Opera Production

[Giacomo]

I was wondering just what proportion of the opera productions they have attended, or watched on broadcast, people here have been satisfied with.

Looking back a couple of years I put ROH productions into these groups. If you know these you'll see the there is a very simple division based on whether the production is straight or wacky.

Satisfactory: Carmen, Don Carlo, La bohème, Manon (Massenet), Otello, Robert le diable, Simon Boccanegra, Tosca, Turandot.
Unsatisfactory: La donna del lago, Les Troyens, Les Vêpres siciliennes, Maria Stuarda.
Unsatisfactory, but knew not to go: Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Manon (Puccini), Nabucco, Eugene Onegin.

So I give the ROH a 2/3 satisfaction rating but that figure is biased because I have removed the productions knew to avoid. I've only included the music I like so I've not considered the productions of Birtwistle, Britten, Benjamin, Berg, Ades, Adams, R Strauss. There are major variances within both groups and even those satisfactory I would improve, eg, I think the Traviata is sparse with too many painted backdrops, Rigoletto could do without the 20C metal work, etc.

I go to the ROH about once per month, repeating things I like. I do about 6 other operas per year locally or eg, Price Igor touring, or concert performances, all of which rate as good because I've pre sorted by choosing to go. There are hundreds of live music events I choose not to attend! This is a very low rating for the ROH considering I'm satisfied by every other aspect and I've already made a very narrow choice in going to a 19C opera at the top opera venue in the UK.

Let me discuss the idea that opera should be stuck in the 19C or that the ROH should be a "museum of music". If one wants to see a Canaletto one can go the National Gallery - it's not called a "museum of painting". If one literally wants to see rubbish one can go to the Tate and see Tracy Emin's Bed (please discuss elsewhere whether you consider it artistic rubbish). You choose. I've never heard anyone suggest a Canaletto would be enhanced by sticking used condoms on it, complain that looking at Canaletto locks art into the 18C, or that it fails to connect with the realism of modern life. So yes, I am happy to see the public funded ROH being to opera (and ballet) what the National Gallery is to painting. I am not asking for *music* to be stuck to the 19C; I am only asking for *19C* music to be presented as 19C music - without used condoms.

[Giacomo]

When you refer to "a consistent level of dissatisfaction among opera audiences" do you have any evidence of that being the case?; and perhaps that level is actually fairly low?

Yes, I talk to people. Even though mine's a small sample, if 50 people all tell me the same thing it's statistically significant.

[Giacomo]

It might well be the case that the productions that so upset "traditional" opera audiences are the very ones that attract more people to become interested in opera.

No, I'm relatively young (not difficult at opera!) and relatively new attendee and I go because I'm seeking the "traditional" experience. It is the "traditional" experience that is the *new* experience, perhaps *because* it is not related to me and modern life.

My limited surveying suggests it's those that can remember seeing Maria Callas that are bored.

[jean]

Unsatisfactory: La donna del lago...

Not for me.

I'm just checking with the other 49 now...

[jean]

...If one wants to see a Canaletto one can go the National Gallery...I've never heard anyone suggest a Canaletto would be enhanced by sticking used condoms on it, complain that looking at Canaletto locks art into the 18C, or that it fails to connect with the realism of modern life...

It's an interesting comparison - but any art form that requires performance also has to have interpretation of some sort, which visual art by its nature doesn't.

Plenty of arguments though over how far one should clean or restore the Canalettos.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No, I'm relatively young (not difficult at opera!) and relatively new attendee and I go because I'm seeking the "traditional" experience. It is the "traditional" experience that is the *new* experience, perhaps *because* it is not related to me and modern life.

The "No" is a little egocentric, given that it's based only on your own viewpoint.

My limited surveying suggests it's those that can remember seeing Maria Callas that are bored.

This sounds interesting - a little more detail of your "limited surveying" (of people who are least in their seventies by now) and of what it is they are "bored" would be appreciated.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, I talk to people. Even though mine's a small sample, if 50 people all tell me the same thing it's statistically significant.

I think that's a general problem. People with the power sometimes think only of their own ideas and get carried away on an ego trip. That doesn't mean new ideas shouldn't be tried, but if the idea is there just as a way of being noticed, it should be rejected until it has been thought through.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think that's a general problem. People with the power sometimes think only of their own ideas and get carried away on an ego trip. That doesn't mean new ideas shouldn't be tried, but if the idea is there just as a way of being noticed, it should be rejected until it has been thought through.

I think that that is "a general problem", too: some members of the audience sometimes coming to a production with their own ideas of what a production of an opera should be like and only able to think of this, rather than what the production they're seeing is actually doing - and blaming the flaws they perceive as evidence of the director's "ego".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think that that is "a general problem", too: some members of the audience sometimes coming to a production with their own ideas of what a production of an opera should be like and only able to think of this, rather than what the production they're seeing is actually doing - and blaming the flaws they perceive as evidence of the director's "ego".

Very true, but there are some who criticise the results out of narrow-mindedness, and others who gush about its "newness" through fear of the Emperor's New Clothes effect. That's one of the dangers of musical criticism. A critic arrives at a new production, watches it, perhaps in partial bewilderment, and then has to produce a balanced verdict within a couple of hours. In the US, it is said that audiences lap up the views of critics (and do contradict me if this is a myth). Fortunately, most British audiences are not too bothered about what critics think.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - I've rarely read a Critic who has admitted honest bewilderment in a Review; it's as if they feel an obliggation to give a definitive judgement. Part of the world of what Hans Keller called the "phoney profession" of the Music Critic.

Fortunately, most British audiences are not too bothered about what critics think.

- as admirably demonstrated on all the BaL discussions on the Forum.

[aeolium]

I greatly enjoy the discussions about opera productions on this forum and I don't think they reflect any obvious prejudices or blinkered reactions. There is no shortage of positive reactions to productions, and even when there are strongly negative ones they are almost invariably accompanied by a reasoned argument as to what the MBer didn't like in the production. No-one surely goes to an opera wanting to see a production that will disappoint.

And I won't hear a word said against our resident opera critic, IGI, whose reviews are always a highlight (even, nay especially, when I disagree with them)

[Sir Velo]

What's rude about nudity ?

Who said it was?

My response was an ironic reply to the previous poster's remark that a new tradition was being set by productions having nude scenes.

[MrGongGong]

Who said it was?

My response was an ironic reply to the previous poster's remark that a new tradition was being set by productions having nude scenes.

It was a JOKE

[Sir Velo]

It was a JOKE

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes - I've rarely read a Critic who has admitted honest bewilderment in a Review; it's as if they feel an obliggation to give a definitive judgement. Part of the world of what Hans Keller called the "phoney profession" of the Music Critic.


- as admirably demonstrated on all the BaL discussions on the Forum.