Lucy Worsley's Nights at the Opera

[Ferretfancy]

The way that Salome was depicted was really mind blowing stuff. First time I have seen it!

If you don't mind a bit of gore I strongly recommend the exhibition Opera: Passion Power and Politics at the V & A, with introductions by Anthony Pappano. This is an excellent headphones tour at the new gallery beneath the restored Sackler Court.
The exhibition is in a series of large spaces with a nice behind the scenes air, backstage at the theatre. We start with Monteverdi's Venice and end with Shosytakovich's Lady Macbeth.

Apart from numerous video displays there are costumes, artifacts and original manuscripts, portraits of singers and librettists etc.

It's a rather odd and disorientating feeling listening to great music in a predominantly elderly crowd of headset wearers, many standing and staring into space. I must say It did amuse me to see the very bloodstained finale of Salome on the big screen with a very polite middle class audience taking it in their stride. Very English !

I'm not sure whether the Lucy Worsley programmes are intended to tie in, but it's an interesting comparison.

Incidentally,the bacchanale from Tannhauser also featured with a Cecil B deMille orgy of writhing and leaping about. Nobody seems to be capable of choreographing crowded sexual indulgence, and this was risible as usual.

Do get to the V&A if you can, it's a splendid exhibition.

[Stunsworth]

The way that Salome was depicted was really mind blowing stuff. First time I have seen it!

I thought exactly the same. I hope that none of the moaning minnies complaining about the gore in Gunpowder saw it, their heads would probably exploded in rage.

I'm getting rather bored with Lucy's dressing up, but thought what she was saying was a useful introduction to the times in which the operas were written - and made the point that they don't stand alone isolated from current events.

Finally, I can't help wondering why there wasn't a third programme covering the post Puccini era? Maybe there'll be a second series covering that era.

[BBMmk2]

I thought exactly the same. I hope that none of the moaning minnies complaining about the gore in Gunpowder saw it, their heads would probably exploded in rage.

I'm getting rather bored with Lucy's dressing up, but thought what she was saying was a useful introduction to the times in which the operas were written - and made the point that they don't stand alone isolated from current events.

Finally, I can't help wondering why there wasn't a third programme covering the post Puccini era? Maybe there'll be a second series covering that era.

I know what you mean!

[Serial_Apologist]

Nobody seems to be capable of choreographing crowded sexual indulgence, and this was risible as usual.

I wouldn't know...

[Pulcinella]

I wouldn't know...

You should have taken up that offer at Londis.

[Serial_Apologist]

You should have taken up that offer at Londis.

[underthecountertenor]

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Lucy Worsley’s absolute howler during the Salome segment, when she very clearly referred to the illustrator AUDREY Beardsley. I fell off my chair.

[ardcarp]

AUDREY Beardsley

I didn't spot it. Lucy does have a slight speech non-orthodoxy. (Is that PC enough?).

[Stanfordian]

I didn't spot it. Lucy does have a slight speech non-orthodoxy. (Is that PC enough?).

Which grates I'm afraid!

[underthecountertenor]

I didn't spot it. Lucy does have a slight speech non-orthodoxy. (Is that PC enough?).

A couple of people suggested that that might have been the cause, and that therefore I was being unfair. But I'm not aware of her transmuting Bs into Ds before Rs elsewhere ('Dridge'?).

I posted this as a comment on a friend's status on Facebook (about the lowest common denominator feel of much of the BBC's arts programming these days). It turned out that the producer of this programme was a mutual friend. He asked me what my point about Beardsley was. So I posted the clip. To which his response was, once again, 'and your point is?' I replied that the point was that Worsley very clearly said Audrey. There followed a long silence, following which he replied agreeing with me, thanking me for pointing out something that had 'slipped through the net' and that no one else had noticed, and saying that they would consider editing the voice-over for any future repeats. I have to say that my impression was that, in reality, no one on the team had realised that the illustrator was a bloke called Aubrey, despite the fact that they showed the cover of an edition of the Wilde play very clearly featuring his name.

[underthecountertenor]

Which grates I'm afraid!

If it were just the 'non-orthodoxy' I don't think it would be fair to criticise, as it isn't affected. It's the rest of her TV personal (which very much IS affected) that grates with me.

[Keraulophone]

I can imagine the consequent 'W1A'-style meeting.

[DracoM]

Yes, I kept thinking that!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There was an "Audrey Beardsley"; she contributed illustrations to editions of the Late Victorian periodical The Yellow Duck.

[underthecountertenor]

There was an "Audrey Beardsley"; she contributed illustrations to editions of the Late Victorian periodical The Yellow Duck.