingold_ not been written, but which those operas render redundant.

The scene is more than a backstory, of course, and it's actually a nice example of the "riddle" theme common in myths and folk tales. It also ends with a brilliantly evocative orchestral passage depicting Mime's hallucinatory panic attack over his situation, and it helps establish the characters of both Mime and the Wanderer. For these reasons (and reasons of overall musical coherence, always a problem when cutting Wagner) I wouldn't cut it in performance, but I think it would have benefited a long opera dominated by male voices if Wagner had found a less lengthy and discursive way to establish his characters and their relationships.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Having just been asked to consider a statement that Wagner's operas are "vastly overlong," it occurs to me that if someone believes an opera is too long they ought to be clear about where they feel the longeurs are, and should be able to specify what they would cut to make a performance less tedious to them or less tiring to their gluteus maximus.
> 
> So I'm posing this question: IN OPERAS THAT YOU OTHERWISE ENJOY - any opera by any composer - are there passages that you don't enjoy much, or feel that the opera would be better without? I emphasize "operas that you enjoy" because this is not an invitation to take gleeful potshots at things we dislike. Presumably, if we don't care for an opera it won't much matter to us whether our least favorite moments are cut. It would be very interesting, though, if there are works we greatly love, yet still feel would be improved by a little pruning.
> 
> Sometimes a little tough love is needed. What opera would you shorten for its own good, and how do you think the condensation would help?


As one of the guilty parties who took a few, uh, "gleeful potshots" here at Meistersingers (meant in good-natured fun, by the way, and you seemed to take it that way at the time), I'll try to address this in a more serious and respectful way. From what I have read in multiple sources, concerts, symphonic, operatic and solo, were often much longer in the 19th century than they are today. And I mean a lot longer.

But on the other hand, I've also read that the level of audience decorum, expected and actual, was often a lot lower. Absolute audience silence was neither expected nor attained during these marathon sessions. The aristocratic and wealthy had their boxes, which offered a surprising degree of privacy, with curtained-off anterooms that you can still see in older venues such as Carnegie Hall. This tradition is reviving with today's resurgence of the ultra-wealthy elite, only in sports stadiums and arenas, now equipped with lavish private suites with a view of the game but many other amenities too. I imagine that then, as now, the wealthy indulged in many pleasurable diversions rather than giving their constant undivided attention to the performance proceeding beneath them.

All of which is to say, I can't really put Meistersingers down simply due to its length. This, even though it is not only long, but from a musical standpoint spectacularly repetitive in its use of thematic material and even its orchestration, quite intentionally, of course. Whether an audience member takes this repetition as the source of an inspiring thematic unity that was no doubt intended by Wagner or as a painful, crashing bore I think ultimately depends on the state of mind of the audience member. And I think it would be difficult to argue with my thesis that the state of mind of 19th century audiences was in many cases fundamentally different than that of 20th and 21st-century ones. For one thing, ultra-long concerts didn't just result from ultra-long operas or symphonies. Symphonic concerts would often consist of many of the same pieces performed today, only more of them. So it isn't simply that longer pieces were being written and performed. The concert was a fundamentally different kind of entertainment than it is today.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

In most operas I'm in favor of restoring traditional cuts,
where cuts were made because of the singers limitations.

Recitative is very tedious for me and I skip them on recordings because I know the action.
Live though it's a necessary evil. 

Maybe Alfredo's aria in Act 2 of Traviata is a good cut as it seems out of place and impedes the drama.

I'm torn on Lohengrin's grail monolog at the end of Act 3. I love the extra music as it takes me into the mysterious realm of the Grail knights.
but it does slow the drama a bit.
If Wagner cut it just for vocal limitations I'm against it.
I trust Richard 

You know me.....the more Wagner , the better


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

I'm not the kind of purist who thinks it immoral to cut parts of opera. Nor do I think cuts implies that that opera is not as great. We often cut parts of Shakespeare, but that doesn't make his plays any less genius.

I love _Lohengrin_.
Generally, a cut I'm ok with is the one that's common in the end of _Lohengrin_ - because it's shorter it emphasizes a kind of urgency, showing that Lohengrin really can't stay. If the scene is too drawn out, his being taken away somehow seems less real.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> From what I have read in multiple sources, concerts, symphonic, operatic and solo, were often much longer in the 19th century than they are today. And I mean a lot longer.
> 
> But on the other hand, I've also read that the level of audience decorum, expected and actual, was often a lot lower. Absolute audience silence was neither expected nor attained during these marathon sessions. The aristocratic and wealthy had their boxes, which offered a surprising degree of privacy, with curtained-off anterooms that you can still see in older venues such as Carnegie Hall. This tradition is reviving with today's resurgence of the ultra-wealthy elite, only in sports stadiums and arenas, now equipped with lavish private suites with a view of the game but many other amenities too. I imagine that then, as now, the wealthy indulged in many pleasurable diversions rather than giving their constant undivided attention to the performance proceeding beneath them.


Interesting observations. Concerts, as well as operas, could go on for hours in the 19th century, with all sorts of music, serious works and what were essentially vaudeville acts, thrown together on the same program. In the 18th century composers even wrote short comic or pastoral operas - "intermezzos" - to be performed between the acts of long tragic ones. Apparently it was "the more music the better," and pieces were more likely to be added to already long entertainments (as they were to Tchaikovsky's _Swan Lake_) than cut.

I don't know at what point audiences were expected to give the music or drama their undivided attention. But it's my understanding that it wasn't customary to darken the auditorium in opera houses until Wagner introduced the custom at Bayreuth, where everything, including the amphitheater seating and the covered orchestra pit, was designed to get the audience out of its everyday reality and into the alternate reality of the opera.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

One of my favorite operas (#2 in fact) _Don Carlo,_ could stand a little pruning to make it a bit more concise. There really is no reason to have Eboli's Veil Song. It does nothing but slow down the impetus of the actual story. Yet, by the same token, I want that Fontainebleu(sp?) scene (1st scene) to remain just where it is. I think it is important to the meaning of the story.
Also the Garden scene where I have a tough time believing that Don Carlo wouldn't know the voice of his veiled lover. It stretches the imagination and yet I know the scene is needed for Eboli to become wise and alert the King. But it is annoying.

Much as I delight in the _Turandot_ Ping, Pang and Pong scene, I think it could have been strengthened by brevity. And without a doubt, that corny ending with the two lovers(?) gives me a belly ache. It just seems like so much "filler".

(On the other hand, I will personally take a brickbat to anyone who mentions that the Willow Song from _Otello_ should be expunged. Done right, it is a thing of sheer beauty and pathos.)

Shortening many death scenes would actually make the opera more absorbing, intense and believable(Gilda/Leonora (Trovatore)/Adriana/Werther (die already!).


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

nina foresti said:


> One of my favorite operas (#2 in fact) _Don Carlo,_ could stand a little pruning to make it a bit more concise. There really is no reason to have Eboli's Veil Song. It does nothing but slow down the impetus of the actual story. Yet, by the same token, I want that Fontainebleu(sp?) scene (1st scene) to remain just where it is. I think it is important to the meaning of the story.
> Also the Garden scene where I have a tough time believing that Don Carlo wouldn't know the voice of his veiled lover. It stretches the imagination and yet I know the scene is needed for Eboli to become wise and alert the King. But it is annoying.
> 
> Much as I delight in the _Turandot_ Ping, Pang and Pong scene, I think it could have been strengthened by brevity. And without a doubt, that corny ending with the two lovers(?) gives me a belly ache. It just seems like so much "filler".
> ...


I like the veil song and a bout of Ping Pong. It's Liu's arias that leave me cold.

Yeah, long extended death scenes, usually replaying the hits of the evening - eg Romeo et Juliette ( cannibalism in Verona) and Mais Non! At least Faust has that great trio, chorus of angels, and tenor and devil going to hell through a trapdoor, to look forward to!


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

Fascinating thread so far - hopefully someone might start another thread asking for operas which would benefit by being made longer.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

One scene which I personally think actually took way from what could have been a hair-raising and satisfying ending was _Don Giovanni_. Mozart should have ended the opera with The Don falling to his death, period! 
The music was so powerful and then -- out of the blue-- come these other voices waxing angry and gleeful at the same time at his demise. It lost the powerful impact and the drama of the moment for me.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> One scene which I personally think actually took way from what could have been a hair-raising and satisfying ending was _Don Giovanni_. Mozart should have ended the opera with The Don falling to his death, period!
> The music was so powerful and then -- out of the blue-- come these other voices waxing angry and gleeful at the same time at his demise. It lost the powerful impact and the drama of the moment for me.


Of course, you are not the first to raise objections to the ending of Don Giovanni or to suggest the power of the opera is dissipated by the moralizing of the final scene and chorus. I've read that the Vienna premier excluded the final scene altogether and ended the opera with the unrepentant Don's death, as you suggest. It could be that Mozart had to bow to social and/or political pressure and make the production a little less scandalous. You raise an interesting issue that is very different from the idea of cutting overly long operas that others here are discussing.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I have an example I've mentioned before, the Mime-Wanderer question-and-answer game in _Siegfried._ We recall that Wagner wrote the _Ring_ libretti in reverse order, realizing at each stage that another opera was need as background to what he'd already written. I think this scene was a leftover from the stage at which he'd finished the libretti for _Gotterdammerung_ and _Siegfried,_ and hadn't yet determined that _Walkure_ and _Rheingold_ would be added. Thus there's a lot of information in the Mime-Wanderer scene intended to fill us in on things we wouldn't have known otherwise had _Walkure_ and _Rheingold_ not been written, but which those operas render redundant.
> 
> The scene is more than a backstory, of course, and it's actually a nice example of the "riddle" theme common in myths and folk tales. It also ends with a brilliantly evocative orchestral passage depicting Mime's hallucinatory panic attack over his situation, and it helps establish the characters of both Mime and the Wanderer. For these reasons (and reasons of overall musical coherence, always a problem when cutting Wagner) I wouldn't cut it in performance, but I think it would have benefited a long opera dominated by male voices if Wagner had found a less lengthy and discursive way to establish his characters and their relationships.


I can't help but note that in Deryck Cooke's _I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring_, Cooke demonstrates that as Wagner molded and shaped his source material into a cogent narrative, his original conception of the opening act of _Die Walküre_ had one striking difference to the final version as we know it. In his first detailed prose sketches of the act, Wagner was determined to actually bring Wotan disguised as the Wanderer _on stage_ to thrust the sword into Hunding's ash-tree. Hunding would then attempt to remove it himself, but fail, and Siegmund would victoriously claim the sword as his own, to the dismay of Hunding. It wasn't until later that Wagner came up with the brilliant idea of having Sieglinde recall the story of the Wanderer plunging the sword into the tree as having taken place on her wedding day.

Obviously Wagner recognized the awkwardness of bringing the Wanderer into this scene of _Walküre_ and how anticlimactic it would render the rest of the act. The solution he came up with is far more dramatically compelling. However, I wonder if the parallel of having the Wanderer appear in the first act of both _Walküre_ and _Siegfried_ was on his mind as he first conceived the overall arch of the story. So in _Walküre_ we would have seen the Wanderer explicitly plant the sword for Siegmund, which would have cemented the fact that Sigemund was simply an agent of Wotan's will and made it clear why Wotan's plan subsequently failed. Then in _Siegfried_ we would have seen the Wanderer come on stage again, but this time instead of planting the sword for Siegfried to find, he ensures that Mime will simply point Siegfried in the right direction, in effect accomplishing Wotan's will for Siegfried while at the same time withdrawing his will from Siegfried and illustrating why this second time around Wotan's actions are for more effective.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> One scene which I personally think actually took way from what could have been a hair-raising and satisfying ending was _Don Giovanni_. Mozart should have ended the opera with The Don falling to his death, period!
> The music was so powerful and then -- out of the blue-- come these other voices waxing angry and gleeful at the same time at his demise. It lost the powerful impact and the drama of the moment for me.


The moralistic ending was added later by Mozart. I admit the music isn't up to what just went before (possibly the most powerful scene in opera imo) but it does wrap up the opera by telling us what happens to those affected by the Don's escapade. I think probably Mozart was conscious of this when he added it. Of course, what you think works best is a matter of opinion. I would just go for the completion.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

nina foresti said:


> One of my favorite operas (#2 in fact) _Don Carlo,_ could stand a little pruning to make it a bit more concise. There really is no reason to have Eboli's Veil Song. It does nothing but slow down the impetus of the actual story. Yet, by the same token, I want that Fontainebleu(sp?) scene (1st scene) to remain just where it is. I think it is important to the meaning of the story.
> Also the Garden scene where I have a tough time believing that Don Carlo wouldn't know the voice of his veiled lover. It stretches the imagination and yet I know the scene is needed for Eboli to become wise and alert the King. But it is annoying.
> 
> Much as I delight in the _Turandot_ Ping, Pang and Pong scene, I think it could have been strengthened by brevity. And without a doubt, that corny ending with the two lovers(?) gives me a belly ache. It just seems like so much "filler".
> ...


Of course, Verdi did prune the opera (French version) himself when he made the Italian version. Verdi was of course a practical man of the theatre with his eye on the box office and he realised the earlier version was too long for an evening at the theatre. The revised version was a success which vindicated his decision.

Can I say that a theatrical performance is different to a recording. When I buy a recording I want all the music. With CD we can make our own cuts if we want. However, I realise in the theatre people have to get home and cuts might be more acceptable.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> One of my favorite operas (#2 in fact) _Don Carlo,_ could stand a little pruning to make it a bit more concise. There really is no reason to have Eboli's Veil Song. It does nothing but slow down the impetus of the actual story. Yet, by the same token, I want that Fontainebleu(sp?) scene (1st scene) to remain just where it is. I think it is important to the meaning of the story.
> Also the Garden scene where I have a tough time believing that Don Carlo wouldn't know the voice of his veiled lover. It stretches the imagination and yet I know the scene is needed for Eboli to become wise and alert the King. But it is annoying.
> 
> Much as I delight in the _Turandot_ Ping, Pang and Pong scene, I think it could have been strengthened by brevity. And without a doubt, that corny ending with the two lovers(?) gives me a belly ache. It just seems like so much "filler".
> ...


_Don Carlo(s)_ in any form has structural problems and an odd ending, but it contains some of Verdi's best music. I suspect there are many operas that contain numbers not strictly necessary to the story. Puccini felt that "Vissi d'arte" held up the action in _Tosca;_ Maria Callas even agreed with him, but thank goodness she didn't get to omit it and deprive us of her inimitable rendition! There might be a case for omitting the Willow Song from _Otello_ for strict plot-related reasons, but I think it helps to reveal the weight of Desdemona's sadness and heightens the power of the coming murder by offering a needed episode of repose, especially after the violence of Act 3's conclusion.

I have to agree about Ping, Pang and Pong. Ping and Pang would have been enough. And death scenes? The longer and more agonizing the better. Gilda gets to sing from inside a potato sack; how often do we get to hear something like that? And Tristan and Isolde spend a whole evening dying. Fabulous!


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I would cut the "La prêche aux oiseaux" passage from Messiaen's _Saint François d'Assise_.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Time is relative to interest.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> Time is relative to interest.


Yes and I am quite interested in Goodall's Ring right now, all 16 hours and 52 minutes of it. I don't know if there are any cuts, but at that record-setting length, probably not.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Yes and I am quite interested in Goodall's Ring right now, all 16 hours and 52 minutes of it. I don't know if there are any cuts, but at that record-setting length, probably not.


I should bloody hope not.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

As Arnold Schoenberg astutely pointed out, cuts in Wagner have the paradoxical effect of making the operas seem even longer ! These cuts are actually artistically counterproductive .


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

superhorn said:


> As Arnold Schoenberg astutely pointed out, cuts in Wagner have the paradoxical effect of making the operas seem even longer ! These cuts are actually artistically counterproductive .


Schoenberg, with his hair shirt views on music and art, would say that. For those of us who go to the theatre for entertainment (and pay for it) rather than a religious rite, I think our own comfort and convenience also comes into it. I recently saw a performance of Figaro which was cut to get it down to three hours for a weekday starting at 7-30pm. i.e. giving people time to get there and the opportunity to get away at a reasonable hour. This had nothing to do with the quality of the music off course but the fact that by 10-30pm many people (especially those of my age) are physically tired and some have to get up to work in the morning. So I found the cuts acceptable even though I did miss things like Basilio's humorous aria about a donkey. 
I think cuts in many operas do not hurt - after all, we all accept Shakespeare's plays are masterpieces but who has ever sat through an uncut Hamlet? As far as Wagner is concerned, some cuts would not hurt. The last time I sat through Mastersingers I just longed for David's interminable exposition of the rules come to an end. Or Wotan's monologue in Walkure Act 2 where he explains everything that we already know. Or the painful Wanderer / Mime scene in Siegfried. And I must say king Mark overstays his welcome for me when he tells Tristan off. That is incredibly anticlimactic after the love duet. So I don't think any opera is sacred beyond cuts. Not necessarily to do with the quality of music but the sheer length of time you spend sitting in the theatre.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Schoenberg, with his hair shirt views on music and art, would say that. For those of us who go to the theatre for entertainment (and pay for it) rather than a religious rite, I think our own comfort and convenience also comes into it. I recently saw a performance of Figaro which was cut to get it down to three hours for a weekday starting at 7-30pm. i.e. giving people time to get there and the opportunity to get away at a reasonable hour. This had nothing to do with the quality of the music off course but the fact that by 10-30pm many people (especially those of my age) are physically tired and some have to get up to work in the morning. So I found the cuts acceptable even though I did miss things like Basilio's humorous aria about a donkey.
> I think cuts in many operas do not hurt - after all, we all accept Shakespeare's plays are masterpieces but who has ever sat through an uncut Hamlet? As far as Wagner is concerned, some cuts would not hurt. The last time I sat through Mastersingers I just longed for David's interminable exposition of the rules come to an end. Or Wotan's monologue in Walkure Act 2 where he explains everything that we already know. Or the painful Wanderer / Mime scene in Siegfried. And I must say king Mark overstays his welcome for me when he tells Tristan off. That is incredibly anticlimactic after the love duet. So I don't think any opera is sacred beyond cuts. Not necessarily to do with the quality of music but the sheer length of time you spend sitting in the theatre.


I agree with both you and Schoenberg. There are "traditional" cuts in Wagner - particularly the sizable chunks out of acts 2 and 3 of _Tristan_ that used to be routine - which are really damaging to the emotional trajectory and aesthetic shape of the whole. On the other hand the passages you cite from _Meistersinger_ and _Siegfried_ might be argued about; David's detailing of the rules is charming and amusing, but not strictly essential, and the Mime/Wanderer game of "20 questions" lost much of its justification when Wagner went on to write the libretti to _Walkure_ and then _Rheingold_. Composers don't always calculate these things perfectly, and if an aria holds up the action without adding anything dramatically or musically rewarding I'm not opposed to cutting it. Recordings, of course, are a different matter.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

You may be taking for granted that the audience knows the whole story of the Ring when attending Die Walkure, which may not be true.
Walkure is performed by itself many times and the information in the second act then would be very helpful.
Especially for newcomers. It even helps me at times, a seasoned Wagnerian.
In Wagner's time performances were rare. He didn't have cd's or dvd's either.
Also, it give the Wanderer some wonderful music


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

I wish Meistersinger was the one with a four-opera cycle.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

sharkeysnight said:


> I wish Meistersinger was the one with a four-opera cycle.


Would Walther win the hands of four women, or would four young suitors vie for Eva? I imagine that by evening four Sachs would tire of matchmaking, promise Eva a magnificent dowry, and sail off with her down the Pegnitz in a catered swan boat, leaving Walther and Beckmesser to run as liberal and conservative candidates for the positions of town clerk and marker.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I agree with both you and Schoenberg. There are "traditional" cuts in Wagner - particularly the sizable chunks out of acts 2 and 3 of _Tristan_ that used to be routine - which are really damaging to the emotional trajectory and aesthetic shape of the whole. On the other hand the passages you cite from _Meistersinger_ and _Siegfried_ might be argued about; David's detailing of the rules is charming and amusing, but not strictly essential, and the Mime/Wanderer game of "20 questions" lost much of its justification when Wagner went on to write the libretti to _Walkure_ and then _Rheingold_. Composers don't always calculate these things perfectly, and if an aria holds up the action without adding anything dramatically or musically rewarding I'm not opposed to cutting it. Recordings, of course, are a different matter.


I would agree that if cuts are going to be made, those two suggestions are about as good as any. They would also save an audience member perhaps 10 to 20 minutes of their evening. I doubt that anyone spending 5 hours at the opera who is thoroughly enjoying the work are going to mind spending and extra 15 minutes in the theater, or that anyone who finds the operas a drag are going to find much relief even if said cuts are implemented.


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## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

I’d like to cut the ten minutes of music between Tristan’s death and Isolde’s Liebestod. The music has been very intense up to this point and this intensity is shattered with this clumsy scene where Wagner tries to tie up loose ends. Kurwenal and Melot fight, and Marke arrives on the scene putting everyone to sleep. We even hear pre-echoes of the Mild und Leise theme in the orchestra. 

All that really needs to be conveyed is that Marke “now understands” and forgives. But we don’t even need that. Who cares if Marke forgives? Far better for Isolde to launch into the Liebestod and maintain the music at this sublime level up to the last note.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Scott in PA said:


> I'd like to cut the ten minutes of music between Tristan's death and Isolde's Liebestod. The music has been very intense up to this point and this intensity is shattered with this clumsy scene where Wagner tries to tie up loose ends. Kurwenal and Melot fight, and Marke arrives on the scene putting everyone to sleep. We even hear pre-echoes of the Mild und Leise theme in the orchestra.
> 
> All that really needs to be conveyed is that Marke "now understands" and forgives. But we don't even need that. Who cares if Marke forgives? Far better for Isolde to launch into the Liebestod and maintain the music at this sublime level up to the last note.


That's an interesting view, but I think Wagner was doing more than merely tying up loose ends. The violence and tragic consequences of the confrontation between Kurwenal and the representatives of the outer world - Marke and Melot - fully rounds out these characters, showing Kurwenal as faithful unto death and Marke as both compassionate and truly tragic rather than merely wounded and pathetic. Wagner doesn't want us to forget the harsh world against which the defiant passion of the lovers is set, and this is revealed again at the very end when he indicates, in his stage directions, that Isolde is to die in Brangaene's arms and Marke is to make a sign of blessing over the lovers' bodies. These directions are now generally ignored, with Isolde seemingly not dying at all but going off into some sort of mystical trance, usually standing up.

Tristan is a unique opera, perhaps occupying a genre of its own (which one writer described as the "theater of passion"), but Wagner saw it as a tragedy, and the tragedy lies in the stark conflict between "das Wunderreich der Nacht" - the wondrous nocturnal realm of pure eros - and "der oede Tag," the barren world of day. Isolde does die in ecstasy, but the tale of the lovers is tragic only if the grim life of the world is seen to continue when the lovers are gone.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> That's an interesting view, but I think Wagner was doing more than merely tying up loose ends. The violence and tragic consequences of the confrontation between Kurwenal and the representatives of the outer world - Marke and Melot - fully rounds out these characters, showing Kurwenal as faithful unto death and Marke as both compassionate and truly tragic rather than merely wounded and pathetic. Wagner doesn't want us to forget the harsh world against which the defiant passion of the lovers is set, and this is revealed again at the very end *when he indicates, in his stage directions, that Isolde is to die in Brangaene's arms* and Marke is to make a sign of blessing over the lovers' bodies. These directions are now generally ignored, with Isolde seemingly not dying at all but going off into some sort of mystical trance, usually standing up.
> 
> Tristan is a unique opera, perhaps occupying a genre of its own (which one writer described as the "theater of passion"), but Wagner saw it as a tragedy, and the tragedy lies in the stark conflict between "das Wunderreich der Nacht" - the wondrous nocturnal realm of pure eros - and "der oede Tag," the barren world of day. Isolde does die in ecstasy, but the tale of the lovers is tragic only if the grim life of the world is seen to continue when the lovers are gone.


Some directors obviously haven't read that bit! :lol:


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Gilda gets to sing from inside a potato sack; how often do we get to hear something like that? And Tristan and Isolde spend a whole evening dying. Fabulous!


In the latest Scottish Opera production which I forgot to note here that I saw last week, Gilda doesn't sing from her sack as she's already dead. She sings her lines as ghostly form a few metres away from Rigoletto and the bodybag. Finally a modern innovation that works! So effective that I think every future production should adopt this direction.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Act IV of Le Nozze di Figaro. Jeez just end with a wedding celebration of act III. All the best tunes have been sung by then.

Huge chunks from the middle of Carmen. Not just was Bizet's early death a tragedy, but the tragedy of Carmen is that he never had the chance to revise and trim it.

Aside from the above, loads of Verdi and Wagner I could do without, even in works I love.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

- Don Carlo: drop _Non pianger_ or at least cut a verse. Bring back the Lacrimosa permanently.
- Billy Budd: I hate the "We're off to Samoa" part with a passion. Get that filler out of my way and give me the bass aria already.
- the stupid minister trio in Turandot. It goes on forever.
- the act I love duet in Tosca is way too long
- the soldier chorus in Trovatore. it doesn't help that it's either badly choreographed play fighting/dancing or fooling around with the, erm, camp followers. imagine if Luna and Ferrando could have a duet there before Azucena arrives.
- **** Melitone but especially his sermon. also **** Trabuco
- I generally love Onegin but that filler French song is really unnecessary. who wants to listen to a character tenor that long?
- Raimondo's aria is really not that good. Plot-wise it's semi-importnt but ehh
- I'd cut Those Two Drunks from Werther entirely
- the Siegfried/Rhienmaidens scene just never ends


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