Met, 26th April - Cosi fanTutte

[Flosshilde]

My favourite Mozart opera.
I've had a look at the production photographs, & am a tiny bit puzzled. The women are in 18th century dress, so one assumes that the designer wanted to be fairly 'realistic' - but their house seems to be a run-down warehouse, with bare brick walls, clumsy wooden stairs, and sheets draped around. I know it's set in Naples, but that doesn't mean they lived in slums! The men's disguise costumes look even more out of keeping - Arabian, when they are quite clearly said to be Albanian. I realise that 'Albanian' could have meant anyone vaguely exotic, but I don't think as exotic as Saudi Arabian princes.

[Bert Coules]

The part of the house in question is the servants' quarters, hence the lack of elegance. Don Alfonso has a line, "Ah, this must be Despina's room" when he arrives to talk to her. The sheik costumes are all wrong, yes, but they do in fact work beautifully: would two pampered and protected young Neapolitan woman know the difference between Albanian and Arab anyway? Even Despina's doctor disguise, which is surely the least believable aspect of the whole piece, isn't at all bad in this production.

[Dave2002]

Is the setting of the dynamics wrong in the broadcast? Is this something which happens frequently in Met broadcasts?

The singing towards the end of the first half sounded consistently loud on our kitchen DAB - even where it could have been quieter. Surely there are moments of quietness, and then a sense of crescendo. It all sounded rather hectic, and a bit frenetic - which only partially matches the music.

I wondered if some form of automatic compression was being used which resulted in this effect. It was even odder that in the interval talk it was mentioned how particular James Levine is, and how he achieved dynamic contrasts which seemed to be appreciated by the audiences and also the performers, but these did not come out well in the broadcast. Now I've switched to Freesat for the second half, and I still get the feeling of a rather compressed dynamic range. If so, this is a shame - as the details about the performance suggest that the musicians and conductor have been trying to get a good performance experience.

[johnn10]

I thought it was odd that at the end there was no mention of the broadcast of Don Giovanni on BBC4 tomorrow evening. In fact, I have not heard it plugged at all on R3. I suppose they do not know that it is on -or is it just the subject of some weird internal politics? It needs to be plugged because it is very unusual for the BBC to broadcast an opera on a Sunday evening on tv and if there is not a good audience it may mean they will be less inclined to show more opera..

[Flosshilde]

The part of the house in question is the servants' quarters, hence the lack of elegance. Don Alfonso has a line, "Ah, this must be Despina's room" when he arrives to talk to her.

Maybe, but surely the maid's room would either be a small one in the attic, or in the kitchens. And isn't another scene set in the girls' bedroom?

The sheik costumes are all wrong, yes, but they do in fact work beautifully: would two pampered and protected young Neapolitan woman know the difference between Albanian and Arab anyway?

I don't think they did work - too specifically Saudi Arabian for our eyes; generally 'exotic' would have been enough (& I'm not so sure that they would have been unfamiliar with Albanians - they must have been reasonably common in Naples (or Vienna) for their appearance at the girls' house not to have provoked any great surprise)

[David-G]

I thought it was odd that at the end there was no mention of the broadcast of Don Giovanni on BBC4 tomorrow evening. In fact, I have not heard it plugged at all on R3. I suppose they do not know that it is on -or is it just the subject of some weird internal politics? It needs to be plugged because it is very unusual for the BBC to broadcast an opera on a Sunday evening on tv and if there is not a good audience it may mean they will be less inclined to show more opera..

Whereas it was plugged after the "Don Giovanni" programme on BBC2 this evening (which I found interesting in bits but overall rather disappointing). We were encouraged to watch the "highly acclaimed" Royal Opera House production tomorrow evening. Not quite sure who did the acclaiming... You are quite right about the need to encourage the BBC to continue such opera broadcasts.

[Dave2002]

Whereas it was plugged after the "Don Giovanni" programme on BBC2 this evening (which I found interesting in bits but overall rather disappointing). We were encouraged to watch the "highly acclaimed" Royal Opera House production tomorrow evening. Not quite sure who did the acclaiming... You are quite right about the need to encourage the BBC to continue such opera broadcasts.

Maybe they think everyone will go to the cinema instead.

I didn't notice until too late that last night's Met performance of Cosi fan tutte was on at cinemas locally. I gather that this is a rising trend, and some of the cinemas in this area are packed out for such events.

[aeolium]

Maybe they think everyone will go to the cinema instead.

I didn't notice until too late that last night's Met performance of Cosi fan tutte was on at cinemas locally. I gather that this is a rising trend, and some of the cinemas in this area are packed out for such events.

Yes, though the pre-performance introduction and interval features in the Met cinema broadcasts are if anything even worse than those on the radio, with no shortage of "luvvie" type interviews backstage and plenty of shots of rehearsals. Perhaps I'm untypical in this but I really do not want to see rehearsal footage (at least during the interval of the live performance) as I am interested only in the finished product. I suppose you can go out in the interval for a drink or snack.

[Bert Coules]

Maybe, but surely the maid's room would either be a small one in the attic, or in the kitchens.

In the kitchen is exactly where the scene is set: it begins with Despina heating chocolate and complaining that she's never allowed to taste it. The set has the cooking area to one side, Despina's room to the other and a staircase leading up to the rest of the house.

And isn't another scene set in the girls' bedroom?

Yes, and that scene has its own, different, set. The scene changes throughout were smooth, fast and unobtrusive.

As for the Arabic Albanians, all I can say is that it worked for me. And in any case, in this day and age we should perhaps be grateful that they didn't come on disguised as triple-headed Martians, riding unicycles and waving political banners.

[Flosshilde]

My point (perhaps not very clear) was that even an apparently 'realistic' 'traditional' production can be as un-real or inaccurate or not reflecting the period as the updated or fantastic productions people often complain about.

[Demetrius]

Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time, and turkish influence on the Albanian society was considerable, so the oriental touch is not completely off - though a turkish style would fit better (meaning turban, pants, jackets etc).

[Bert Coules]

I appreciate that it seems to matter to some people far more than it does to me, but even apart from that one aspect personally I really enjoyed the show: it's a real pleasure to see a production that's so faithful in virtually every respect as well as being thoughtfully directed, beautifully designed and lovingly performed. When you think what it could have been like...

[David-G]

It might have been like the old Graham Vick production at Glyndebourne, where the whole opera took place in a white-painted rehearsal room, the only feature of interest being an old-fashioned radiator.

[aeolium]

It might have been like the old Graham Vick production at Glyndebourne, where the whole opera took place in a white-painted rehearsal room, the only feature of interest being an old-fashioned radiator.

Or - much, much worse than that - the recent WNO production set in a Welsh seaside resort of the 1950s in which one of the tenors was in shorts for most of the performance

[David-G]

If the shorts were worse than the radiator they must have been quite something!