ROH Idomeneo: I'm so glad audiences are starting to bite back at daft productions

[Nick Armstrong]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/mozarts-idomeneo-martin-kusej-is-greeted-by-a-mexican-wave-of-booing-9845094.html

Tempted to go just to exercise my vocal chords....

Second thoughts, don't need the three hours of annoyance.

Anyone been?

[french frank]

And this was the Indy review.

[Dave2002]

I learnt a new word today on Music Matters - regietheater - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regietheater
The Music Matters programme might be worth listening to again - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnvx with its review of the ROH Idomeneo. [Also available as a podcast, as I've just been reminded. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/musicmat]

Some of the productions I've seen in recent years have tended that way - and it sounds as though the Idomeneo is going fairly extreme, though the reviewers on MM seemed to find it more farcical than threatening. I'm guessing that Glyndebourne's Ariadne auf Naxos (2013) was in that style - lovely singing, but became laughable in the second part - and the first part held a few surprises. ENOs Beethoven Fidelio had the odd business of Florestan being shot at the end by his "friend" and rescuer - not by any means obvious in the radio broadcast.

Sometimes productions can be livened up by being brought "up to date" and by some interesting twists, but some productions are simply bonkers. Setting a Rameau opera in a fridge/freezer is another example.

Does it matter? Not sure - after all - most opera is essentially fiction/fantasy. However, some of it does not work well with the music alone, so perhaps it does.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Anyone been?

Indeed.

http://bachtrack.com/review-idomeneo-kusej-minkowski-royal-opera-november-2014

I'm happy to be in a minority when it's in company with Fiona Maddocks and Hugh Canning! Today's Observer:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/09/idomeneo-royal-opera-martin-kusej-sally-beamish-equal-voices-review

and Hugh Canning in the Sunday Times (£):

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/music/article1479578.ece

[MrGongGong]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...g-9845094.html

Tempted to go just to exercise my vocal chords....

Second thoughts, don't need the three hours of annoyance.

Anyone been?

Why does this review make out that it costs

At £200 a ticket

?


I know that this production is not to everyones taste

but

Anyone been?

[gurnemanz]

I have seen quite a few "Regietheater" productions which I hated and others that I have liked (both theatre and opera). We saw Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in the summer and I couldn't even grasp what the production was getting at. Last Saturday at the Donmar we saw Henry IV set in a women's prison with an all-female cast. My wife bought the tickets and I had my doubts going in but must admit they really pulled it off. It was very well acted and its unexpected perspective did shed new light on the text. My first Ring was the Joachim Herz 19th century capitalist interpretation in Leipzig which pre-dated Chereau at Bayreuth. Wagner was, of course, his own Regisseur who wrote copious stage directions and indications of costume and set design which are never followed to the letter. A blanket condemnation of Regietheater per se is surely absurd. Traditional stagings can also be a let-down. You can only judge each production as it comes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A blanket condemnation of Regietheater per se is surely absurd. Traditional stagings can also be a let-down. You can only judge each production as it comes.

I am far more distressed by the often lousy singing that features in so many productions - but the plastic shark i the photo of this production of Idomeneo did look like nothing so much than a Sixth Form end-of-term drama production in which every available prop is made use of.

[Frances_iom]

...
I know that this production is not to everyones taste ..
but

I paid less than £15 for an upper slips 'seat' on the 1st night but with somewhat restricted view of stage so I couldn't immediately work out why the titter when some rubber fish was brought on - if you can't understand the production without buying a programme for an opera I've seen before then the production has failed - the singing was mostly excellent and the band extremely good as per usual these days but the production IMO deserved the boos - maybe some points were worth making but as a whole beta minus for the production.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Boos don't work. Just don't applaud - if the majority of the audience disapproves, the sudden dip in applause is devastating: the offending artist is then reduced to taking a bow to near-silence.

And, if you're really disgusted by a production, leave at the first interval and demand your money back.

Booing is just childish and ineffective.

[Nick Armstrong]

Boos don't work. Just don't applaud - if the majority of the audience disapproves, the sudden dip in applause is devastating: the offending artist is then reduced to taking a bow to near-silence.

And, if you're really disgusted by a production, leave at the first interval and demand your money back.

Booing is just childish and ineffective.

Yes. I have frequently withheld applause (usually with a mezzo forte grumble along the lines of "load of cr*p"). (It too tends to be ineffective though - depending on what 'effect' you're getting at. The trouble is that the opera house is normally full of the "wrong" - since they applaud with gusto, not clapping has very little impact)

[Frances_iom]

the music and singing were excellent - why boo these artists - it was the production for which the director was responsible that rightly got boo'd - obviously for what I paid for my seat I was happy to sit back and just listen - when ENO had a similar run of such productions a few years ago I merely stopped going (and I think commented why)

[Nick Armstrong]

when ENO had a similar run of such productions a few years ago I merely stopped going (and I think commented why)

Me too.

[hafod]

Boos don't work. Just don't applaud - if the majority of the audience disapproves, the sudden dip in applause is devastating: the offending artist is then reduced to taking a bow to near-silence.

And, if you're really disgusted by a production, leave at the first interval and demand your money back.

Booing is just childish and ineffective.

Booing is just the opposite end of the spectrum to cheers and shouts of acclamation. Both I suggest are equally valid. Or is this another example of double standards?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not sure that it is "the opposite end of [a] spectrum" - unless hat spectrum is a circle and booing and cheering are so close as to be indistinguishable. If someone genuinely intends to shock for the sake of shocking, then booing is as welcome to them as cheering- "you see? That's what I expected; I've upset those people, and pleased those others - I've succeeded!" If there is a sudden droop in applause, on the other hand, they just look silly bowing to it.

However, if the cheerers' approval overrides the silence of the discontented, then doesn't this mean that the production has succeeded with the majority of the audience? In other words, the director hasn't merely "shocked for the sake of shocking", but has produced a staging in which most of the audience perceives merit? In which case, isn't it simply childish bad manners (and downright discourteous to the rest of the audience) to boo? What is this? Strictly Come Mozart?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Booing is simply yobbish behaviour, discrediting the audience more thatln the production. I rekember when Sir Keith Joseph addressed the NASUWT teachers' union annual confererence when he was Education Secretary. Although the delegates didn't like what they heard, there wasn't a murmur of dissent - just a total dignified silence when his speech ended. It was far more effective.