# May I the only person who dislike cuts made in operas?



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Yes, I hate cuts in operas. Perform the whole thing please.

It's my scholarly nature but it's worse when done to Wagner. Ugh.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Hah. I much prefer the "concert versions" of most operas.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Here are Gustav Mahler's thoughts: "Mr. Weingartner understands Wagner even less than I do and can't see that cuts make a work longer rather than make it shorter."


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I don't like 98 percent of them.

to cut dry recitatives they're great.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It depends. Most cuts in Wagner are awkward because the music is in one continuous structure. It's traditional to cut Lohengrin's final scene in his opera because it's musically redundant and lots of people find it dull. This is the one cut in Wagner I'm content with. It used to be traditional to make cuts in acts 2 and 3 of _Tristan_, which helps singers get through a taxing evening. It was also common to cut the Norn scene from the prologue to _Gotterdammerung_. All these cuts take away important music and should be punishable by making producers listen to Wagner's _Philadelphia Centennial March_ for twenty-four hours on continuous loop.

"Numbers" operas are a different matter. Some arias and ensembles, and recitatives for that matter, may be either musically uninteresting or represent miscalculations in terms of dramatic effectiveness. I'll let others, more familiar with the situation in Italian and French opera, talk about that. For the most part I'm for leaving operas uncut; I want to know what the composer had in mind, and if I'm going to be in the theatre three hours anyway I can spare another ten or fifteen minutes.

There are also cases in which the opera exists in more than one version by the composer, who made cuts or additions himself for various reasons. Verdi's _Don Carlo_ - or _Don Carlos_ - is a classic case. We have to decide for a given performance what we want to include or exclude. And then there is extra stuff like the ballet music from _Otello_, which was not in Verdi's original plan but which was needed for a performance in Paris. Most productions leave it out, I think justifiably.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Except for some ho hum ballets and dance sequences, I really hate most all cuts.
The worst one that really burned me was the Zefferelli DVD of Otello with Ricciarelli/Domingo/Lieferkus where Zefferelli dared to actually cut out the beautiful Willow Song because the opera was too long. (scream!!)


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Cuts are terrible to me no matter what. Like an abridged novel.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Hate any cuts. IMO it's arrogant of a producer/director to think that an audience isn't interested in a particular part of the opera.

The wolf's crag scene is often cut from _Lucia di Lammermoor_


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Every scene in Lucia is great.
It's a masterpiece.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It depends. Most cuts in Wagner are awkward because the music is in one continuous structure. It's traditional to cut Lohengrin's final scene in his opera because it's musically redundant and lots of people find it dull. This is the one cut in Wagner I'm content with. It used to be traditional to make cuts in acts 2 and 3 of _Tristan_, which helps singers get through a taxing evening. It was also common to cut the Norn scene from the prologue to _Gotterdammerung_. All these cuts take away important music and should be punishable by making producers listen to Wagner's _Philadelphia Centennial March_ for twenty-four hours on continuous loop.
> ....


In your list of awful cuts in Wagner, I'd add the two BIG cuts made by Furtwangler in the La Scala Ring (1950), one in the middle of the Wotan monologue of Die Walkure act 2, the other in Siegried act 3, part of the scene between Siegried and the Wanderer.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I don't like cuts, either, though I have no objection to the spoken dialogue in Singspiel operas being judiciously edited. What really irks me are the stage directors who take it upon themselves to write entirely new dialogue, which inevitably is far worse than anything in the original.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

MAuer said:


> I don't like cuts, either, though I have no objection to the spoken dialogue in Singspiel operas being judiciously edited. What really irks me are the stage directors who take it upon themselves to write entirely new dialogue, which inevitably is far worse than anything in the original.


It's like someone adding freckles to the Mona Lisa ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GioCar said:


> In your list of awful cuts in Wagner, I'd add the two BIG cuts made by Furtwangler in the La Scala Ring (1950), one in the middle of the Wotan monologue of Die Walkure act 2, the other in Siegried act 3, part of the scene between Siegried and the Wanderer.


Wonder why he cut those parts? If I had to cut anything in the _Ring_ it would be Mime and the Wanderer playing question and answer, imo the dullest scene, musically, in the whole work. But you couldn't do it because of the libretto. Wagner should have dispensed with the game-playing and just had the Wanderer appear briefly and give Mime a little fright.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

sospiro said:


> It's like someone adding freckles to the Mona Lisa ...


That's right. i prefer Duchamp's version of the Mona Lisa over the original version.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> It depends. Most cuts in Wagner are awkward because the music is in one continuous structure. It's traditional to cut Lohengrin's final scene in his opera because it's musically redundant and lots of people find it dull. *This is the one cut in Wagner I'm content with*. It used to be traditional to make cuts in acts 2 and 3 of _Tristan_, which helps singers get through a taxing evening. It was also common to cut the Norn scene from the prologue to _Gotterdammerung_. All these cuts take away important music and should be punishable by making producers listen to Wagner's _Philadelphia Centennial March_ for twenty-four hours on continuous loop.
> 
> "Numbers" operas are a different matter. Some arias and ensembles, and recitatives for that matter, may be either musically uninteresting or represent miscalculations in terms of dramatic effectiveness. I'll let others, more familiar with the situation in Italian and French opera, talk about that. For the most part I'm for leaving operas uncut; I want to know what the composer had in mind, and if I'm going to be in the theatre three hours anyway I can spare another ten or fifteen minutes.
> 
> There are also cases in which the opera exists in more than one version by the composer, who made cuts or additions himself for various reasons. Verdi's _Don Carlo_ - or _Don Carlos_ - is a classic case. We have to decide for a given performance what we want to include or exclude. And then there is extra stuff like the ballet music from _Otello_, which was not in Verdi's original plan but which was needed for a performance in Paris. Most productions leave it out, I think justifiably.


I hesitatingly agree. Wagner was ok with it too, I believe.


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