Opera Production

[doversoul1]

I think there is a distinct parallel between that and the outrage some people express about updated opera productions; in fact, if you look at the reaction to Chereau's centenary Ring production when it was first put on, and the current view of it now that it has achieved a 'historical' distance there is a similar shift from outrage to acceptance.

I see your point but I still think there is a difference between updating the setting of an original work and creating a new work that updates the concept of an old master or the art itself. However, I’m probably splitting a hair.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And yet, Alpie can still refer to it (in #9) as "attention-seeking by the producer", and in terms that suggest that he believed that this wasn't a particularly controversial statement.

Oi! Ferney. Jus' lis'n 'ere! You don' 'ave to react to old Alpie every time 'e sez summat.

Yes, I did say that in #9, and it had the desired effect of stimulating discussion. You'll notice I never said I didn't like it, and as I explained later, my real reservation was a musical one concerning Brunnhilde.

But I still maintain that producers trying to be clever goes much further down the road of distorting the originator's intentions than any amount of unHIPP musical performance. And I appreciate that you make a distinction here.

Updates of a story can sometimes be nonsensical. Take Jesus Christ Superstar. ALW and Tim Rice set this musical in modern times, and yet, when they got to the bit where they put Jesus to death, they used a method of tortuous death - crucifixion - that had been stopped, officially, by the Roman emperor, Constantine the Great.

On the question of tinkering with Wagner, it was the composer himself who wrote the music, libretto, stage directions and even designed the theatre itself. Of course, he might well have liked Chereau's production. Indeed, I liked it a great deal more than those dull Bayreuth productions of the 1950s and 60s.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oi! Ferney. Jus' lis'n 'ere! You don' 'ave to react to old Alpie every time 'e sez summat.

There's no answer to that.

[Flosshilde]

This is not re-working of the original but a new work, the original is still available.

Manet's painting is an interpretation and recreation of Titian's (and of other painting showing a similar subject & pose - some earlier than Titian's). Of course, all the earlier paintings still existed - just as any opera still exists while its score and libretto is available in print (& now, thanks to recordings, individual performances and productions can be preserved).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm still mystified as to why the music and production are treated so differently.

Well, I attempted this in #22@

Music is an Art of sound - the instrumental sounds they imagine are essential to their conception; Mozart's Clarinets have a different sound from those of Elgar or, for that matter, Vivaldi - as his Basset Horns also sound significantly different from the timbre of his Clarinets. Play his Music on members of the modern Clarinet family, and you move away from those individual timbres.

Drama works with words and human interactions: it does not require specific physical types, or voice ranges, or exact, positionings of the actors on stage - it does not need the pronunciation of the language of the writer's time in the way that Handel's Music benefits from sensitive employment of the instruments and conventions of Handel's contemporaries. Drama's focus is on the way people behave and the words they use to communicate this behaviour. Music is about sound contrasts and combinations.

In other words, even at the Globe Theatre, we don't get the stage experience that Shakespeare's audience would have experienced - the authenticity of the staging isn't integral to the plays in the same way that instrumental sounds, dynamic balance and tempi are integral to the performance of Music. The interaction of characters and the words the writer uses to communicate this interaction is what's important: whether Julius Caesar wears a toga or doublet & hose or track suit isn't. The libretto of an opera provides the composer with rhythms and vowels sounds to motivate the Music - that's what important, not where the characters stand, or what they wear. In this respect, Music and Production are treated so differently because they have different priorities.

[doversoul1]

Manet's painting is an interpretation and recreation of Titian's (and of other painting showing a similar subject & pose - some earlier than Titian's). Of course, all the earlier paintings still existed - just as any opera still exists while its score and libretto is available in print (& now, thanks to recordings, individual performances and productions can be preserved).

Sorry, Floss. I’m till splitting the same hair. In the case of Manet's painting, it is entirely up to the viewers to make the connection with Titian's work, whereas in the case of, say Glyndebourne's Hippolyte et Aricie, it was presented as the opera by Rameau. With the original libretto.

Mind you, The Guardian gave four stars to this production, so it perhaps proves ferneyhoughgeliebte’s point. All the same I DON’T LIKE IT (I suppose it comes down to this, to me at least).

[David-G]

Sorry, Floss. I’m till splitting the same hair. In the case of Manet's painting, it is entirely up to the viewers to make the connection with Titian's work, whereas in the case of, say Glyndebourne's Hippolyte et Aricie, it was presented as the opera by Rameau. With the original libretto.

Mind you, The Guardian gave four stars to this production, so it perhaps proves ferneyhoughgeliebte’s point. All the same I DON’T LIKE IT (I suppose it comes down to this, to me at least).

We have discussed this before; but I think it is interesting, because it shows to me how individual is a person's reaction to an opera production. I know exactly why you disliked the Glyndebourne Hippolyte et Aricie, and I am entirely sympathetic to your reasons. All the same I merely felt mild disquiet at certain points in the production, which did not mar what was to me a great evening. But I think you would have loved the OAE's Zais! Or perhaps you were there?

[David-G]

I'm still mystified as to why the music and production are treated so differently.

I once asked Jonathan Miller why when authenticity in musical performance is valued so highly these days, nobody is interested in authenticity in opera production. He could not answer me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I once asked Jonathan Miller why when authenticity in musical performance is valued so highly these days, nobody is interested in authenticity in opera production. He could not answer me.

HELLO-O:

Music is an Art of sound - the instrumental sounds they imagine are essential to their conception; Mozart's Clarinets have a different sound from those of Elgar or, for that matter, Vivaldi - as his Basset Horns also sound significantly different from the timbre of his Clarinets. Play his Music on members of the modern Clarinet family, and you move away from those individual timbres.

Drama works with words and human interactions: it does not require specific physical types, or voice ranges, or exact, positionings of the actors on stage - it does not need the pronunciation of the language of the writer's time in the way that Handel's Music benefits from sensitive employment of the instruments and conventions of Handel's contemporaries. Drama's focus is on the way people behave and the words they use to communicate this behaviour. Music is about sound contrasts and combinations.

Whaddya want? Surtitles?!

[Giacomo]

Manet's painting is an interpretation and recreation of Titian's (and of other painting showing a similar subject & pose - some earlier than Titian's)..

They are related but I'm sorry they are not equivalent, certainly not in the sense that if they were operas they would be musically interchangeable. The Manet is like an Offenbach parody.

Of course, all the earlier paintings still existed - just as any opera still exists while its score and libretto is available in print.

They don't exist as performance works until performed and - importantly for this discussion - if the director ignores the libretto the work does not as exist as itself.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Whaddya want? Surtitles?!

Not necessarily, but an acknowledgement that an opera in an integrated work of art and not two conflicting/opposing ideas, would be a start.

[Flosshilde]

They are related but I'm sorry they are not equivalent, certainly not in the sense that if they were operas they would be musically interchangeable. The Manet is like an Offenbach parody.

That is nonsense. I never said that they were 'equivalent' - whatever that means (& what does 'musically interchangeable mean?). Manet's is an interpretation of Titian's, for a contemporary audience.

To go back to the example of Verdi's La Traviata, which I mentioned earlier. It was based on Dumas' novel La dame aux Camélias; Verdi & Piave chose to give it the title of La Traviata - the Fallen Woman, or The Prostitute; far more direct thatn Dumas' title. They wanted to give it a contemporary setting, but were frustrated by the censor at La Fenice. Verdi considered it "A subject for our own age". Given all this, wouldn't it be more in keeping with the composer's wishes to give it a setting contemporary with us (our own age), emphasising, as Verdi clearly wished, that the problems of women forced (by whatever circumstances) into prostitution are still with us, rather than something that only existed in a past time, related as a pretty historical story?

[Giacomo]

Well, I attempted this in #22@

You define the music and drama as being separate. I see it as integral, a "music-drama".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You define the music and drama as being separate. I see it as integral, a "music-drama".

..which is precisely my point.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not necessarily, but an acknowledgement that an opera in an integrated work of art and not two conflicting/opposing ideas, would be a start.

Oi! Alpie! NO!

The simple "intergated" vs "conflicting/opposing" duality isn't the option here. In Opera (and Ballet) there are several Art strands that conjoin and feed off and into each other, and these coalesce in the viewer's experience (to greater of lesser degrees). Composers such as Handel and Beethoven reuse material from other works to provide Music for the words that they set; Metastasio wrote libretti by the yard often for composers he never even met - that in itself suggests that "intergration" isn't the precisely correct word to use in those cases at least. Operas are performed mainly for the Music - it's ulikely that a performance of the libretto of, say, Cosi fan Tutte or any of the Orpheus operas as a Play (without Music) would attract much admiration. Thomas' Hamlet is rarely performed because the Music is weak, not because of any deficiencies of the plot. The Magic Flute requires the audience not merely to suspend its disbelief, but to draw and quarter it, too. But it will always be a great Opera, because of that Music. (Pause for momentary reverie remembering the Music.) Even Wagner's attempts at integration don't work - the libretto of his Music Dramas are very poor cousins of the Music; their function is to supply the rhythms and vowel sounds for the chief interest; the Music.

With the unquestionable superiority of the Music in all the Operas we care about, is it any real surprise that the Music is treated with reverence (in the best use of that easily-maligned word) whilst the "story" (which are frequently third-rate; I mean, Il Trovatore? Is it meant to be a comedy?) so often requires more imaginative treatment than the librettist gave it.

Which is not to say that all "traditional" stagings must automatically be dull, nor that all "avant garde" productions must be good - from the descriptions given on this thread of some productions I haven't seen, there seem to have been many that have completely missed the point of the Music (I don't like the idea of women secretly enjoying being raped, for example). But it is a mistake to "start" with the premise that an opera is automatically "an integrated work of Art"; the function of the director is to create such integration on stage from the various (and occasionally conflicting) elements that together go to make up the piece.