# Political correctness kills Carmen



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap...e-protest.html

"The dramatic departure from operatic orthodoxy is an attempt to shine the spotlight on the modern-day abuse and mistreatment of women..."
has the western world gone completely insane? 

Some people think, that it is a good idea to butcher great works of arts to suit their political ideological convictions. What comes next? Should we start to change works of literature, because the authors write about "non correct" things and express non correct opinions? What sheer arrogance is it, to take a work made by someone else, and butcher and cripple it? No one prevents them to write their own opera dealing with the topic of violence against women, and gender quotas and whatever.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Sorry to hear it. There are all sorts of wonderful operas and great plays and novels which offend against today's sensibilities, but changing them smacks to me of Mrs Bowdler's Family Shakespeare. 

I would always rather keep texts as they were first issued, and view them with a double eye - seeing the mind-set of the age that produced them, and comparing it with our nowadays viewpoint.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

As Carmen is set in Spain and sung in French, I don't know what the Italians are worried about. It would be interesting to know how many opera lovers watch Carnen then go home and murder their partners as a result, like the imbecilic director appears to be implying


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Jacck;1600001
has the western world gone completely insane? :eek:[/QUOTE said:


> In answer your last question - yes, but that goes beyond the scope of this topic.
> 
> Coincidently I'm going to see Carmen tonight.


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

Each time I read an article like this a little piece of me dies inside.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Jacck said:


> What comes next? Should we start to change works of literature, because the authors write about "non correct" things and express non correct opinions?


"American Tragedy" could be altered. Instead of the pregnant young lady being killed in the lake, she swims to shore and ends up a manager at a Starbucks chain store. :lol:


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

What happens in the card scene this time? Does Carmen draw a royal flush instead of a hand indicating death?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Has someone seen my barf bag? I seem to have misplaced it.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

What would happen if Lolita were published today? I know there were problems in the 50s, but I think there would be more problems now.

One area I don't see this happening is off-Broadway theatre (and its equivalents elsewhere). Provocation has always been an element, and Jean Genet to Edward Bond to Christopher Durang to Sarah Kane to Jeremy O. Harris acceptable limits and political correctness continue to be tested.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

In all fairness to Bizet, I doubt that his intention was to incite violence between men and women but to show that tragic crimes of passion do happen.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Many classical music fans also have (very) conservative ideas and stubborn viewpoints. 

It always strikes me funny that the anger and outrage expressed about new visions, such as about Carmen in this thread, also were expressed by the same conservative mainstream of the day, when many of these classic pieces were premiered. It means that change goes slowly as it has to cope with conservative mainstream defense all the time. True art fortunately always challenges and kicks at establishments and delivers new ideas and insights, by butchering sacred cows. And then, many years later, also the general public starts to accept it. 

TC could also well be read as TalkConservative


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> In all fairness to Bizet, I don't believe his intention was to incite violence between men and women but to show that tragic crimes of passion do happen.


I guess we're about to lose both Othello and Otello as well.


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## Faramundo (Jul 16, 2016)

hysterical feminist radicalism crosses new thresholds of stupidity every day, while the real issues remain unchanged because reality does not yield to speech police.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> Many classical music fans also have (very) conservative ideas and stubborn viewpoints.
> It always strikes me funny that the anger and outrage expressed about new visions, such as about Carmen in this thread, also were expressed by the same conservative mainstream of the day, when many of these classic pieces were premiered. It means that change goes slowly as it has to cope with conservative mainstream defense all the time. True art fortunately always challenges and kicks at establishments and delivers new ideas and insights, by butchering sacred cows. And then, many years later, also the general public starts to accept it.
> TC could also well be read as TalkConservative


with respect, I think you are completely missing the point here. If you have a vision, then write your own opera, but leave the works of other artists intact. I do not need you to serve as an interpreter, who will censor the works of other authors for me. It is completely unasked for


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> As Carmen is set in Spain and sung in French, I don't know what the Italians are worried about. It would be interesting to know how many opera lovers watch Carnen then go home and murder their partners as a result, like the imbecilic director appears to be implying


Well, you say that, but....

A few years ago I saw Das Rheingold, a welcome break from the building work I was having done at home. The opera inspired me to not pay the builders. Safer than going out and stealing the payment from elsewhere, look what can happen if you do.

Opera is dangerous stuff.....


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Rather than "killing Carmen", it seems this new opera production is trying to keep Bizet's opera alive and fresh by trying something new. I'm so glad that opera producers keep trying out original angles and interpretations, so that we can discuss the differences and compare the old versions to the new. So - yes, the western world HAS gone insane, but this disturbing fact has nothing to do with opera or "Carmen".


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

There's a difference between artistic vision (which may seek to subvert an audience's expectations of a well known work) and political correctness (where a change is made to comply with the mood of the day).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> Many classical music fans also have (very) conservative ideas and stubborn viewpoints.
> 
> It always strikes me funny that the anger and outrage expressed about new visions, such as about Carmen in this thread, also were expressed by the same conservative mainstream of the day, when many of these classic pieces were premiered. It means that change goes slowly as it has to cope with conservative mainstream defense all the time. True art fortunately always challenges and kicks at establishments and delivers new ideas and insights, by butchering sacred cows. And then, many years later, also the general public starts to accept it.
> 
> TC could also well be read as TalkConservative


I am not politically conservative, but I do believe in "conserving" - respecting - works of art as they are given to us by their creators. There is no parallel between such "conservatism" and the simple resistance to the new and unfamiliar which accounted for _Carmen_'s rocky start when it was first performed. The truth is that producers of theatrical works can do all sorts of creative things with old works without violating their meaning. But of course it's necessary to understand the works to begin with.

Carmen's death expresses four ideas previously introduced in the story: Carmen's absolute acceptance of the decrees of fate, the prediction of her death in the cards, Jose's instability and proneness to violence and self-destructive behavior, and the harsh sensibility of the culture - especially Roma culture - of Andalusian Spain. Carmen is an independent woman, but she isn't a "feminist." She's a gypsy. Allowing her to live makes the opera something it is not, solely in pursuit of a wholly extraneous pet obsession of a certain fashionable component of contemporary culture.

It gets me to thinking: might we have a new version of _Otello_ in which Desdemona fights off Otello, jumps out of bed, pulls a pistol out of her night table drawer, and shoots him? She could even flip him the bird as he sings "un altro bacio" and walk off with Cassio, with whom, independent woman that she is, she really has been having an affair. Of course, Otello could not be depicted as a "blackamoor," lest the production be accused of racism. In fact, Desdemona herself could be black, which would make her liberated status all the more thrilling - but only, of course, if a black soprano is cast in the role.

In the age of political correctness and safe spaces, the possibilities for obliterating our cultural heritage are endless.


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## Forsooth (Apr 17, 2018)

marceliotstein said:


> Rather than "killing Carmen", it seems this new opera production is trying to keep Bizet's opera alive and fresh by trying something new. I'm so glad that opera producers keep trying out original angles and interpretations, so that we can discuss the differences and compare the old versions to the new. So - yes, the western world HAS gone insane, but this disturbing fact has nothing to do with opera or "Carmen".


Remember this? 
"*Trump-like 'Julius Caesar' assassinated in New York play*...washingtonpost.com/news/morning....June 12, 2017 · The New York-based arts organization came under fire for staging a production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" starring Trump look-alike Gregg Henry in the titular role."

Was the production company trying to keep Shakespeare alive? Or were they simply a gaggle of social justice warriors doing what they do best?

(This will be my only post in this thread. Bye.)


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Forsooth said:


> Remember this?
> Was the production company trying to keep Shakespeare alive? Or were they simply a gaggle of social justice warriors doing what they do best?


I think they were trying to do both! Shakespeare's plays have always carried topical political messages (thus, for instance, the portrayal of Richard III as a monster at a time when Lancaster vs. York was still a fresh controversy). A play about patriots killing a rising tyrant in a desperate hope to save their democracy is certainly timely in the age of Trump - and those who criticized Shakespeare in the Park for allegedly suggesting assassination were answered by the fact that, in this Shakespeare play, the assassination doesn't even succeed in saving the democracy. I hope we manage to save ours.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Jacck said:


> Some people think, that it is a good idea to butcher great works of arts to suit their political ideological convictions. What comes next? Should we start to change works of literature, because the authors write about "non correct" things and express non correct opinions? What sheer arrogance is it, to take a work made by someone else, and butcher and cripple it?


Look on the bright side. As they set out to "butcher and cripple," _Carmen_, the producers of this version were apparently unsuccessful in their attempt to gather and burn every last copy of the score or libretto; it's rumored a few stray copies have survived. Hopefully, these will be rediscovered someday, so that even if it's impossible now for you and me to see a _Carmen_ with the original ending, our children's children can at least hope for that experience.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Personally, I prefer my idle classical/opera chatter with 100% fewer links to alt-right white nationalism type websites and talking points.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I view saving Carmen’s life as a social issue not a political one because there are laws against murder but they continue to happen anyway. Who as a conservative or liberal would condone the stabbing of one’s lover? So both are in agreement on that point at least. The question is: what can be done about the mistreatment of women? Is it not possible to talk about it without putting political labels on everything? Carmen is an opera that someone wants to use to advocate a social change and awareness. I don’t see the harm in that, but from the dramatic standpoint, the artistic standpoint of the opera itself, I think it’s a huge mistake because it destroys the opera’s intensity and drama. There’s no drama without her death and Don Jose‘s regret. It would be better to write a new opera where the heroine lives. Carmen is an opera that’s not being voted on in the house of representatives. It’s an artistic issue related to social change and awareness. At least that’s how I feel about it and I’d like to see it left alone. There is such a thing as a crime of passion and to portray murder in an opera is not the same as advocating it to others in real life.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> It would be better to write a new opera where the heroine lives.


Or, perhaps better still, just put on _Fidelio_! Gotta hand it to Beethoven bucking stereotypes.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

My view is that when the alteration is for PC purposes, it is always wrong because the work of art becomes a tool and ceases to have its own identity as a respected work of art.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

The interesting thing is that following the text can sometimes make the greatest statement of all. In the late 1970s (and since) directors and actors were struggling with Kate's capitulation to Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew." Several well known stage productions at the time, including one with Meryl Streep, had Kate "winking" at the audience - as if to say, "My time will come." But the one I remember most clearly was an RSC production, where Kate literally knelt down and kissed Petruchio's feet. The audience was appalled - hated that she gave in. Much stronger than a wink.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bulldog said:


> My view is that when the alteration is for PC purposes, it is always wrong because the work of art becomes a tool and ceases to have its own identity as a respected work of art.


Was it wrong for Bernstein, upon the fall of the Berlin wall, to go there and perform the Choral Symphony with the word "joy" changed to "freedom"? Maybe it was, but I can't remember anybody saying so at the time.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Was it wrong for Bernstein, upon the fall of the Berlin wall, to go there and perform the Choral Symphony with the word "joy" changed to "freedom"? Maybe it was, but I can't remember anybody saying so at the time.


In principle, yes, it was. Once the door is opened to *any *changes...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Was it wrong for Bernstein, upon the fall of the Berlin wall, to go there and perform the Choral Symphony with the word "joy" changed to "freedom"? Maybe it was, but I can't remember anybody saying so at the time.


Of course, Schiller's Ode is also an ode to freedom, so I don't think too many PC hackles raised. Changing one word to suit the occasion is acceptable. Changing the meaning of a whole operatic masterpiece to suit a fool director is not.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

NLAdriaan said:


> Many classical music fans also have (very) conservative ideas and stubborn viewpoints.
> 
> ...
> 
> TC could also well be read as TalkConservative


Given that the word "Conservative" seems to have joined the long list of words that should convey useful meaning but are now just (ad hominem) labels to be applied without context, I don't know what to say to this line, except that surely opera fans are likely to be conservative in the sense that they value and wish to preserve valuable things.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Don Fatale said:


> Given that the word "Conservative" seems to have joined the long list of words that should convey useful meaning but are now just (ad hominem) labels to be applied without context, I don't know what to say to this line, except that surely opera fans are likely to be conservative in the sense that they value and wish to preserve valuable things.


I am highly conservative about works of genius if that means not letting some talentless idiot with a large ego loose on it.


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

Although there must be some plausible examples _Regietheatre_ stretches the bounds of credibility (or incredibility for that matter) more than enough - we are now seemingly stuck with that, but surely the actual plot of an opera should be left alone. I suppose any work which is now in the public domain is at the mercy of anyone who wants to play fast and loose with it, however commendable the socio-political agenda behind its distortion.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Was it wrong for Bernstein, upon the fall of the Berlin wall, to go there and perform the Choral Symphony with the word "joy" changed to "freedom"?


It was a little cheesy but, given the momentous occasion, an understandable indulgence. That said, the fall of the Berlin Wall was surely as much a cause for joy as for freedom, and IMHO "Freiheit, schöner Götterfunken" doesn't scan/flow quite as well as the original (due to the slightly jarring transition between "Freiheit" and "schöner"), so perhaps it should have been left alone.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Jacck said:


> with respect, I think you are completely missing the point here. If you have a vision, then write your own opera, but leave the works of other artists intact. I do not need you to serve as an interpreter, who will censor the works of other authors for me. It is completely unasked for


The context of any opera is (radically) changed all the time by stage directors, often causing similar (conservative) reactions to yours. Music (with or without words) can only be made audible through interpretation. You can shoot any piano player for not exactly reproducing your personally memorized version of any piece or you can listen to the music, words and look at the scenery and let them surprise you. For true conservatives: just stick to the same pre-recorded music all the time and avoid live shows at any cost. You won't be surprised!

I guess we better not start a discussion about (re-)interpretations of text. I can at least say that I fear people who take ancient texts literally, without interpretation.

The storm of anger about an opera performance that you guys didn't even see for yourself, it just seems like a terrible waste of energy to me. But it's all up to you:tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

NLAdriaan said:


> The context of any opera is (radically) changed all the time by stage directors, often causing similar (conservative) reactions to yours. Music (with or without words) can only be made audible through interpretation. You can shoot any piano player for not exactly reproducing your personally memorized version of any piece or you can listen to the music, words and look at the scenery and let them surprise you. For true conservatives: just stick to the same pre-recorded music all the time and avoid live shows at any cost. You won't be surprised!
> 
> I guess we better not start a discussion about (re-)interpretations of text. I can at least say that I fear people who take ancient texts literally, without interpretation.
> 
> The storm of anger about an opera performance that you guys didn't even see for yourself, it just seems like a terrible waste of energy to me. But it's all up to you:tiphat:


Oh come off it! We are not talking here about 'interpretation' but of altering the very meaning of a masterpiece. There is plenty of scope for interpretation within great opera as it stands. However, we have talentless and clueless directors - often who have not made it in theatre - coming and giving their own misguided views on masterworks rather than interpreting what the composer actually put. And, of course, if anyone objects to these crass displays of folly, they are labelled 'conservative'.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

NLAdriaan said:


> The context of any opera is (radically) changed all the time by stage directors, often causing similar (conservative) reactions to yours. Music (with or without words) can only be made audible through interpretation. You can shoot any piano player for not exactly reproducing your personally memorized version of any piece or you can listen to the music, words and look at the scenery and let them surprise you. For true conservatives: just stick to the same pre-recorded music all the time and avoid live shows at any cost. You won't be surprised!
> 
> I guess we better not start a discussion about (re-)interpretations of text. I can at least say that I fear people who take ancient texts literally, without interpretation.
> 
> The storm of anger about an opera performance that you guys didn't even see for yourself, it just seems like a terrible waste of energy to me. But it's all up to you:tiphat:


The context of any opera is (radically) changed all the time by stage directors, often causing similar (conservative) reactions to yours. 
INCORRECT STATEMENT

You can shoot any piano player for not exactly reproducing your personally memorized version of any piece or you can listen to the music, words and look at the scenery and let them surprise you. 
RED HERRING FALLACY. We go to see live music because of interpretation! The discussion relates to a production, i.e. visuals and stage direction.

But it's all up to you:tiphat:
ON THAT WE AGREE. WE'RE GIVING OUR OPINIONS
And those opinions, not just here, are that these directors sometimes exhibit an agenda which is not in line with serving the work, and in my view, having attended many 100's of operas, is that some directors show very little talent in service of this wonderful artform.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Don Fatale said:


> ...And those opinions, not just here, are that these directors sometimes exhibit an agenda which is not in line with serving the work, and in my view, having attended many 100's of operas, is that some directors show very little talent in service of this wonderful artform...


Everyone in the audience will have a different (borrowed or authentic) opinion on what they like or not. And I guess that no one in this discussion has actually seen the specific Carmen? Each director expresses his own viewpoint according to his own ideas/agenda or whatever brainwave and that is what you are going to get, along with the ideas of the conductor as transferred more or less to the musicians and singers. If you already get angry or frustrated with an interpretation you haven't even heard......well....

Interpretation is the essential part of any performing artform, the composition and lyrics on paper are for most people not enough. So, in opera, most people need a director and a conductor and musicians, whether they like it or not. So, it is virtually impossible to have any opera performance that is to everyones taste.

And to paraphrase your own words, if you don't like what they do, why don't you just do it better yourself?

BTW: interesting to see how this discussion derails, the F-word is already mentioned. This Carmen director can be really proud, he clearly hit a sensitive point and made people think, even when they didn't go to his show:clap:.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I suggest that people see the original Carmen before actually commenting on it because some obviously haven’t. They evidently have no idea about the original ending and the proposed changing of the ending. That’s evident because they don’t mention the change of the ending that is being suggested. Interpretation is not the same as structure and plot. How about a new Rite of Spring with a different ending and no maiden is sacrificed? The drama is sacrificed and it doesn’t fit the music. That’s what’s being discussed here, not interpretation. They aren’t the same.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> Everyone in the audience will have a different (borrowed or authentic) opinion on what they like or not. And I guess that no one in this discussion has actually seen the specific Carmen? Each director expresses his own viewpoint according to his own ideas/agenda or whatever brainwave and that is what you are going to get, along with the ideas of the conductor as transferred more or less to the musicians and singers. If you already get angry or frustrated with an interpretation you haven't even heard......well....
> 
> Interpretation is the essential part of any performing artform, the composition and lyrics on paper are for most people not enough. So, in opera, most people need a director and a conductor and musicians, whether they like it or not. So, it is virtually impossible to have any opera performance that is to everyones taste.
> 
> ...


Who needs to see a perverted version of an opera to know that it's perverted?

Having Carmen flounce off with (or without) Escamillo while Jose stands there whining is not an "interpretation" of the opera. It's a different (worse) opera.

Why don't I do it better myself? OK, care to fund my production? But others have already done it better. They've done the actual opera called _Carmen._

Why is it any sort of achievement to make people think? Having Carmen strip naked and defecate onstage would make them think even more.

I hope this makes you think.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> I suggest that people see the original Carmen before actually commenting on it because some obviously haven't. They evidently have no idea about the original ending and the proposed changing of the ending. That's evident because they don't mention the change of the ending that is being suggested. Interpretation is not the same as structure and plot. How about a new Rite of Spring with a different ending and no one is sacrificed? The drama is sacrificed and it doesn't fit the music. That's what's being discussed here, not interpretation. They aren't the same.


Eh. It's Carmen--does anyone really take any performance of Camen that seriously? Whether Don Jose kills Carmen or the other way around, people are there to hear the seguidilla and the toreador song--I'm fairly confident that this one performance at this one theater that none of us are likely to visit that was staged over a year ago still played all the music, and the people of Florentine who probably were seeing their twentieth Carmen of their lifetime were able to witness this departure without it signaling the end of culture.

I don't recall all the hysteria around here about the Berlin Parsifal where Gurnemanz knifes Kundry at the end; a much greater violence to a much more important cultural work than Carmen in my book.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

It _is _kind of funny how often women die in operas. Carmen probably dies a few hundred times a year, maybe we can let her live it up a little. Somehow I doubt this production shook the bedrock of one of opera's primary blockbusters. Maybe we can reach a mutually agreeable compromise - perhaps if he merely raped her at the end, that would satisfy both parties, right?

Also, this production premiered over a year ago, so I'm not really sure what purpose this thread serves.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

sharkeysnight said:


> It _is _kind of funny how often women die in operas. Carmen probably dies a few hundred times a year, maybe we can let her live it up a little. Somehow I doubt this production shook the bedrock of one of opera's primary blockbusters. Maybe we can reach a mutually agreeable compromise - perhaps if he merely raped her at the end, that would satisfy both parties, right?
> 
> Also, this production premiered over a year ago, so *I'm not really sure what purpose this thread serves.*


We get to debate philosophies of art and culture. Or rip into each other's politics. You know, the usual mundane stuff.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Members are discussing to what extent modifications to opera plots are acceptable or problematic. Some have inserted insults and other negative personal comments. Please do not spoil a thread by continuing personal attacks. Discuss the thread topic not each other.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

sharkeysnight said:


> It _is _kind of funny how often women die in operas. Carmen probably dies a few hundred times a year, maybe we can let her live it up a little. Somehow I doubt this production shook the bedrock of one of opera's primary blockbusters.


I know you don't mean it that way, but I don't think it's at all funny. And it's not a coincidence that women dying at the end is a common thing in opera. And we're supposed to feel bad for the tenor in most of these situations. It's really disappointing.

I don't think this sounds like a good solution, but I understand the sentiment.



sharkeysnight said:


> Also, this production premiered over a year ago, so I'm not really sure what purpose this thread serves.


This thread is to push some false narrative about how the world is changing and we have to resist big bad cultural forces. When this was one odd production that no one here saw, and when there have been an uncountable number of (more) traditional performances of _Carmen_ since.

This entire thread was started in bad faith.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> This thread is to push some false narrative about how the world is changing and we have to resist big bad cultural forces. When this was one odd production that no one here saw, and when there have been an uncountable number of (more) traditional performances of _Carmen_ since.
> 
> This entire thread was started in bad faith.


There have been a number of threads dealing with directors messing around with operas in order to satisfy certain currently fashionable sensibilities. Bowdlerization is, in spirit, a form of censorship, a time-honored form of artistic butchery which probably dates back to ancient times. We may find it amusing or horrifying; personally, I'd put this particular example closer to the amusing end of the spectrum, given that I don't find Carmen to be one of opera's more thought-provoking masterworks. It is a great opera, however, and there are philosophical principles involved in artistic choices which are worth recalling regardless of our interest in the work in question.

The OP is entitled to his concerns, views, and purposes regarding this example of bowdlerization. We can decide whether to address the subject, to bother ourselves and make judgments about the OP's presumed "bad faith," or to ignore the thread. There has to be room on the forum for viewpoints we find unsympathetic. We also need to remember that not everyone currently active has encountered this topic before.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

I think this thread pretty much shows how fundamentally different we think and how we end up in two groups:

1. that want to decide what other people may or may not do or think
2. that believe in freedom of expression and interpretation

The F-word was mentioned a few threads earlier, addressing the second group. To me, the F-word is however all about the first group. This argument is backed by history and by sheer semantics. The same semantics that caused the renewed hystery over an opera that was greeted with shock at the premiere, because of the warm blooded role of the female lead. The shock would at the time probably have been unbearable if the female lead would not have been killed, but the deserted soldier instead. Now that in this particular theatre the director had the luminous idea to have the jealous and naive deserted soldier killed by the very 'libertine' gipsy woman, this still proves to be a shocker in 2019:lol:

Dear TC members, Western culture is not coming to an end, because of this one thought by this one director, on the contrary. It hopefully contributes to the development of the one subject that caused all this hysteria, already since the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was written: The relationship between men and women. Many (men?) likely feel righteous and comfortable if the seducing woman ultimately gets the blame, Eve, Carmen. Now that the weak, deserted soldier gets killed for a change, how about righteousness now? 

We could have used the space of this thread to have a deep discussion on this interesting subject. Instead, there is a lynch party going on, without any exchange of thoughts. And the fire was lit by a third rate propaganda website, quoted at the start. Incredible how lightly the anger and fear spreads and how little we are willing to think for ourselves. There must be quite some Don Jose's out there.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Thread re-opened for serious but polite discussion.

Some posts have been deleted or edited to remove inappropriate comments and other posts deleted or edited to reflect these changes.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> I think this thread pretty much shows how fundamentally different we think and how we end up in two groups:
> 
> 1. that want to decide what other people may or may not do or think
> 2. that believe in freedom of expression and interpretation


Here's a more balanced snapshot:

1. This who assign primary importance to the integrity of an original art work.

2. Those who assign primary importance to their own freedom of expression and interpretation.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> We could have used the space of this thread to have a deep discussion on this interesting subject. Instead, there is a lynch party going on, without any exchange of thoughts.


Here are some thoughts:

_I am not politically conservative, but I do believe in "conserving" - respecting - works of art as they are given to us by their creators. There is no parallel between such "conservatism" and the simple resistance to the new and unfamiliar which accounted for Carmen's rocky start when it was first performed. The truth is that producers of theatrical works can do all sorts of creative things with old works without violating their meaning. But of course it's necessary to understand the works to begin with.

Carmen's death expresses four ideas previously introduced in the story: Carmen's absolute acceptance of the decrees of fate, the prediction of her death in the cards, Jose's instability and proneness to violence and self-destructive behavior, and the harsh sensibility of the culture - especially Roma culture - of Andalusian Spain. Carmen is an independent woman, but she isn't a "feminist." She's a gypsy. Allowing her to live makes the opera something it is not, solely in pursuit of a wholly extraneous pet obsession of a certain fashionable component of contemporary culture._

These thoughts come from post #18, and were a response to a post of yours. I'm not sure how "deep" they are, but I thought them relevant at the time, and I still do.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

At least do this for an opera where it makes sense, like Don Giovanni. Revisionism does not good entertainment make.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> I think this thread pretty much shows how fundamentally different we think and how we end up in two groups:
> 
> 1. that want to decide what other people may or may not do or think
> 2. that believe in freedom of expression and interpretation
> ...


Am I correct in assuming you would have no problem with a significant change which expressed a political/social view you found personally repugnant was made to an opera ?


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Wait a minute here ... some people are objecting to a new version of Carmen that changes the ending to a happy ending? But this is fully in the tradition of some of our greatest and very earliest opera composers.

The original "Euridice" by Jacopo Peri gave this tragic tale a happy ending. Early enough in opera history for all of us here?

The great "Orfeo ed Euridice" by Gluck followed Peri's example with the same ludicrous happy ending.

Rossini's famous "Otello" did the same to Shakespeare's tragedy. It's hard to imagine anything more offensive to purists than "Othello" with a happy ending. But some of us still like Rossini a little bit anyway.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

marceliotstein said:


> Wait a minute here ... some people are objecting to a new version of Carmen that changes the ending to a happy ending? But this is fully in the tradition of some of our greatest and very earliest opera composers.
> 
> The original "Euridice" by Jacopo Peri gave this tragic tale a happy ending. Early enough in opera history for all of us here?
> 
> ...


With all due respect, where in this thread have you seen anyone complain that their problem with this director's change is merely that it contains a happy ending? The crucial objections in this thread are to do with changing an _existing _work of art; the example operas you list were written that way to begin with. No one has a problem with adapting and modifying traditional tales to one's own artistic ends. If someone wanted to write another version of the Carmen story as an opera containing a happy ending, then so be it (and good luck!). But that's clearly not the situation being debated here.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JoeSaunders said:


> With all due respect, where in this thread have you seen anyone complain that their problem with this director's change is merely that it contains a happy ending? The crucial objections in this thread are to do with changing an _existing _work of art; the example operas you list were written that way to begin with. No one has a problem with adapting and modifying traditional tales to one's own artistic ends. *If someone wanted to write another version of the Carmen story as an opera containing a happy ending, then so be it (and good luck!).* But that's clearly not the situation being debated here.


Hey! Why not a new Carmen with a happy ending? Carmen, a happy-go-lucky gypsy gal who goes happily by "Carmencita," goes happily to work every day, happy to breathe clouds of Lucky Strike cigarette smoke, until she meets a young dragoon named Happy Jose, who is more than happy to accompany her happy gang of thieves until his less-than-happy fiance persuades him to return to his mother, who is happy to have him back, whereupon Carmencita, unspeakably happy to be rid of him, runs off with the uproariously happy Escamillo, who has given up bullfighting because he's learned that animals deserve happiness too, and lives happily ever after.

I suspect Andrew LLoyd Webber would be happy to steal a few of the happier inspirations of other composers for this happy tale, and that one of the happy inhabitants of this forum would then start a thread to prove that "Happy Carmencita" is the happiest opera of the 21st century.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

JoeSaunders said:


> With all due respect, where in this thread have you seen anyone complain that their problem with this director's change is merely that it contains a happy ending? The crucial objections in this thread are to do with changing an _existing _work of art; the example operas you list were written that way to begin with. No one has a problem with adapting and modifying traditional tales to one's own artistic ends. If someone wanted to write another version of the Carmen story as an opera containing a happy ending, then so be it (and good luck!). But that's clearly not the situation being debated here.


Indeed. Matthew Bourne's brilliant ballet *The Car Man*, which uses music adapted from Bizet's score (not the only ballet to do such a thing) has a story, which is only loosely based on Bizet's (and Merimée's) *Carmen*, though it too has a tragic ending. The problem with Bizet's opera is that it has a libretto and at the end of the opera José sings the words,

_Vous pouvez m'arrêter... c'est moi qui l'ait tuée... Ma Carmen adorée _.

I don't see how you get round that.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

GregMitchell said:


> Indeed. Matthew Bourne's brilliant ballet *The Car Man*, which uses music adapted from Bizet's score (not the only ballet to édo such a thing) has a story, which is only loosely based on Bizet's (and Merimée's) *Carmen*, though it too has a tragic ending. The problem with Bizet's opera is that it has a libretto and at the end of the opera José sings the words,
> 
> _Vous pouvez m'arrêter... c'est moi qui l'ait tuée... Ma Carmen adorée _.
> 
> *I don't see how you get round that*.


If the director has artistic integrity, you can't get around it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Hey! Why not a new Carmen with a happy ending? Carmen, a happy-go-lucky gypsy gal who goes happily by "Carmencita," goes happily to work every day, happy to breathe clouds of Lucky Strike cigarette smoke, until she meets a young dragoon named Happy Jose, who is more than happy to accompany her happy gang of thieves until his less-than-happy fiance persuades him to return to his mother, who is happy to have him back, whereupon Carmencita, unspeakably happy to be rid of him, runs off with the uproariously happy Escamillo, who has given up bullfighting because he's learned that animals deserve happiness too, and lives happily ever after.
> 
> I suspect Andrew LLoyd Webber would be happy to steal a few of the happier inspirations of other composers for this happy tale, and that one of the happy inhabitants of this forum would then start a thread to prove that "Happy Carmencita" is the happiest opera of the 21st century.


Actually I'm surprised Gilbert & Sullivan never had a go.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Actually I'm surprised Gilbert & Sullivan never had a go.


What a happy thought!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> Now that in this particular theatre the director had the luminous idea to have the jealous and naive deserted soldier killed by the very 'libertine' gipsy woman, this still proves to be a shocker in 2019


Luminous idea? Any dope could have come up with that notion.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

ArsMusica said:


> If the director has artistic integrity, you can't get around it.


Your avatar is Thomas Sowell...so I instantly love you.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Your avatar is Thomas Sowell...so I instantly love you.


Always great to meet another admirer of the brilliant Doctor Sowell! :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> Luminous idea? Any dope could have come up with that notion.


There are similarly luminous ideas transforming operas all over the world, but we will not have reached full illumination until every female character who now dies a degrading death at the hands of a white European male composer lives on to take society back from the patriarchy. I long to see Isolde arrive in Kareol to inform Tristan that she's had enough of him, his uncle, Melot, and all the rest of those medieval male chauvinist boars, and that she's sailing back to Dublin next morning to set up an herbalist shop with Brangaene to function as her business manager (after a little on-the-job training, of course).


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Bulldog said:


> Here's a more balanced snapshot:
> 
> 1. This who assign primary importance to the integrity of an original art work.
> 
> 2. Those who assign primary importance to their own freedom of expression and interpretation.


I don't buy that. People have been messing around with Shakespeare for 400 years. In NYC we're about to get a woman (Glenda Jackson) as King Lear. That gives actors and directors the chance to examine the text in a new way. But I certainly do not assume that Ms. Jackson and her director do not respect the text. And in the end, the text is still there. In all likelihood, the next production of Lear will have a man.

By the way - Carmen has survived tampering before. Try Googling "Carmen Peter Brook."


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I think Carmen should wear a nicotine patch instead of smoking. Children might be watching. ;$


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> I don't buy that. People have been messing around with Shakespeare for 400 years. In NYC we're about to get a woman (Glenda Jackson) as King Lear. That gives actors and directors the chance to examine the text in a new way. But I certainly do not assume that Ms. Jackson and her director do not respect the text. And in the end, the text is still there. In all likelihood, the next production of Lear will have a man.
> 
> By the way - Carmen has survived tampering before. Try Googling "Carmen Peter Brook."


Ms Jackson may have played Lear (and by all accounts she was amazing) but they didn't rewrite the text.

The RSC are doing *The Taming of the Shrew* this season, another play that is rather difficult for a modern audience. Again, they haven't altered the text, but they have done a bit of gender swapping and the men are now played by women, the women by men. The text is still respected. Do people not see the distinction?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jegreenwood said:


> I don't buy that. People have been messing around with Shakespeare for 400 years. In NYC we're about to get a woman (Glenda Jackson) as King Lear. That gives actors and directors the chance to examine the text in a new way. But I certainly do not assume that Ms. Jackson and her director do not respect the text. And in the end, the text is still there. In all likelihood, the next production of Lear will have a man.
> 
> By the way - Carmen has survived tampering before. Try Googling "Carmen Peter Brook."


Your argument seems to be that as long as operas and plays can "survive" tampering, it doesn't matter what stupidities we inflict on them. They'll still be "there."

I doubt that anyone is afraid that Glenda Jackson will make King Lear disappear from the repertoire. A king with a nice set of hooters will certainly prompt Shakespeare scholars to examine the text in a new way. And if we're going to go down this route, may I suggest having Cordelia, Regan and Goneril played by men, Kent and Gloucester by midgets, and the fool by Roseanne Barr?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Your argument seems to be that as long as operas and plays can "survive" tampering, it doesn't matter what stupidities we inflict on them. They'll still be "there."
> 
> I doubt that anyone is afraid that Glenda Jackson will make King Lear disappear from the repertoire. A king with a nice set of hooters will certainly prompt Shakespeare scholars to examine the text in a new way. And if we're going to go down this route, may I suggest having Cordelia, Regan and Goneril played by men, Kent and Gloucester by midgets, and the fool by Roseanne Barr?


You've got me, when do tickets go on sale?

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Your argument seems to be that as long as operas and plays can "survive" tampering, it doesn't matter what stupidities we inflict on them. They'll still be "there."
> 
> I doubt that anyone is afraid that Glenda Jackson will make King Lear disappear from the repertoire. A king with a nice set of hooters will certainly prompt Shakespeare scholars to examine the text in a new way. And if we're going to go down this route, may I suggest having Cordelia, Regan and Goneril played by men, Kent and Gloucester by midgets, and the fool by Roseanne Barr?


Don't forget Cordelia, Regan and Goneril would all originally have been played by boys or young men. Gender bending in Shakespeare is not that unusual.

The Globe in London occasionally mounts traditional productions in which all the parts are played by male actors. They use very little scenery and the cast, particularly the mechanicals, are encouraged to ad lib with the audience in the pit, as they would have done in Shakespeare's day. Some time ago I saw *Henry V* done this way, and it was brilliant.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Carmen, in justifiable indignation, fatally stabs Don José for (a) making love to her without her signed and notarized consent, and (b) having the effrontery to sing to her in a gendered language. The latter alone would have been sufficient for his termination.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

GregMitchell said:


> Don't forget Cordelia, Regan and Goneril would all originally have been played by boys or young men. Gender bending in Shakespeare is not that unusual.
> 
> The Globe in London occasionally mounts traditional productions in which all the parts are played by male actors. They use very little scenery and the cast, particularly the mechanicals, are encouraged to ad lib with the audience in the pit, as they would have done in Shakespeare's day. Some time ago I saw *Henry V* done this way, and it was brilliant.


Having been to both the Globe and NT several times for Shakespeare, I'd say that something serious like King Lear at NT - Stunning. English theatrical tradition at its finest. Meanwhile the Globe plays to its £5 standing ticket price and lots of tourists who expect to be entertained, or most likely to get an Instagram pic. The authenticity is completely negated by the audience it plays to.

(We've come a long way from Carmen)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Don't forget Cordelia, Regan and Goneril would all originally have been played by boys or young men. Gender bending in Shakespeare is not that unusual.
> 
> The Globe in London occasionally mounts traditional productions in which all the parts are played by male actors. They use very little scenery and the cast, particularly the mechanicals, are encouraged to ad lib with the audience in the pit, as they would have done in Shakespeare's day. Some time ago I saw *Henry V* done this way, and it was brilliant.


Well observed. The groundlings would probably have loved Roseanne Barr. Actually they still do.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> Ms Jackson may have played Lear (and by all accounts she was amazing) but they didn't rewrite the text.
> 
> The RSC are doing *The Taming of the Shrew* this season, another play that is rather difficult for a modern audience. Again, they haven't altered the text, but they have done a bit of gender swapping and the men are now played by women, the women by men. The text is still respected. Do people not see the distinction?


Re Lear - No text changes to my knowledge, but I haven't seen it. But such a change is certainly a matter of "freedom of expression and interpretation," - the statement to which I was responding.

As for "Shrew," the last production I saw was at the Globe in 2016. It was set in Ireland in the early 20th century. I doubt Shakespeare had that in mind.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Don Fatale said:


> Having been to both the Globe and NT several times for Shakespeare, I'd say that something serious like King Lear at NT - Stunning. English theatrical tradition at its finest. Meanwhile the Globe plays to its £5 standing ticket price and lots of tourists who expect to be entertained, or most likely to get an Instagram pic. The authenticity is completely negated by the audience it plays to.
> 
> (We've come a long way from Carmen)


On the other hand, the 1979 Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Shrew" began with Christopher Sly getting into a drunken argument in the audience with an usher. Later, the same actor (Jonathan Pryce) as Petruchio makes his entrance on a motorcycle.

And just two months ago at the National, I saw a production of "Antony and Cleopatra" that began with the end of the play.

Edit.

As for coming a long way from "Carmen," for me the OP's concern was political correctness, and I don't think any of the changes I mentioned were motivated by that. Indeed, by playing the conclusion in accordance with the text (no "winking" to the audience by Kate), the '79 "Shrew" was the antithesis of political correctness. But my heart broke when this spirited woman was reduced to groveling.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

The Conte said:


> You've got me, when do tickets go on sale?
> 
> N.


Already in previews I think.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

There’s a rumor that Don Jose is going to be replaced by one of the Super Mario Brothers and the new production turned into an arcade game that will be premiered at the Met. I’ll be smoking a lot of cigarettes and saving up my quarters.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> There's a rumor that Don Jose is going to be replaced by one of the Super Mario Brothers and the new production turned into an arcade game that will be premiered at the Met. I'll be smoking a lot of cigarettes and saving up my quarters.


For those unenlightened few, here's the _Super_flute!






(At least 8-bit graphics makes for a cheap and easy production)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> Re Lear - No text changes to my knowledge, but I haven't seen it. But such a change is certainly a matter of "freedom of expression and interpretation," - the statement to which I was responding.
> 
> As for "Shrew," the last production I saw was at the Globe in 2016. It was set in Ireland in the early 20th century. I doubt Shakespeare had that in mind.


Exactly. I can see that doing Shrew in Ireland in the early 20th century would work quite well. They don't have to change the text or story in order to do so.

In any case, with spoken word you have more freedom. When music is involved you have less. I have seen productions of *La Traviata* which strive to make Violetta more modern. The production would have her more assertive, pushing the men around in the Act I party, more pragmatic in the Act II duet with Germont, but Verdi's music doesn't support this view. His Violetta is intensely vulnerable, romantic and ultimately noble, and whatever period you choose to place it in (and remember it was originally a contemporary piece), then the music to a large extent dictates the action on stage. So many opera producers these days seem to me not to have a musical bone in their body.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> On the other hand, the 1979 Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Shrew" began with Christopher Sly getting into a drunken argument in the audience with an usher. Later, the same actor (Jonathan Pryce) as Petruchio makes his entrance on a motorcycle.
> 
> And just two months ago at the National, I saw a production of "Antony and Cleopatra" that began with the end of the play.
> 
> ...


And there, surely, the production had made its point superbly without having to alter a word of the text.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Bulldog said:


> Here's a more balanced snapshot:
> 
> 1. This who assign primary importance to the integrity of an original art work.
> 
> 2. Those who assign primary importance to their own freedom of expression and interpretation.


Sorry, but I can't call yours a more balanced snapshot, my snapshot was this:
1. that want to decide what other people may or may not do or think
2. that believe in freedom of expression and interpretation

I argue that an opera and in general any piece of music is not complete without a performing artist who, in a more or less healthy political environment, has absolute freedom of interpretation. In this case, the performing artist interpreted the work and gave his own view to this piece. So does any other director in any other performance of any other opera. There are plenty of conformist directors who stage an opera in the well known way, sure to be appreciated by the mainstream opera public. And there are other directors who design controversial stagings of famous operas. A well known example is the post WWII Wagner stagings by the Wagner family, which were designed to clean their grandfathers heritage for whatever reason. And now we discuss here an interpretation of Carmen.

So, opera is a vivid artform, always depending on interpretation of the actual performers. The integrity of the piece therefor includes the performance and the absolute integrity of an opera does not exist. If I am going to a performance, I don't want a copy-paste of another performance (for this I can listen to a CD), but I hope to be surprised by inspired new ideas. I hope to witness another view on a piece. I would be completely bored if I would hear an uninspired copy of an earlier interpretation.

If you want to see untouched art with the integrity of the artist preserved, go see a picture gallery, go to the movies or read untranslated literature or poetry.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> Re Lear - No text changes to my knowledge, but I haven't seen it. But such a change is certainly a matter of "freedom of expression and interpretation," - the statement to which I was responding.


Of course, there notoriously is no authoritative text of Lear (most editions cobble together 2 very different published versions from the 17th century). When it came to his plays, Shakespeare was more worried about protecting than disseminating texts, which were more valuable as changeable properties of the playhouse (which he partly owned) than as publications (from which he earned scant profit); copyright did not yet exist. It's a reminder that attitudes regarding performance, textual authenticity, and artists' intentions are partially conditioned by ephemeral socioeconomic conditions-then as now.

Carmen's text was frequently adapted immediately following Bizet's death. It would be interesting to learn what he may have thought about the status and authenticity of his own work.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> Sorry, but I can't call yours a more balanced snapshot, my snapshot was this:
> 1. that want to decide what other people may or may not do or think
> 2. that believe in freedom of expression and interpretation
> 
> ...


With this response you demonstrate that you completely miss the point I and several other people have been making.

Please go back and read some of the responses. I don't propose to repeat myself again, and I doubt anybody else will feel like doing so either.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Here are some thoughts:
> 
> _I am not politically conservative, but I do believe in *"conserving" - respecting - works of art as they are given to us by their creators.* .... *The truth is* that producers of theatrical works *can do all sorts of creative things* with old works *without violating their meaning*. But of course *it's necessary to understand the works to begin with*.
> 
> ...


As I said in my former post above, the librettists of Carmen left an unfinished work of art, as the performing artists have to add an interpretation to the words. So, in theatres and concert halls you will always look at a co-operation between various artists. If a Bruckner symphony is edited, which happened more than once, the notes have changed and the conductor can choose between performing editions, which happens all the time. In this Carmen, I assume the notes were untouched, only the words and the action was re-interpreted. I can't see any problem there.

It gets interesting when you seem to argue that the death of Carmen is essential to this opera. In an earlier post I argued that, by rule of law, there is more to say for the death of Don Jose, as he is a weak, deserted soldier who betrays his country as a soldier as he is completely distracted by Carmen. From a legal standpoint, Don Jose deserves to die and Carmen does not.

The title of this thread politicizes the subject matter. Your legitimize Carmen's 'deserved' death by mentioning Gypsy culture. I can't follow your argument here. Don Jose could see his own demise coming, based on rules of law. Carmen's death can only be legitimized as 'punishment' for her independency, as she disobeys a weak coward of a soldier. Gypsy culture has noting to do with it. Carmen's death is total impunity as is the life of Don Jose. So, the interpretation of this director is not some _extraneous pet obsession_ (with women's rights?), it is an attempt to solve the conflict from a righteous point of view, which at least is food for thought. Would Carmen and Don Jose have been taken to court before taking things into their own hands, Jose would most likely have been executed and Carmen would have walked free, provided that a gypsy woman has the same rights as any other and provided that we obey the rule of law.

Is it really so appalling that conservative views are challenged by an artist? Is a true literal interpretation of any text at all possible? I doubt it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> As I said in my former post above, the librettists of Carmen left an unfinished work of art, as the performing artists have to add an interpretation to the words. So, in theatres and concert halls you will always look at a co-operation between various artists. If a Bruckner symphony is edited, which happened more than once, the notes have changed and the conductor can choose between performing editions, which happens all the time. In this Carmen, I assume the notes were untouched, only the words and the action was re-interpreted. I can't see any problem there.
> 
> It gets interesting when you seem to argue that the death of Carmen is essential to this opera. In an earlier post I argued that, by rule of law, there is more to say for the death of Don Jose, as he is a weak, deserted soldier who betrays his country as a soldier as he is completely distracted by Carmen. From a legal standpoint, Don Jose deserves to die and Carmen does not.
> 
> ...


But the unfortunate fact is that in both Merimée and Bizet/Meilhac & Halévy, Carmen dies and Don José does not. In fact in Merimée Don José tells the writer his story in prison whilst awaiting execution.

It has absolutely nothing to do with conservative views. I have no problem with a director seeking to make a point about violence to women in the piece, but he should be able to do that without simply changing the ending. It sounds to me as if the director of that 1979 production of *The Taming of the Shrew* mentioned by jegreenwood most assuredly managed to do just that, without changing the text or story.

Personally I don't see any challenge to conservative values in this instance, just an attention seeking headline.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

GregMitchell said:


> ...It has absolutely nothing to do with conservative views....Personally I don't see any challenge to conservative values in this instance, just an attention seeking headline....


The attention seeking headline was written by a typical biased author on a certain website, typically aiming to unleash outrage amongst a certain section of society, as is quite common these days. And it works. The tone in this thread became so hotheaded that TC-moderators had to come in to modify this thread.

So, I do believe that the subject challenges fundamental values. And consequently we find out that you and I each have a opposing view on the freedom of artists. 
For my supporting arguments, I just point at my former posts.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> The attention seeking headline was written by a typical biased author on a certain website, typically aiming to unleash outrage amongst a certain section of society, as is quite common these days. And it works. The tone in this thread became so hotheaded that TC-moderators had to come in to modify this thread.
> 
> So, I do believe that the subject challenges fundamental values. *And consequently we find out that you and I each have a opposing view on the freedom of artists. *
> For my supporting arguments, I just point at my former posts.


I don't think anyone participating in this thread would deny any artist, in this case an opera director, the freedom to change a libretto, even in the severe fashion of the Carmen production in question. (At least I have not seen such a position stated.) You are using the "straw man" logical fallacy. And you have used a variation on the "ad hominem" logical fallacy in attacking the website that was referenced in the original post. Where it was posted is irrelevant...the discussion should be centered on WHAT was posted, i.e., the change made to the ending of Carmen.

And, if I may, I would like to repeat my earlier question to you: "Am I correct in assuming you would have no problem with* a significant change which expressed a political/social view you found personally repugnant *was made to an opera?"


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

ArsMusica said:


> And, if I may, I would like to repeat my earlier question to you: "Am I correct in assuming you would have no problem with* a significant change which expressed a political/social view you found personally repugnant *was made to an opera?"


I might, and if I did I would say so. Just as you said so. And people who disagreed with me would say so. Just as people who disagreed with you have said so. The art of conversation - let's keep enjoying it as best we can.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Above I asked NLAdriaan: "Am I correct in assuming you would have no problem with* a significant change which expressed a political/social view you found personally repugnant *was made to an opera?"

Allow me to clarify: when I say "have no problem", I meant in the sense he would support the right of the director to make whatever political statement he wished, even if he were in disagreement with that statement.

I have a *big *problem with what was done with that Carmen production. That said, the director should not have been denied the freedom to do what he did. I can "make a statement" in opposition by not attending the opera, not making a donation to the opera company, writing a letter to the opera company administration, writing a letter to my local paper, posting my opinion on my blog...and, of course, posting my opinion here! :tiphat:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> The attention seeking headline was written by a typical biased author on a certain website, typically aiming to unleash outrage amongst a certain section of society, as is quite common these days. And it works. The tone in this thread became so hotheaded that TC-moderators had to come in to modify this thread.


I wa ssuggesting that the change was probably made because the production team knew it would create attention seeking headlines. After all, there's no such thing as bad publicty, is there?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> As I said in my former post above, the librettists of Carmen left an unfinished work of art, as the performing artists have to add an interpretation to the words. So, in theatres and concert halls you will always look at a co-operation between various artists. If a Bruckner symphony is edited, which happened more than once, the notes have changed and the conductor can choose between performing editions, which happens all the time. In this Carmen, I assume the notes were untouched, only the words and the action was re-interpreted. I can't see any problem there.
> 
> It gets interesting when you seem to argue that the death of Carmen is essential to this opera. In an earlier post I argued that, by rule of law, there is more to say for the death of Don Jose, as he is a weak, deserted soldier who betrays his country as a soldier as he is completely distracted by Carmen. From a legal standpoint, Don Jose deserves to die and Carmen does not.
> 
> ...


I understand your views as follows:

1. By your reasoning, the fact that works of performing art have to be interpreted by the performers means that anything performers do to them is artistically valid. You don't acknowledge the concept of the integrity of the art work, nor the idea that the creator's intentions are a value to be respected. The underlying premise seems to be that a work of art has no intrinsic meaning apart from a specific presentation of it.

2. You appear to have concluded that anyone who does hold that works of performing art have intrinsic meanings determined by their creators, and that the job of the performer is to uncover and express those meanings, is opposed to freedom of expression and probably in favor of censorship.

I disagree with these views and conclusions.

Your efforts to find new meaning in_ Carmen_ seem to me to contradict what the opera tells us. Specifically, your idea that death is something to be moralized about and "legitimized" as punishment for wrongdoing is contrary to the meaning and spirit of the work. Carmen reads death in the cards - she is given an entire aria in which to do it - and she expresses in her behavior throughout the opera her fearless acceptance of Fate (which is, yes, part of Gypsy culture). She goes to her death young, free, courageous, and without a hint of pathos. Her death doesn't have to be "legitimized"; to introduce a "righteous point of view," to talk about the "rule of law," is, frankly, to sentimentalize the opera. But sentimentality belongs to Micaela's world; what rules Carmen's world is neither law nor sentiment (which often amount to the same thing) but Fate, and Fate is no respecter of laws or feelings. Carmen's acceptance of this is what allows her to be a free spirit, and to remain free to the very end. Her death is neither an injustice nor a tragedy - both concepts are irrelevant - and Jose, still young, will live to reflect on the meaning of a woman's life, a life too powerful for him to cope with by any means short of ending it.

That is how I understand the opera _Carmen_ by Bizet/Meilhac/Halevy/Merimee. What do you think? Might there be some meanings here, meanings intrinsic to the opera, which a conscientious performance ought to acknowledge? Or is conscientiousness a form of censorship, a loss of our freedom to screw around with something we were not good enough to imagine or create?


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

_[I'M PROBABLY OVERTHINKING THINGS HERE AND MAKING SILLY MISTAKES, BUT ANYWAY]_

Yeah, I think framing the discussion in terms of the freedoms of artists is a bit besides the point. Nobody would want to lock anyone up for fiddling with Libretti.

It's better to draw an analogy with other societal norms, like the institution of promising. We are all able to break an informal promise, as with many things, but we know that in doing so we will face opprobrium from our peers. This opprobrium influences whether or not we make or break promises again, and so shapes the overall state of affairs, for good or ill. In this example, do we have the freedom to break promises? Yes! But we also know that there will be social consequences.

Similarly, I'd say an important question in the theatrical world is what artistic norms should we encourage directors to conform to. Should we tell them off if they do daft things like rewrite Carmen, and therefore discourage it? Or should we embrace it as part of the creative process? What sort of state of affairs would our choice of artistic norms lead to? I reckon a good pair of operatic norms we should reinforce are, firstly:

*1)* Other things being equal*, we should not encourage not-merely-orchestral** alterations to a composer's music if it's presented as that composer's work.​
and:

*2)* Other things being equal, we should not encourage significantly plot/meaning altering changes to a libretto while presenting it as the original work***. BUT, if there is genuine lack of consensus as to the significance of the changes, err on the side of permissibility****.​
There are probably a lot of separate conditions I could add to these, and some might think the latter rule too permissive, but the spirit of the rules is that original artworks are to be respected. No undue changes to any score, and no libretto changes that significantly alter plot or, arguably, a work's meaning. These rules, if followed, would discourage the sort of Carmen alterations under discussion because I strongly suspect there is consensus that changing the plot in the way described constitutes a significant plot/meaning change.

I think encouraging both these norms in the aforementioned way is desirable because:

*a)* The artistic intentions of a director breaking these rules are likely better served by creating a new work from scratch (perhaps derived from the same story), or putting on an existing work that already fits with their vision. The result will likely be more coherent. It incentivises the production of new operas if no pre-existing work is to be found.

*b)* It doesn't undermine composers' intentions in a way that could dis-incentivise writing new works. Put simply, if I was a composer, I would be less likely to invest time into writing opera if I knew that some jumped-up director could make alterations to satisfy their willy-nilly publicity cravings. I'd rather stick with orchestral works in that case.

*c)* More straightforwardly, it would respect the intentions of artists, and not risk undermining the integrity of their works.

*d)* A lot of people already don't like Regietheater, and allowing directors to fundamentally fiddle with works in a way that goes beyond eccentric staging is going to further alienate a lot of opera-goers, particularly those new to it.​
This is basically why I want fewer directors doing what this one did.

As for how we implement such norms, well, like anything else, you make your voice heard if you think they're deviating (or simply wish to endorse a specific positive state of affairs). Vote with your wallet if necessary, or post on forums like the rest of us! But the point is that our _attitude _to this particular artistic endeavour indirectly reflects and influences directorial norms. If, as I suspect is sometimes the case, the directors _like _being hated because it makes them feel like edgy misunderstood artists, ignore them. Don't even boo, it's not worth the effort. This is why it's somewhat regrettable this thread has lasted so long. Cheap stunts like this stir up controversy, and controversy gets directors noticed, even if most people hate their work.

_________

*I include this _Ceteris Paribus_ clause because absolute rules don't really have a place in art of any form - there will _always _be exceptions which some genius has managed to make work! But it's still worth discouraging certain behaviours if _most _people can't make them work.

**I say "not-merely-orchestral" musical alterations because I certainly don't want to deprive differently shaped orchestras of being able to adapt works, and sometimes wholesale re-orchestration is justified. But if someone wanted to write a new melody or aria and insert it into an opera, that would be a step too far in my opinion. (Yes, Wagner, your aria for Bellini was a bad idea!)

***I say "_significantly _plot/meaning altering changes" because some small degree of change might be fine, especially if one is singing in translation. For instance, the Jonathan Miller production of Rigoletto, I believe, changes an instance of the word 'sword' with 'gun' since it's set in mobster times. This doesn't constitute a _significant _change to the work's meaning or plot as a whole, so is fine by me.

****This 'BUT' clause is a safeguard against excessive conservatism, and also means we can mostly avoid a precise delineation of what counts as significant or not.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Carmen libretto so that the tragic relationship between her and Don Jose can be better understood. Note of course the last act!

http://www.murashev.com/opera/Carmen_libretto_French_English


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> Carmen libretto so the full tragic relationship between her and Don Jose can be fully understood. Note of course the last act!
> 
> http://www.murashev.com/opera/Carmen_libretto_French_English


Carmen to Jose:

"Carmen will never yield!
Free she was born and free she will die!"


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> As I said in my former post above, the librettists of Carmen left an unfinished work of art, as the performing artists have to add an interpretation to the words. So, in theatres and concert halls you will always look at a co-operation between various artists. If a Bruckner symphony is edited, which happened more than once, the notes have changed and the conductor can choose between performing editions, which happens all the time. In this Carmen, I assume the notes were untouched, only the words and the action was re-interpreted. I can't see any problem there.
> 
> It gets interesting when you seem to argue that the death of Carmen is essential to this opera. In an earlier post I argued that, by rule of law, there is more to say for the death of Don Jose, as he is a weak, deserted soldier who betrays his country as a soldier as he is completely distracted by Carmen. From a legal standpoint, Don Jose deserves to die and Carmen does not.
> 
> ...


Radically altering the Carmen libretto as was done is not an interpretation, but a major alteration/distortion.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

ArsMusica said:


> Always great to meet another admirer of the brilliant Doctor Sowell! :tiphat:


he needs to star in a Sowell cinema film


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> Is it really so appalling that conservative views are challenged by an artist? Is a true literal interpretation of any text at all possible? I doubt it.


I'd answer "no" to the first question, but add that the term "conservative" is inapplicable and prejudicial in this case. Presenting an opera with its story, music and text intact need not be "conservative." It also need not constitute a "literal" interpretation; that's another prejudicial term. Some things are quite literal - whether Carmen is dead or alive at the end is a pretty "literal" matter - but other things afford great interpretive latitude. _Carmen_ has been performed by immensely different singers engaging in immensely different stage action amid immensely different visual settings. Only a director lacking insight and imagination would fear that respecting the essential nature of an opera was a formula for "literalness."


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> ... Only a director lacking insight and imagination would fear that respecting the essential nature of an opera was a formula for "literalness....."


Any musical work is open for any interpretation, as long as the source is credited and no one else is physically harmed. Anyone can rip apart any musical work and use something of it to create something else. It is then up to anyone to decide if he likes it or not. It becomes dangerous if someone comes across who wants to limit this freedom of interpretation and wants to define how something should be read or seen or experienced. The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) can decide what I am allowed to see, is constantly executed somewhere in the world by totalitarian and religious forces. It's called orthodoxy or conservatism. One is free to stick to certain orthodox values or conservative habits, as long as you don't force it upon others.

You don't have to go to this Carmen performance. And I am walking out of this negative thread. Bye to all!


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> Any musical work is open for any interpretation, as long as the source is credited and no one else is physically harmed. Anyone can rip apart any musical work and use something of it to create something else. It is then up to anyone to decide if he likes it or not. It becomes dangerous if someone comes across who wants to limit this freedom of interpretation and wants to define how something should be read or seen or experienced. The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) can decide what I am allowed to see, is constantly executed somewhere in the world by totalitarian and religious forces. It's called orthodoxy or conservatism. One is free to stick to certain orthodox values or conservative habits, as long as you don't force it upon others.
> 
> You don't have to go to this Carmen performance. And I am walking out of this negative thread. Bye to all!


so can I take any literary work, for example some Shakespeare tragedy, and alter and rewrite the text as I wish to suit my ideological convictions, and still call it Shakespeare?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> Any musical work is open for any interpretation, as long as the source is credited and no one else is physically harmed. Anyone can rip apart any musical work and use something of it to create something else. It is then up to anyone to decide if he likes it or not. It becomes dangerous if someone comes across who wants to limit this freedom of interpretation and wants to define how something should be read or seen or experienced. The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) can decide what I am allowed to see, is constantly executed somewhere in the world by totalitarian and religious forces. It's called orthodoxy or conservatism. One is free to stick to certain orthodox values or conservative habits, as long as you don't force it upon others.
> 
> You don't have to go to this Carmen performance. And I am walking out of this negative thread. Bye to all!


I don't blame you for walking out. Comparing artistic integrity and respect for the intentions of an artist with totalitarianism is somewhere over the cuckoo's nest. Don't worry. We don't want to take away your freedom to hack _Carmen_ or _King Lear_ into a million pieces, reassemble them randomly, and call it a "fresh reading of the text," so long as we have the freedom to call it nonsense.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Jacck said:


> so can I take any literary work, for example some Shakespeare tragedy, and alter and rewrite the text as I wish to suit my ideological convictions, and still call it Shakespeare?


"And call it Shakespeare"... Aye, there's the rub.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> *Any musical work is open for any interpretation, as long as the source is credited and no one else is physically harmed*. Anyone can rip apart any musical work and use something of it to create something else. It is then up to anyone to decide if he likes it or not. It becomes dangerous if someone comes across who wants to limit this freedom of interpretation and wants to define how something should be read or seen or experienced. The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) can decide what I am allowed to see, is constantly executed somewhere in the world by totalitarian and religious forces. It's called orthodoxy or conservatism. One is free to stick to certain orthodox values or conservative habits, as long as you don't force it upon others.
> 
> You don't have to go to this Carmen performance. And I am walking out of this negative thread. Bye to all!


Freedom to interpret does not equate a necessity that others view that interpretation with any validity or respect.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Jacck said:


> so can I take any literary work, for example some Shakespeare tragedy, and alter and rewrite the text as I wish to suit my ideological convictions, and still call it Shakespeare?


Of course you can. And people are likely to give you a variety of reactions.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

We still don't know exactly what was changed, besides Carmen shooting Jose. People seem to be suggesting that the libretto was cut to ribbons or something, but everything this discussion encompasses is literally two lines in the libretto - I'd be more curious to know if those two lines were cut, or altered, or if it was instead a choice in staging. There's a good chance this production was _less_ altered than most regietheater productions, with the exception of aggravating redpill right-wingers by making a specific point about femicide, instead of just setting it in a sewer or on the moon or something.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

sharkeysnight said:


> We still don't know exactly what was changed, besides Carmen shooting Jose. People seem to be suggesting that the libretto was cut to ribbons or something, but everything this discussion encompasses is literally two lines in the libretto - I'd be more curious to know if those two lines were cut, or altered, or if it was instead a choice in staging. There's a good chance this production was _less_ altered than most regietheater productions, with the exception of aggravating redpill right-wingers by making a specific point about femicide, instead of just setting it in a sewer or on the moon or something.


I am neither Red Pill right-winger nor a feminist. I object to either of these two groups taking historical pieces of art that have nothing to do with their ideology, and abusing them to advance their political agenda. Violence against women is bad. Violence against men is bad too. Men die, women die. We don't need to alter old pieces of art to learn these trivial things.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I am neither Red Pill right-winger nor a feminist. I object to either of these two groups taking historical pieces of art that have nothing to do with their ideology, and abusing them to advance their political agenda. Violence against women is bad. Violence against men is bad too. Men die, women die. We don't need to alter old pieces of art to learn these trivial things.


Are you suggesting that a stock-standard staging of Carmen is neutral about women's rights? Does Carmen, the opera, only have one set of things to say on the subject, or is the process of staging and re-staging through the decades create an ongoing conversation? If the former, what does it have to say? What should we be taking away from Carmen when we rise to our feet and applaud her corpse?

And again, what exactly was changed? Would this be less infuriating if it were a production that took place in a supermarket and was about consumerism, or took place in a pigpen, and was about the death of small farming?

I don't feel like you're going to earnestly engage with any of my questions, because I know how this all works, but I do feel like these are legitimate questions raised by this staging and about the way that we approach and consume media, which is not, after all, a neutral activity. If you go to the opera ten times in a year and eight, nine, or even all ten times you watch women being abused, murdered, or otherwise dying, then at some point it's probably healthy to start thinking about what you're watching.

Carmen shooting Jose is a novelty stunt. The reactions to it aren't.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

sharkeysnight said:


> Are you suggesting that a stock-standard staging of Carmen is neutral about women's rights? Does Carmen, the opera, only have one set of things to say on the subject, or is the process of staging and re-staging through the decades create an ongoing conversation? If the former, what does it have to say? What should we be taking away from Carmen when we rise to our feet and applaud her corpse?
> 
> And again, what exactly was changed? Would this be less infuriating if it were a production that took place in a supermarket and was about consumerism, or took place in a pigpen, and was about the death of small farming?
> 
> ...


I don't see how Carmen violates any of women's rights. Women have the same right as men to go to see Carmen or don't go to see Carmen. And if you don't like what you see, then don't go to see opera. Or write your own opera, produce your own opera. But people like you need to create a hypercorrect hyperneutral environment for all and want to use totalitarian practices to dictate what others are allowed to see, or not allowed to see. You are offended by a piece of art, that depicts a murder out of jealousy. Then go object to all the Hollywood movies showing violence against both men and women


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

sharkeysnight said:


> If you go to the opera ten times in a year and eight, nine, or even all ten times you watch women being abused, murdered, or otherwise dying, then at some point it's probably healthy to start thinking about what you're watching.


Absolutley its healthy to think about you are watching, and evaluate your feelings after being moved (or engraged) by a work of art. That doesn't give a license to fundamentally change the work of art and still attribute it to the creator as being their vision.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

sharkeysnight said:


> Carmen shooting Jose is a novelty stunt.


Exactly, and that's why some of us feel that such a stunt is disrespectful of a musical work of art.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

sharkeysnight said:


> Are you suggesting that a stock-standard staging of Carmen is neutral about women's rights? Does Carmen, the opera, only have one set of things to say on the subject, or is the process of staging and re-staging through the decades create an ongoing conversation? If the former, what does it have to say? What should we be taking away from Carmen when we rise to our feet and applaud her corpse?
> 
> And again, what exactly was changed? Would this be less infuriating if it were a production that took place in a supermarket and was about consumerism, or took place in a pigpen, and was about the death of small farming?
> 
> ...


Oh come on. Nobody is applauding Carmen's corpse. People applaud the _performance_, or don't if they didn't like it. It's not as if José is made into a hero, and contemporary audiences at least would have known that Merimée ends with José in prison awaiting execution for his crimes. In any case, Carmen is actually a very strong woman, who cares not one bit for nineteenth century morals (or twentieth or twenty-first for that matter). She lives by her own gypsy law, defiant to the last, and refusing to subjugate herself to the will of a man even when staring death itself in the face. In many ways she is a hero, whilst Don José assuredly isn't. He is a weak character, easily swayed, and, like many weak characters, resorts to violence when he can't have what he wants.

Admittedly there was a time when conventional performances portrayed José as the victim of a hip swinging, vampish bitch, but I don't feel that's the case anymore, and a good producer should be able to make points about violence to women without changing the plot.

On one thing we agree. It's nothing but a novelty stunt.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

sharkeysnight said:


> *Are you suggesting that a stock-standard staging of Carmen is neutral about women's rights?* Does Carmen, the opera, only have one set of things to say on the subject, or is the process of staging and re-staging through the decades create an ongoing conversation? If the former, what does it have to say? What should we be taking away from Carmen when we rise to our feet and applaud her corpse?
> 
> I don't feel like you're going to earnestly engage with any of my questions, because I know how this all works, but I do feel like *these are legitimate questions raised by this staging* and about the way that we approach and consume media, which is not, after all, a neutral activity. If you go to the opera ten times in a year and eight, nine, or even all ten times you watch women being abused, murdered, or otherwise dying, then *at some point it's probably healthy to start thinking about what you're watching.*
> 
> *Carmen shooting Jose is a novelty stunt.* The reactions to it aren't.


I agree completely that it's healthy to think about what we're watching. If we actually think about _Carmen_ (which is probably not a very natural thing to do, this being not the most intellectually provocative of operas), we are unlikely to come to the conclusion that Carmen's death, so clearly foretold, is merely arbitrary or somehow wrong, unless we're importing into our thinking notions derived from value systems not intrinsic to the work. "Women's rights" is certainly such a notion; the text of the opera, and a faithful staging of it, are simply unconcerned with that issue.

I concede that it can be valuable, or at least interesting, look to beyond the content of works of art themselves and to see them as expressions of broad cultural assumptions and values. In this light it's possible to see Carmen's death as an expression of the moral position that insists that virtue should be rewarded and vice punished in the end - especially, perhaps, feminine virtue and vice. Society's attitudes toward women can certainly be relevant here. In the opera, the poles of feminine virtue and vice are represented clearly by the libertine gypsy and the pious girl-next-door. By the conventional standards of Bizet's time, Micaela is virtually an ideal woman, and Carmen virtually the Devil incarnate. But, as it turns out, the thing that makes the opera compelling and saves it from being a simple-minded or tendentious morality play is the fact that Bizet, the composer, does not seem to sanction the socially acceptable point of view: the music he gives to Micaela is perfectly lovely and the character comes across as totally sympathetic, but the music he gives to Carmen is so fresh, vivid and compelling that we, the audience, are no more interested in the girl from back home than Jose is. The novella by Merimee on which the opera was based had no virtuous secondary female character, and Carmen herself was even tougher and more amoral than she appears in the opera; resistance by the Opera Comique management to such a gritty tale prompted Bizet's librettists to soften it somewhat. But it was Bizet who originally proposed setting Merimee's story to music, and through his musical sorcery he managed to make Carmen into such an icon of female power and independence that the very idea that her death at the hands of a hapless rube like Don Jose represents any sort of punishment for her vices seems absurd. The opera easily subverts and transcends whatever cultural biases the Opera Comique hoped it might cater to.

The idea that we can and should be prompted to think in "new ways" about old works of art by altering them to express ideas that really have nothing to do with them is the gospel of regietheater, and regie directors are the preachers who feel called to tell us what we didn't know we needed to hear and couldn't have discovered for ourselves by any amount of watching, listening or study of the works themselves. The resulting "fresh reading of the text" sometimes does amount to nothing more than a "novelty stunt," but it almost always amounts to an ego trip on the part of someone.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

For all anyone knows, if art is a reflection of life, the tragic death of Carmen has prevented more deaths than has encouraged them. What could be more tragic and stupid than killing the one Don Jose loved the most in the world? It makes one think, doesn’t it? rather than anyone else throwing his fate to the winds and not only ending her life but ruining his own forever. I believe this is how most adults would view this opera instead of thinking that the price Don Jose paid was worth it to stab her. Then there’s always the question of fate and destiny: that it was her destiny to die and his fate to kill her. But of course, that’s something that most people don’t like to think about because they may feel that anything can be prevented with enough forthought that might seem cruel or humane, whether that’s true or not.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Jacck said:


> with respect, I think you are completely missing the point here. If you have a vision, then write your own opera, but leave the works of other artists intact. I do not need you to serve as an interpreter, who will censor the works of other authors for me. It is completely unasked for


You can still watch Carmen in its original interpretation, right?

The link in the OP is dead, so I'm not exactly sure what changes were made, but I really don't see the problem with new interpretations (or even re-writings) of old, well-known, works, especially ones that have been performed over and over and over and are in no danger of leaving the standard repertoire.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I guess I really don't understand the grouchiness displayed in this thread. If someone does a radical re-interpretation of your favorite opera, or other music work, or novel, or whatever, so what? You're free to not like it, of course, but I don't get the personal offense that so many people seem to take.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

apricissimus said:


> I guess I really don't understand the grouchiness displayed in this thread. If someone does a radical re-interpretation of your favorite opera, or other music work, or novel, or whatever, so what? *You're free to not like it, of course*, but I don't get the personal offense that so many people seem to take.


And free to fairly criticize it and point out its failings and shortcomings without deserving to be called grouchy or reactionary. I'm certainly not personally offended by regietheatre, and as to whether others in this thread were, I wouldn't venture to guess.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

apricissimus said:


> I guess I really don't understand the grouchiness displayed in this thread. If someone does a radical re-interpretation of your favorite opera, or other music work, or novel, or whatever, so what? You're free to not like it, of course, but I don't get the personal offense that so many people seem to take.
> 
> I really don't see the problem with new interpretations (or even re-writings) of old, well-known, works, especially ones that have been performed over and over and over and are in no danger of leaving the standard repertoire.
> 
> You can still watch Carmen in its original interpretation, right?


Maybe YOU can attend operas performed as their creators intended them to be performed, assuming you can find them (which in the case of some operas, notably Wagner's, has become unlikely). But opera is expensive, both to produce and to attend. Is it fair to expect the average opera lover, who can't experience his favorite works in the opera house "over and over and over," to save up hundreds of dollars to travel to some distant locale and find himself sitting through three hours of something he doesn't recognize? Should he have to accept this in order to accommodate the jaded tastes of people who have enough time and money to fly all over the world to performance after performance, viewing the same operas often enough to tire of them? It seems pretty cynical to justify an act of artistic misrepresentation on the grounds that the original work still exists and that people who want to hear it performed as written can just go somewhere else.

I, as a musician, have played and sung many musical works in my lifetime. When I do that, I consider it an honor, a privilege, and an obligation - in short, I consider it my job - to try to understand, as nearly as I can, the intentions of the composer, and to communicate those intentions to those who listen to my performance. I would be disrespectful of both composer and audience to change the notes or words of a song in order to convey some "alternative meaning" that I happened to fancy, and to present the result as a representation of the work. I assume that most people who attend a performance of something expect to experience the actual work they think they are going to hear, not some pretentious and aesthetically incongruous "radical reinterpretation" of it.

Opera is a complex, composite art form, and there is plenty of room for diversity of staging, singing, and the interpretation of roles. Whether or not an innovation in these areas constitutes a violation of the meaning of the work is a judgment call, but there's good judgment and bad judgment. There is a great deal of bad, even atrocious, judgment on the opera stages of the world today. Altering the character of Carmen may not be the worst violation of an opera we've seen, but it's a good example of the presumptuous vandalism that now prevails.

It's a great pity that dead composers can't sue.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

It's called a waste of opportunity - this is a reproduction, not a production, and when a reproduction gets the artists, the $$$, and the venue, all to produce something that deliberately defies all expectations of the thing being reproduced, people have a right to criticize in a world where there is only so much time and money to reproduce these things.

As for original productions, when I get from "Hamilton" that Aaron Burr was black, in the age of slavery, I gotta ask questions about that too.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe YOU can attend operas performed as their creators intended them to be performed, assuming you can find them (which in the case of some operas, notably Wagner's, has become unlikely). But opera is expensive, both to produce and to attend. Is it fair to expect the average opera lover, who can't experience his favorite works in the opera house "over and over and over," to save up hundreds of dollars to travel to some distant locale and find himself sitting through three hours of something he doesn't recognize? Should he have to accept this in order to accommodate the jaded tastes of people who have enough time and money to fly all over the world to performance after performance, viewing the same operas often enough to tire of them? It seems pretty cynical to justify an act of artistic misrepresentation on the grounds that the original work still exists and that people who want to hear it performed as written can just go somewhere else.
> 
> I, as a musician, have played and sung many musical works in my lifetime. When I do that, I consider it an honor, a privilege, and an obligation - in short, I consider it my job - to try to understand, as nearly as I can, the intentions of the composer, and to communicate those intentions to those who listen to my performance. I would be disrespectful of both composer and audience to change the notes or words of a song in order to convey some "alternative meaning" that I happened to fancy, and to present the result as a representation of the work. I assume that most people who attend a performance of something expect to experience the actual work they think they are going to hear, not some pretentious and aesthetically incongruous "radical reinterpretation" of it.
> 
> ...


How do we prevent people from re-interpreting, or re-writing the old classics? Is there some enforcement mechanism, or will stern looks and hang wringing have to suffice?

Maybe I'm just coming from a very different aesthetic point of view. I've mentioned elsewhere that my first love is jazz, where constant reinterpretation and reinvention is the norm, and maybe even an essential characteristic of the form. Maybe that's why it doesn't bother me if someone want to stage a production where Carmen kills Don Jose instead of the other way around. No actual violence was done to Bizet's intention, because this is in some ways a new work, and Bizet's work remains intact even if it was not in evidence on the stage that night. (Now, if the original Carmen were being actively censored, that would be a different matter, but that's not what's happening here.)

Maybe some people will be robbed of the opportunity of seeing Carmen they way they prefer, but so what? I don't think anyone has a responsibility to perform Carmen for anyone, either played straight and true to the original or otherwise.

You see it as your job as a musician to remain faithful to the composers intentions. Clearly other people don't feel the same way. I'm not sure it's anyone's place to say they should think differently.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

philoctetes said:


> It's called a waste of opportunity - this is a reproduction, not a production, and when a reproduction gets the artists, the $$$, and the venue, all to produce something that deliberately defies all expectations of the thing being reproduced, people have a right to criticize in a world where there is only so much time and money to reproduce these things.
> 
> As for original productions, when I get from "Hamilton" that Aaron Burr was black, in the age of slavery, I gotta ask questions about that too.


They also didn't rap back in the 18th century United States, so I think verisimilitude to the time and place was not the goal.


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

apricissimus said:


> Maybe some people will be robbed of the opportunity of seeing Carmen they way they prefer, but so what? I don't think anyone has a responsibility to perform Carmen for anyone, either played straight and true to the original or otherwise.


When someone attends a performance that's being advertised as Carmen by George Bizet with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, its only natural that there are certain expectations that what they are going to attend corresponds to the music and drama that the creators envisioned. Just as there are expectations when someone is going to see a film by Stanley Kubrick, a paiting by DaVinci, or a symphony by Beethoven. There is no "ideal" production of Carmen, but there are productions that make room for the powerful musical and dramatic experience that the opera can be, and those that don't. There are productions that are recognizable as what they claim to be, and those that are not.

As someone who loves the experience of attending live opera, I can tell you that when a company decides to stage a new production of an opera, they don't give much if any details about what the production will contain. There has been more than one occasion when I had purchased tickets to a production of an opera and what I was treated to was something unrecognizable to the work that I had paid for. So what you say. So what that someone spends their money and takes the time to see something that is being advertised as one thing and ends up being something totally different. So be it, that's the risk one takes. However, when one sees a spectacle that mocks and defaces a wonderful work of art that has sparked ones imagination and enriched one's being, its only fair that those who took on the enterprise expect some backlash and criticism. Correct? When one attends a regie production that makes an incoherent mess of the story, its natural that someone who has been seduced the magic of Carmen firsthand be saddened for those in attendence to see the opera for the first time and leave not being able to make heads or tails of what they witnessed. And one has the right to question the general trend and the premises and the explanations given for these reinterpretations -- do they really make these works more relevant? Do they really make audience members think about these operas in new and profound ways? -- when they see a production that fails to capture any of the essence of the work. Of course there is no way from preventing directors from re-inventing these works with their own priorities and aesthetic values. But we as audience memebers are naturally going to call them out when what they put on display is incongruent, pretentious and disappointing.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

apricissimus said:


> They also didn't rap back in the 18th century United States, so I think verisimilitude to the time and place was not the goal.


Fine, you can reject verisimilitude, I can still criticize the objective for false representation.

One who pressures others to accept false representations might just be representing the problem itself. Now that's art.

Ultimately, a distortion like Hamilton is preferable to one based on ripping off and distorting the intentions of another artist, in this case Bizet.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

One thing for sure is that if and when a distortion of art favors a worldview the creator never intended, and swings in a different controversial direction (i.e., conservative, heroic, traditional, nationalist, etc), the deconstructionists will be howling just as loud or louder...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

apricissimus said:


> How do we prevent people from re-interpreting, or re-writing the old classics? Is there some enforcement mechanism, or will stern looks and hang wringing have to suffice?


What a strange question. Reminds me of a kid saying to his mother, "Who's gonna make me?"



> Maybe I'm just coming from a very different aesthetic point of view. I've mentioned elsewhere that my first love is jazz, where constant reinterpretation and reinvention is the norm, and maybe even an essential characteristic of the form.


Do you really not see a difference? Jazz is jazz. Improvisation is what jazz is all about. The classical repertoire since the late 1700s is the opposite of that. Composers write what they want heard and seen, and performers try to realize the potential of that. If instead they use it as the basis of an arrangement or transcription, they call it that and sign it with a hyphenated name (Schubert-Liszt)



> No actual violence was done to Bizet's intention, because this is in some ways a new work,


What do you mean "actual" violence? Bizet's intention was ignored. And I didn't pay to see a new work. If people want to create and present an actual new opera on the subject of Carmen, bless 'em. I'll decide whether I want to see it.



> and Bizet's work remains intact even if it was not in evidence on the stage that night.


The score remains intact on paper. Bizet intended for Carmen to be performed.



> Maybe some people will be robbed of the opportunity of seeing Carmen they way they prefer, but so what?


Say that to the guy from Anytown in flyover country who waits for years to buy his trip to Bayreuth and when he gets there discovers that Kundry is a crocodile and the inhabitants of Brabant are dancing yellow rodents.



> I don't think anyone has a responsibility to perform Carmen for anyone, either played straight and true to the original or otherwise.


If you don't want to perform Carmen, nobody's saying you have to. Just don't _not_ perform it and advertise that you _are_ performing it. That's called fraud.



> You see it as your job as a musician to remain faithful to the composers intentions. Clearly other people don't feel the same way. I'm not sure it's anyone's place to say they should think differently.


People feel and think all sorts of things. But a performing artist with sensitivity and integrity feels and thinks certain things and not others. He doesn't feel and think that a composer of genius creates an opera so that he can have a free-for-all with it and make a personal "statement" that has nothing to do with the work as written and actually contradicts and undermines it. There is such a thing as aesthetic integrity. A great work of art is what it has to be throughout, its parts consistent with each other, all contributing to the whole. Artists spend their lives trying to achieve this. The attitude of some self-infatuated pseudointellectual mediocrity who can't create anything worthwhile of his own and makes up for this deficiency by "rethinking" the works of others for a fat paycheck provided by the taxpayers of Germany is not an attitude that I can respect.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

apricissimus said:


> my first love is jazz


and that shows...


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

apricissimus said:


> I guess I really don't understand the grouchiness displayed in this thread. If someone does a radical re-interpretation of your favorite opera, or other music work, or novel, or whatever, so what? You're free to not like it, of course, but I don't get the personal offense that so many people seem to take.


I remember this thread from when it first came round, but I couldn't remember it well enough to know whether I felt it contained *grouchiness* or not. However the comments since have been somewhat _grouchy_.

It is incredibly disappointing when you are really looking forward to an opera and you find it hard to enjoy due to the production. When it is an opera that isn't often performed then it is particularly so. (The same happens when the singing and/or conducting isn't up to scratch, but opera fans don't seem to mind that so much these days...) However, that's not necessarily what this thread is about. It isn't about _bad_ productions per se, but productions that change the original story.

Often reinterpretations of opera don't work, the words and music were (in most cases) written with a specific meaning in mind and departing from the accepted or original meanings doesn't work if then the music or the words don't make sense in that new conceptual context. However, at times such reinterpretations can add to our understanding of a work and make it more entertaining for both those who know the opera well and those who have flown in for a one off.

Carmen has a shocking ending, unless you already know how it ends. If Carmen kills Don Jose then even those who know the opera are shocked! Whilst filmed opera is always a compromise over live performance (although some people prefer the close ups and move from one camera position to another you get in the cinema or watching a DVD etc.), there are plenty of traditional Carmens that can be seen on recordings if someone can't get to an opera house to see one live.

I don't see the purpose of a blanket 'NO' to reinterpretations or changing the story, surely it has to be taken on a case by case basis (and you need to have seen the production to comment in an informed way about whether it works or not). Opera production goes through cyclical phases of faithful reproduction vs fantasy recreation and we are in a fantasy period at the moment. I expect it to pass and a different way of finding authentic, accurately detailed productions will come about in some fashion to replace the current regie style.

N.


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## MaxKellerman (Jun 4, 2017)

The Conte said:


> However the comments since have been somewhat _grouchy_.


Accusing those you disagree with of being grouchy comes across an an attempt to invalidate ones arguments by their attitude. I don't see why strongly held opinions and beliefs constitute grouchiness.



> However, at times such reinterpretations can add to our understanding of a work and make it more entertaining for both those who know the opera well and those who have flown in for a one off.


I've never found this to be the case. Changing the content of the work does not add to our understanding of it -- if anything it causes us to think about the ways in which what we are viewing relates to the original work of art, a kind of meta-commentary or meta-dialogue about the opera and the directors stance towards it. But I've seen no evidence that reinterpretations cause anyone to think more seriously about the content and ideas of the opera than a production that is faithful to the original content. Moreover, the original artists produced theatrical works with certain methods and effects in mind. They made choices regarding music and story geared towards creating an experience for the audience, and productions which are faithful to the original artist's vision are striving to capture that as best as possible. Productions that barge in and change the content of the work fundamentally change the experience, and it's fair to ask afterwards if what one just experienced is even a close approximation of what one experiences with the actual opera. Some people are fine with criticism being interjected into the opera itself, and thinking abstractly about them while watching them. But it's safe to bet that most people would like to go to see an opera that is enthralling and dramatically coherent, then contemplate their reactions and come to an understanding of the work afterwards. So it's not surprising that such regie productions are controversial.



> Carmen has a shocking ending, unless you already know how it ends. If Carmen kills Don Jose then even those who know the opera are shocked! Whilst filmed opera is always a compromise over live performance (although some people prefer the close ups and move from one camera position to another you get in the cinema or watching a DVD etc.), there are plenty of traditional Carmens that can be seen on recordings if someone can't get to an opera house to see one live.


I don't believe the purpose of new productions should be to shock, or to attempt to recreate the feelings of a person's first engagement with an opera by changing it to the point where it really _is_ a whole new work being experienced for the first time. I don't pop in a favorite movie because I've forgotten what happens, I want to let it envelope me me in its aesthetic world with its emotions and visual framework and be reminded of its artistic excellence. So I don't expect it to be re-edited with a new surprise ending when I'm no longer surprised by the original ending. And the great thing about theater is that you can see two productions that are both quite different and yet valid and insightful interpretations of an opera.

This business about "just go watch the opera you were expecting on DVD" is a lame cop-out. Besides, there are some operas that don't have faithful, "traditional", or atristically adequate productions available on video.



> I don't see the purpose of a blanket 'NO' to reinterpretations or changing the story, surely it has to be taken on a case by case basis


I don't see why. There is an audience who wants to be challenged with adaptations of familiar works, and there is an audience who wants to see the works themselves. There is a line that can be crossed there, where what one is seeing is no longer the original work. You can't just do anything you please with Carmen, changing the plot, the music, the staging, the dialogue, and still call it Carmen. So why is it so out of the question that the difference be made clear? Some people just do not want to see a reinterpretation, as much as you may enjoy one or think it works in any particular instance. And even if I do enjoy a reimagining of Carmen, it will be because it works in its own unique ways quite apart from the original. I won't be under any disillusionment afterwards that what I saw should be attributed to Bizet or considered his work.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Imagine something like this becoming a contagion, Ophelia stabs Hamlet, Gilda whistles the Duke's tune, Herod dances for Salome...


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

philoctetes said:


> Imagine something like this becoming a contagion, Ophelia stabs Hamlet, Gilda whistles the Duke's tune, Herod dances for Salome...


But this IS what happens in spoken theatre all the time and nobody batters an eyelid. However, Gilda whistling the Duke's tune would be a significant change to the music and that hasn't happened in the main opera houses yet, really (although the Met has done some cut down versions of classic operas for a family audience).

Interestingly there has been a long tradition of cutting the music, inserting other pieces by different composers and even changing who sings the odd line here and there from that written in the score (final line of _Pagliacci_ anyone?) Add to that performances on modern instruments rather than period ones and the whole question of what the composer intended becomes a tricky one. It seems to me that when people say they want to see an opera as the composer intended what they really mean is that they want to see the opera as they are used to seeing it performed, which may be a far cry from what the composer intended. People who are quite happy to sit through the Rimsky Korsakov version of Boris Godunov suddenly cry foul if the updating of an opera means that romantic nostalgia for the Victorian era that we sometimes see today is swept aside as the audience are forced to confront the horrors of war and prostitution.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The phrase "as the composer intended" is indeed tricky. There are probably more examples than we know of composers sanctioning productions which never really satisfied them, or which failed to represent everything they wanted their operas to convey. Until the later 19th century opera was not generally considered the most elite of entertainments; production was at the mercy of the whims and budgets of managements more interested in ticket receipts than in art, and of producers and performers looking for wild applause and good salaries - a situation which caused serious composers like Gluck and Wagner to take steps to remedy what they considered a degradation of the art. But while it's often true that we don't know exactly what the composer had in mind, and it's certainly true that we can't generally take early productions as models, we shouldn't use this as an excuse to do just anything in the name of "interpretation."

It shouldn't be surprising that we can sometimes find possible meanings in the music and libretto of an opera that productions have traditionally overlooked, and that even the composer was either unaware of or didn't find a way of expressing. If a production can find ways of making such meanings apparent without distorting or unbalancing the work, there is no reason not to welcome new ideas. Some people want to frame the discussion as "musty traditionalism" versus "anything goes," but great artistic work rarely arises out of either of those poles. The old composers would certainly have been delighted at the creativity modern theatrical technology makes possible. We don't have to have the wrong characters killing each other onstage to do something fresh and interesting - or, if we think we do, we're probably jaded, and we might consider giving opera a rest until we're ready to marvel again at the intrinsic power of _dramma per musica._


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

philoctetes said:


> Herod dances for Salome...


and Herodias has him beheaded.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

The Conte said:


> But this IS what happens in spoken theatre all the time and nobody batters an eyelid. However, Gilda whistling the Duke's tune would be a significant change to the music and that hasn't happened in the main opera houses yet, really (although the Met has done some cut down versions of classic operas for a family audience).
> 
> Interestingly there has been a long tradition of cutting the music, inserting other pieces by different composers and even changing who sings the odd line here and there from that written in the score (final line of _Pagliacci_ anyone?) Add to that performances on modern instruments rather than period ones and the whole question of what the composer intended becomes a tricky one. It seems to me that when people say they want to see an opera as the composer intended what they really mean is that they want to see the opera as they are used to seeing it performed, which may be a far cry from what the composer intended. People who are quite happy to sit through the Rimsky Korsakov version of Boris Godunov suddenly cry foul if the updating of an opera means that romantic nostalgia for the Victorian era that we sometimes see today is swept aside as the audience are forced to confront the horrors of war and prostitution.
> 
> N.


I wouldn't prohibit someone who wants to mess around with the score, script, and staging of a not-so-sacred cow like Carmen in a modest venue with some kind of disclosure in advance. It's when such mutations come to the big houses for a high price, with big stars, and threaten to displace tradition at the top that I want to preserve the tastes of yesteryear. Creating new operas to reflect current values and tastes is preferable as it leaves clear choices between tradition and transient. I see no need to serve the present by obliterating the past.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The Conte said:


> But this IS what happens in spoken theatre all the time and nobody batters an eyelid. However, Gilda whistling the Duke's tune would be a significant change to the music and that hasn't happened in the main opera houses yet, really (although the Met has done some cut down versions of classic operas for a family audience).
> 
> Interestingly there has been a long tradition of cutting the music, inserting other pieces by different composers and even changing who sings the odd line here and there from that written in the score (final line of _Pagliacci_ anyone?) Add to that performances on modern instruments rather than period ones and the whole question of what the composer intended becomes a tricky one. It seems to me that when people say they want to see an opera as the composer intended what they really mean is that they want to see the opera as they are used to seeing it performed, which may be a far cry from what the composer intended. People who are quite happy to sit through the Rimsky Korsakov version of Boris Godunov suddenly cry foul if the updating of an opera means that romantic nostalgia for the Victorian era that we sometimes see today is swept aside as the audience are forced to confront the horrors of war and prostitution.
> 
> N.


The reviews of the premiere performance of Boris Godunov were for the most part hostile and later revisions were made because of it. Totally eversing the ending of Carmen completely changes the intensity of the dramatic build-up that leads up to it - it renders everything false to the coming tragic ending. It's hardly a minor change, and can someone please demonstrate the relationship between such an opera and the murder of women in general society? How many opera lovers are likely to murder their girlfriends or spouses? Using a beloved opera such Carmen to make a political statement is not the same as rearranging a play in a way that completely changes its meaning. If someone wants to make a political statement, then please write a new opera with a different ending. While the initial reviews of Carmen were mixed because she was considered to be immoral, among those who attended one of these later performances was Tchaikovsky, who wrote to his benefactor, Nadezhda von Meck: "Carmen is a masterpiece in every sense of the word ... one of those rare creations which expresses the efforts of a whole musical epoch." He viewed it as a tremendous success at the time... I do not go along with the tampering of this great opera and libretto that takes place in a setting that's more than 150 years old. It's life in the raw with a series of tragic circumstances that inevitably end badly as part of its drama.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The phrase "as the composer intended" is indeed tricky. There are probably more examples than we know of composers sanctioning productions which never really satisfied them, or which failed to represent everything they wanted their operas to convey. Until the later 19th century opera was not generally considered the most elite of entertainments; production was at the mercy of the whims and budgets of managements more interested in ticket receipts than in art, and of producers and performers looking for wild applause and good salaries - a situation which caused serious composers like Gluck and Wagner to take steps to remedy what they considered a degradation of the art. But while it's often true that we don't know exactly what the composer had in mind, and it's certainly true that we can't generally take early productions as models, we shouldn't use this as an excuse to do just anything in the name of "interpretation."
> 
> It shouldn't be surprising that we can sometimes find possible meanings in the music and libretto of an opera that productions have traditionally overlooked, and that even the composer was either unaware of or didn't find a way of expressing. If a production can find ways of making such meanings apparent without distorting or unbalancing the work, there is no reason not to welcome new ideas. Some people want to frame the discussion as "musty traditionalism" versus "anything goes," but great artistic work rarely arises out of either of those poles. The old composers would certainly have been delighted at the creativity modern theatrical technology makes possible. We don't have to have the wrong characters killing each other onstage to do something fresh and interesting - or, if we think we do, we're probably jaded, and we might consider giving opera a rest until we're ready to marvel again at the intrinsic power of _dramma per musica._


Thank you Woodduck. You've said exactly what I was thinking but didn't have time to write (and wouldn't have put it so clearly and succinctly).

I would also add that it's not only not about a simple dialectic between "musty traditionalism" and "anything goes", but it's a spectrum and as others have pointed out, there is a point on that spectrum where the work is no longer the same work, but becomes an adaptation or a new work. Where that line sits is going to be slightly different for everybody and that is fine, but the fact that we are talking about a spectrum means that there isn't a simple answer to this question and that's why it has to be dealt with on a case by case basis (unless you are in the 'traditional' only or 'regie' only camps - and I know people who are in one or the other).

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

philoctetes said:


> I wouldn't prohibit someone who wants to mess around with the score, script, and staging of a not-so-sacred cow like Carmen in a modest venue with some kind of disclosure in advance. It's when such mutations come to the big houses for a high price, with big stars, and threaten to displace tradition at the top that I want to preserve the tastes of yesteryear. Creating new operas to reflect current values and tastes is preferable as it leaves clear choices between tradition and transient. I see no need to serve the present by obliterating the past.


Ah, but Carmen exists in a number of different versions. There is the opera as it was performed at the dress rehearsal, then on opening night (with one number cut for timing reasons) and then the version which premiered in Vienna after Bizet had died which included recitatives that weren't even composed by Bizet (and have a different script compared to the Opera Comique version) and then there are a number of passages that Bizet changed or cut during rehearsals. "Messing around" with the score, script and staging is part of the performance history of Carmen and there have been at least two different critical editions that have tried to go back to Bizet's 'intentions'.

Furthermore the recent ROH production presented the work as a sort of Weimar cabaret with very little (if any) focus on the story. This meant that the work lost all theatrical value and put the spotlight on the music making it a long, one-sided and very tedious evening. I'd rather have had a production set in the locations and time of the libretto with a simple change to the end with Carmen killing Jose and would argue that that is far less of a departure from the staging as in the libretto.

It's very rare for a score, script and/or staging not to be "messed around" with, when was the last time you saw a complete Hamlet? (And which edition of the text should we use anyway?) or have you seen a Magic Flute that uses all the dialogue? Spoken dialogue is often adapted and/or cut when it comes to opera and operetta, therefore it isn't a case of following the score, script and staging to the letter versus departing from it, rather a case of how far one can move from the original or make choices in terms of the material and performing editions left by librettist and composer before one moves so far that it becomes an adaptation or a new work. Otherwise one is effectively only saying that they can only accept productions as they are used to seeing them whilst covering their hypocrisy behind a the mask of 'it's what the composer would have wanted'.

If people were so concerned about 'what the composer would have wanted' there'd be demonstrations every time an opera house put on Don Carlos in Italian...

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> The reviews of the premiere performance of Boris Godunov were for the most part hostile and later revisions were made because of it. Totally eversing the ending of Carmen completely changes the intensity of the dramatic build-up that leads up to it - it renders everything false to the coming tragic ending. It's hardly a minor change, and can someone please demonstrate the relationship between such an opera and the murder of women in general society? How many opera lovers are likely to murder their girlfriends or spouses? Using a beloved opera such Carmen to make a political statement is not the same as rearranging a play in a way that completely changes its meaning. If someone wants to make a political statement, then please write a new opera with a different ending. While the initial reviews of Carmen were mixed because she was considered to be immoral, among those who attended one of these later performances was Tchaikovsky, who wrote to his benefactor, Nadezhda von Meck: "Carmen is a masterpiece in every sense of the word ... one of those rare creations which expresses the efforts of a whole musical epoch." He viewed it as a tremendous success at the time... I do not go along with the tampering of this great opera and libretto that takes place in a setting that's more than 150 years old. It's life in the raw with a series of tragic circumstances that inevitably end badly as part of its drama.


I agree that the reason given for the ending in this case doesn't convince me. A Carmen that kills Don Jose may appear more empowered on the surface, however it is quite clear from the libretto that Carmen knows she is going to be killed, yet is completely prepared to meet what she considers to be her fate. Is she a stronger woman due to not evading the consequences of her actions or is her bowing to her fate a weakness? I don't think it is clear cut and I don't see any _need_ to change the ending.

However, I think it better to judge this production as a piece of art and it stands or falls on whether it is a good piece of art or not. Carmen is as you say "life in the raw with a series of tragic circumstances that inevitably end badly as part of its drama" and it ends badly for both Carmen and Jose, one dies, one goes to prison. Is it really controversial which character ends with which of those life ending fates? I agree that it isn't a minor change to the _staging_, however the music stays the same and so it's still _Bizet's_ Carmen. I can't remember if this production uses the dialogue or the recitatives by Guiraud. Funnily enough when the recitatives are employed nobody complains that it isn't _Bizet's_ Carmen. Let's not be hypocritical and claim that we are interested in conserving the composer's work, when really it is about seeing a version of Carmen as we are used to it.

N.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

The Conte said:


> I agree that it isn't a minor change to the _staging_, however the music stays the same and so it's still _Bizet's_ Carmen.


Bizet's Carmen isn't purely a musical score, so I would have to disagree with your conclusion there. Besides, we're not talking about staging. We are talking about a change to the plot of the opera. But this sort of conflation of different issues and saying that even a fundamental change to the plot is nothing more than an interpretation is why we get some productions where the action on stage does not correspond to the musico-dramatic framework of the opera at all; the director has literally choreographed an entirely different story to the composer's music.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> They also didn't rap back in the 18th century United States, so I think verisimilitude to the time and place was not the goal.


I don't have any objection at all to HAMILTON, because "all the founders being non-white and the music they sing being in hip-hop style" is the concept, the premise, around which the show was written. It's like that early-1970's musical PIPPIN; no one thinks the Holy Roman Empire actually looked like this:









Instead, this was the way Bob Fosse et al. conceived of the story. With HAMILTON, imo, it would be wrong to change Miranda's original conception and make all the founders white.

Edited to add: Though I haven't seen it, one thing I admire about HAMILTON is that, while the casting and music are "modern", the sets and costumes are traditional.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I have no problem with changing the ending. Not much different than conductors interpreting a symphony. 


I'm in a Shakespeare company and we always alter the script. We even modernize the settings, not so much the language.

Chill.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

The Conte said:


> I agree that the reason given for the ending in this case doesn't convince me. A Carmen that kills Don Jose may appear more empowered on the surface, however it is quite clear from the libretto that Carmen knows she is going to be killed, yet is completely prepared to meet what she considers to be her fate. Is she a stronger woman due to not evading the consequences of her actions or is her bowing to her fate a weakness? I don't think it is clear cut and I don't see any _need_ to change the ending.
> 
> However, I think it better to judge this production as a piece of art and it stands or falls on whether it is a good piece of art or not. Carmen is as you say "life in the raw with a series of tragic circumstances that inevitably end badly as part of its drama" and it ends badly for both Carmen and Jose, one dies, one goes to prison. Is it really controversial which character ends with which of those life ending fates? I agree that it isn't a minor change to the _staging_, however the music stays the same and so it's still _Bizet's_ Carmen. I can't remember if this production uses the dialogue or the recitatives by Guiraud. Funnily enough when the recitatives are employed nobody complains that it isn't _Bizet's_ Carmen. Let's not be hypocritical and claim that we are interested in conserving the composer's work, when really it is about seeing a version of Carmen as we are used to it.
> 
> N.


There ya go, hoss. I don't see many complaints when Bach Fuge or Cello Suites are performed by guitar or saxophone or whatever.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I have no problem with changing the ending. Not much different than conductors interpreting a symphony.


Actually it's very different. Musical interpretation in most repertoire is limited by the musical text (the notes and expression marks). The true parallel case to changing the story of a 19th-century opera is not _interpreting_ a piece of music but _recomposing_ it. Shall we end Mahler's 6th on a major triad because someone thinks a tragic ending is socially unacceptable? Shall we juggle the movements of the "Eroica" to put the funeral march last, based on some theory that ending the hero's life with a funeral is more true to life?



> I'm in a Shakespeare company and we always alter the script. We even modernize the settings, not so much the language.


As far as Shakespeare is concerned, the true parallel to the _Carmen_ case would be the sort of alterations of plot and language that were inflicted on his plays in the 18th century to make them more "politically correct." Nahum Tate gave _King Lear_ a happy ending, restoring Lear to the throne, and permitting Cordelia to marry Edgar and take righteous revenge on her wicked sisters. Tate's version completely supplanted Shakespeare's original for over a century. Similar things were done to other Shakespeare plays to make them more compatible with contemporary taste.

We don't do that sort of thing any more. But for some reason the dramatic substance of opera - the stories and characters for which composers provided musical expression - is now considered the property of directors to do with as they please.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Actually it's very different. Musical interpretation in most repertoire is limited by the musical text (the notes and expression marks). The true parallel case to changing the story of a 19th-century opera is not _interpreting_ a piece of music but _recomposing_ it. Shall we end Mahler's 6th on a major triad because someone thinks a tragic ending is socially unacceptable? Shall we juggle the movements of the "Eroica" to put the funeral march last, based on some theory that ending the hero's life with a funeral is more true to life?
> 
> As far as Shakespeare is concerned, the true parallel to the _Carmen_ case would be the sort of alterations of plot and language that were inflicted on his plays in the 18th century to make them more "politically correct." Nahum Tate gave _King Lear_ a happy ending, restoring Lear to the throne, and permitting Cordelia to marry Edgar and take righteous revenge on her wicked sisters. Tate's version completely supplanted Shakespeare's original for over a century. Similar things were done to other Shakespeare plays to make them more compatible with contemporary taste.
> 
> We don't do that sort of thing any more. But for some reason the dramatic substance of opera - the stories and characters for which composers provided musical expression - is now considered the property of directors to do with as they please.


We are supposed to do Macbeth next season. Wonder if we could funny it up. Stand up Macbeth. "Taketh my wife. Please taketh my wife!"


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> We are supposed to do Macbeth next season. Wonder if we could funny it up. Stand up Macbeth. "Taketh my wife. Please taketh my wife!"


There's plenty of scope for ad libbing and inserting some 'carry on' camp into the porter's scene. Go for it!

N.


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

And how many operas are works of literature were butchered to suit the political ideological convictions of librettists and composers? 

Carmen, came from a novella. Why couldn't Bizet and his gang come up with their own story? 

Otello, Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor - Shakespeare butchered by the opera merchants (of course Shakespeare was quite light fingered himself when it came to stories) and Don Carlos is a masterclass in taking someone else's story and messing around with it. 

Opera has been chopping up and "butchering" other people's stories for decades. It is not an innocent in all of this. 

People are taking stories that are over 100 years old, reinterpreting them, changing them and remaking them - just like Bizet, Verdi, Rossini and all the other composers did when they were alive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

AlexD said:


> And how many operas are works of literature were butchered to suit the political ideological convictions of librettists and composers?
> 
> Carmen, came from a novella. Why couldn't Bizet and his gang come up with their own story?
> 
> ...


Bizet's _Carmen_ doesn't "butcher" Merimee's, it merely adapts the story in a completely separate work of art. Merimee's novella remains intact, unbutchered, to be enjoyed without reference to Bizet, as the opera is to be enjoyed without concern for the novella.

Presenting Bizet's _Carmen_ with a changed story is not presenting Bizet's _Carmen._


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Bizet's _Carmen_ doesn't "butcher" Merimee's, it merely adapts the story in a completely separate work of art. Merimee's novella remains intact, unbutchered, to be enjoyed without reference to Bizet, as the opera is to be enjoyed without concern for the novella.
> 
> Presenting Bizet's _Carmen_ with a changed story is not presenting Bizet's _Carmen._


And indeed it was seeing and knowing the opera that made me want to read the original novel, as I did in my twenties. I also remember reading Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_, Dumas's _La dame aux Camélias_ and Prévost's _Manon Lescaut_ because I knew the operas and wanted to study the source material. I discovered that some operatic adaptations are freer than others. Massenet's opera is much closer to the spirit of its source material than Puccini's for instance, although the Puccini opera ends, like the novel, in America and Massenet's does not. In all three cases, the novel, the Massenet and the Puccini opera, the heroine dies at the end. To have her remain alive at the end would misrepresent all off them.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Bizet's _Carmen_ doesn't "butcher" Merimee's, it merely adapts the story in a completely separate work of art. Merimee's novella remains intact, unbutchered, to be enjoyed without reference to Bizet, as the opera is to be enjoyed without concern for the novella.
> 
> Presenting Bizet's _Carmen_ with a changed story is not presenting Bizet's _Carmen._


Good to see you back W.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> And indeed it was seeing and knowing the opera that made me want to read the original novel, as I did in my twenties. I also remember reading Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_, Dumas's _La dame aux Camélias_ and Prévost's _Manon Lescaut_ because I knew the operas and wanted to study the source material. I discovered that some operatic adaptations are freer than others. Massenet's opera is much closer to the spirit of its source material than Puccini's for instance, although the Puccini opera ends, like the novel, in America and Massenet's does not. *In all three cases, the novel, the Massenet and the Puccini opera, the heroine dies at the end. To have her remain alive at the end would misrepresent all off them.*


I hope there aren't any opera directors hanging around here looking for bright ideas...


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## Autumn Leaves (Jan 3, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I hope there aren't any opera directors hanging around here looking for bright ideas...


Anything is possible… There already is a production sparing Brünnhilde, and I have _heard_ that in Latvian Opera's production of _Tosca_ they spared Cavaradossi.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Autumn Leaves said:


> Anything is possible… There already is a production sparing Brünnhilde, and I have _heard_ that in Latvian Opera's production of _Tosca_ they spared Cavaradossi.


So did Tosca still leap to her death thinking he was dead? That would be cruel, but the ending is cruel anyway. I actually find the idea intriguing, and I don't think it does violence to any deeper meaning in the work, which as far as I can see _has_ no deeper meaning. It also provides a neat justification for Puccini's controversial decision to end with a motif from "E lucevan le stelle."


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> So did Tosca still leap to her death thinking he was dead? That would be cruel, but the ending is cruel anyway. I actually find the idea intriguing, and I don't think it does violence to any deeper meaning in the work, which as far as I can see _has_ no deeper meaning. It also provides a neat justification for Puccini's controversial decision to end with a motif from "E lucevan le stelle."


Let's make it even more cruel: Tosca sees the supposedly dead Mario sit up and cry out to her, just as she leaps from the parapet. On the way down, we can hear her scream, "Oh, craaaaaaaaaaaap!"


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## Autumn Leaves (Jan 3, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> So did Tosca still leap to her death thinking he was dead? That would be cruel, but the ending is cruel anyway. I actually find the idea intriguing, and I don't think it does violence to any deeper meaning in the work, which as far as I can see _has_ no deeper meaning. It also provides a neat justification for Puccini's controversial decision to end with a motif from "E lucevan le stelle."


Yes, that take on the idea would be rather interesting. But again, I'm not even sure he is spared in that production. I know of it from hearsay, and only the trailers are available on YouTube.

Speaking of Tosca, I once found a production where Scarpia actually notices Tosca holding the knife, opens his arms wide daring her to strike, and she can't bring herself to do it and _puts the knife away_. (At that point I was, like, "Can modern directing get _any_ weirder?") And then Scarpia, being his usual self, goes on to assault her, and she quickly grabs the knife again and strikes after all.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Autumn Leaves said:


> Yes, that take on the idea would be rather interesting. But again, I'm not even sure he is spared in that production. I know of it from hearsay, and only the trailers are available on YouTube.
> 
> Speaking of Tosca, I once found a production where Scarpia actually notices Tosca holding the knife, opens his arms wide daring her to strike, and she can't bring herself to do it and _puts the knife away_. (At that point I was, like, "Can modern directing get _any_ weirder?") And then Scarpia, being his usual self, goes on to assault her, and she quickly grabs the knife again and strikes after all.


That's fine, but how did they fit all that action into the music, which moves quickly?


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## Autumn Leaves (Jan 3, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> That's fine, but how did they fit all that action into the music, which moves quickly?


All this noticing of the knife and putting it away happened before "Tosca, finalmente mia!", so it all fit. He only had to write the pass faster than it's usually done.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Just found this thread. I don't really understand the outrage. I understand how people prefer the original, but if a few productions want to do something new with an original work, as long as the vast majority of productions are sticking with the original production, it really doesn't matter that much. My concern is that people build animosity toward other groups people over stories like this that are ultimately inconsequential, but their collective anger towards others really does have real life harmful, consequences if allowed to go too far. 

TL;DR I know we all love art, but don't take it seriously to the point where it allows you to hate real people.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

violadude said:


> Just found this thread. I don't really understand the outrage. I understand how people prefer the original, but if a few productions want to do something new with an original work, as long as the vast majority of productions are sticking with the original production, it really doesn't matter that much. My concern is that people build animosity toward other groups people over stories like this that are ultimately inconsequential, but their collective anger towards others really does have real life harmful, consequences if allowed to go too far.
> 
> TL;DR I know we all love art, but don't take it seriously to the point where it allows you to hate real people.


I totally agree. One thing I would say is that these types of productions where the original work is given a totally new setting and major parts of the original story are changed are becoming more and more common. Another factor is that opera productions often are revived for a significant number of years after their premiere. So what could be an interesting one off Carmen isn't that, but is a production that will be seen for 10, 20 or even 30 years. Of course, the ending could be changed back to the original for revivals, but directors are reluctant to allow that.

N.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

I also hate it how in opera the man always ends up living and the woman ends up dying; there should be an opera where a woman kills a man about to assault her but because all the liberrtists of the past were sexist we just must tos-ca out such fantastical ideas.

Why didn't they just perform Tosca anyway?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

violadude said:


> Just found this thread. I don't really understand the outrage. I understand how people prefer the original, but if a few productions want to do something new with an original work, as long as the vast majority of productions are sticking with the original production, it really doesn't matter that much. My concern is that people build animosity toward other groups people over stories like this that are ultimately inconsequential, but their collective anger towards others really does have real life harmful, consequences if allowed to go too far.
> 
> TL;DR I know we all love art, but don't take it seriously to the point where it allows you to hate real people.


I am no extremist and no fan of conservatism or right-wing, yet acts like this one help to build my animosity against one group only: those willing to censor and police the works of others to suit their supposedly higher moral ground. You want an opera, that propagates your MeeToo ideology? Then go and write one, but do not touch the works of others without their permission.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BachIsBest said:


> I also hate it how in opera the man always ends up living and the woman ends up dying; there should be an opera where a woman kills a man about to assault her but because all the liberrtists of the past were sexist we just must tos-ca out such fantastical ideas.
> 
> Why didn't they just perform Tosca anyway?


Lucia de Lammermoor?


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