Do3 - One Winter's Afternoon: Sunday 19 May, 8.30pm

[french frank]

I've snaffled this quote from A Night at the Opera (so as not to be OT over there!):

Prepping for this great work [Falstaff]. Am I alone in thinking that Verdi had learned much from Wagner by this late stage - but his great innovation was to compress it all into a fraction of the time.

Tomorrow's Drama on 3 is actually the type of play I'm not personally keen on - the imaginary incident using historical characters but ...

One Winter's Afternoon by Guy Meredith: Sunday 19 May 2013

With Kenneth Cranham and Paul Rhys as Wagner and Verdi

As part of BBC Radio 3's Wagner 200, One Winter's Afternoon tells the story of the great operatic rivalry between Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner in the year marking the bicentenary of their births. In real life, the two great composers never met.

Taking as its starting point the death of Wagner, the play travels between two time frames as it explores key moments in their lives, and in imaginary conversations between them about the struggles of creativity.

After the triumphant reception of his masterpiece Aida, Verdi has been coaxed out of retirement to write one more work, Otello, but he is struggling with it. As a voice inside Verdi's head, Wagner continues to taunt him, making him fear that Wagner will be remembered as the greater composer. The complex love lives of both composers illustrate how Wagner's ebullient and insensitive nature contrasted with Verdi's angst and more introverted temperament. The recollection of jealous passion does in the end serve to unblock Verdi in his creative despair.

The play explores - not without comedy - ageing and creativity, artistic loves and differences, the approach of death and the struggle against it bringing alive the texture of 19th-century Europe, its cultural and political influences.

[Bert Coules]

I haven't heard this yet. Did anyone listen live? Guy Meredith has a distinguished track record and the producer/director Cherry Cookson has done a lot of these "imaginary factual" dramas, many of them about musicians and most of them excellent.

Bert

[aeolium]

The big problem with this kind of play is that either it tries to replicate the language and way of thinking of the period in which it is set - in which case the language tends to lack life - or it uses modern language and ideas which sound inauthentic. I gave it a try for about 25 minutes but I found it lacking in drama and interest. Here surely truth was stranger than fiction: it would have been better to have separate dramatised documentaries of the lives of these composers, with extracts from their actual ideas as recorded in their writings or documented by contemporaries.

[french frank]

The big problem with this kind of play is that either it tries to replicate the language and way of thinking of the period in which it is set - in which case the language tends to lack life - or it uses modern language and ideas which sound inauthentic. I gave it a try for about 25 minutes but I found it lacking in drama and interest. Here surely truth was stranger than fiction: it would have been better to have separate dramatised documentaries of the lives of these composers, with extracts from their actual ideas as recorded in their writings or documented by contemporaries.

Classic case of prejudging/prejudice in my case, but it looks as if that might have been about right this time.

I don't know why they take what would be admirable historical documentary material and turn it into 'drama' - I suppose sometimes it works but it needs to be a pretty powerful real life drama (and a good playwright!) to make this successful, at least on radio. But Bert sounds as if he would disagree?

Some 'real life' stories do seem to have irresistible dramatic appeal!

[Bert Coules]

But Bert sounds as if he would disagree?

Well, given that my very first professional sale was a Radio 4 drama about Wagner's 1855 visit to London, yes I do tend to, a little - though it's true that my piece did also have a documentary element to it. As to why it's done, there's a feeling among both directors and writers that drama can get more to the heart and emotional core of a subject than can pure factual presentation. True, a drama inevitably introduces an element of interpretational bias, but then so does a documentary feature. And a fine cast and a strong script can present even a well-worn subject in a new and unexpected light.

Bert

[Sir Velo]

The big problem with this kind of play is that either it tries to replicate the language and way of thinking of the period in which it is set - in which case the language tends to lack life - or it uses modern language and ideas which sound inauthentic. I gave it a try for about 25 minutes but I found it lacking in drama and interest. Here surely truth was stranger than fiction: it would have been better to have separate dramatised documentaries of the lives of these composers, with extracts from their actual ideas as recorded in their writings or documented by contemporaries.

I agree with all that except I would go further and delete the epithet "dramatised", and just leave it with that increasingly old fashioned concept: the documentary per se, unvarnished and undressed up. What I object to in these programmes is the thesis that these are Verdi's and Wagner's actual thoughts. Er, no, it's what you Mr Director and you, Mr Playwright, have concocted out of your own imaginations. As you say, it's completely spurious to present this as in any way a realistic presentation of actual events. It seems programme makers are incapable of letting the listener's imagination fill in the blanks.

[french frank]

Interesting, Bert

As to why it's done, there's a feeling among both directors and writers that drama can get more to the heart and emotional core of a subject than can pure factual presentation.

And very likely true - though I suppose it depends what a listener might want to get from it: does s/he want the specific subject matter presented in a more vivid way or is the primary interest in 'drama qua drama'. Which comes first: the conception of 'drama' (with no constraints on what you can invent to heighten it) or the subject matter and how you can extract drama from it while remaining reasonably close to authenticity?

There's the listener's nagging doubt as to how far this is a 'true story' about interesting 'real' people, and how much you've bent the truth to make it a good play?

[Bert Coules]

What I object to in these programmes is the thesis that these are Verdi's and Wagner's actual thoughts.

But surely that claim isn't being made, is it? Neither in this instance nor in most similar ones.

That said, the "truth" of fiction (whether factually based or not) is a consideration which is almost certainly as old as drama itself. And of prose, come to that. I once encountered a sad soul who refused to read any novel or short story, because "They're not real, are they? Those people don't really exist. Those things didn't really happen. It's just lies." A remarkable point of view.

Bert

[aeolium]

Perhaps it's the rise of the HIPP movement in music that makes it harder to accept anachronistic historical drama - unless, perhaps, it abandons any real pretence to historical verisimilitude and concentrates on vivid writing and characterisation. I was wondering while rewatching the 1970s series of I Claudius what made it work so successfully and it really came down to the quality of the screenplay (and the acting) built around a skeleton of historical fact. But that was exceptional. I can't think of too many modern historical dramas on radio that have made a strong impression on me.

[Bert Coules]

Perhaps it's the rise of the HIPP movement in music that makes it harder to accept anachronistic historical drama - unless, perhaps, it abandons any real pretence to historical verisimilitude and concentrates on vivid writing and characterisation.

My point of view is that since it's completely impossible to know for certain just what constitutes "historical verisimilitude" the best thing is to forget about it entirely. Vivid writing and characterisation aren't (or shouldn't be) an option: they should be a core requirement. But the past should be evoked and suggested, not rendered with what purports to be absolute accuracy.

Bert

[french frank]

Taking up Bert's point about novels, I have no real interest in 'historical novels' either, however much they are lauded. I find an uneasy tension between the real and the fiction. And of course there should be a 'truth' to fiction, (or rather, there can be two sorts of 'truth').

And there are 'good novels' and 'good yarns' - not necessarily the same thing. Again the art/craft and the subject matter or story.

[Mr Pee]

I gave it a go, but I just didn't find it interesting enough to hold my attention for 90 minutes. I gave up after about 20.

I did however enjoy the preceding programme in which Michael Pennington and Juliet Stevenson read prose and poetry related to Wagner and his music, along with a couple of archive recordings of T S Eliot reading from "The Waste Land". I found it fascinating and very involving, with some interesting texts and clever marrying of the spoken word and the music- although the jump from the end of the Liebestod directly into the early Symphony in C nearly made me fall off the sofa!

Anybody else hear it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shy5k

[Bert Coules]

Taking up Bert's point about novels...

Telling that story again has made me realise anew what a truly fascinating opinion was being expressed, one I've never heard from anyone else. I can't vouch for the absolute accuracy of this, but it's pretty close:

I mean, I open a novel and it says "Jenny stood in the driveway and looked at the house" or whatever. And I just want to shout "No, she didn't! There is no Jenny, there is no house! Why are you lying to me?"

And this from a person of considerable intelligence and achievement - just completely fiction-blind.

Bert

[french frank]

Bert

I've heard such an opinion described but never actually met anyone who thought it. I do know people who can't be bothered with novels though I doubt they would rationalise their dislike like that.

Mr Pee - no, I didn't hear it but when these programmes are good, they're very good (When you said, I gave it a go, I thought you meant you tried your hand at a novel...)

[Sir Velo]

But surely that claim isn't being made, is it? Neither in this instance nor in most similar ones.

With respect I think to a large extent that is the point being made - otherwise why not call your characters Rick and Joe? If you call your protagonists Verdi and Wagner you are asking for a suspension of disbelief and the willingness to assume that this is a dramatisation of the composers' relationship.