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

[underthecountertenor]

... yours might be, matey - you ain't heard my throat-singing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC9Qh709gas

Lawks

[Giacomo]

I won't be booing because I won't be going.

Not going hasn't worked so I it's good too see audiences expressing disapproval more vocally.

[Giacomo]

You're right; "But are these declining audience numbers caused by production standards that don't match what the audience is expecting to see? Are there really so many "outlandish" productions at the Met? Is the repertoire in San Fransisco comparable between 1980 and 2015? Would attendances return to earlier, higher numbers if there was a declaration "Tights Not Rubber Sharks from now on"? Or, alternatively, is it the very absence of "traditional" stagings that is the only thing that is keeping the audience figures as "high" as they are? Are there enough people from 1980 around to maintain even a 70% Box Office return?

We can't be sure but the anecdotal evidence from complaints does support the view that a substantial number of people that like opera dislike it with rubber sharks.

Compare the number and style of complaints for I Due Foscari with Idomeneo:

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/your-reaction-idomeneo#comments

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/your-reaction-i-due-foscari#comments

And there are more Idomeneo complaints in the booing thread:

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/debate-booing-at-the-opera-justifiable-or-insufferably-rude#comments

Might not the brohaha surrounding this Idomeneo attract people who enjoy theatrical presentations but think that "Opera" is still done in tights?

So your business plan is to alienate a hard core of fanatical opera lovers in the unproven hope of substituting an alternative set of people who currently don't listen to opera music. (Also ignoring the theatre goers that prefer Shakespeare in tights.)

And is booing really going to achieve the changes you believe desirable?

The fact the ROH have a thread on booing but not one "Why didn't you go?" shows it might.

[Nick Armstrong]

Interesting links, Giacomo, I've never visited those discussion pages before. Thanks

(Esp interesting to see Holten getting involved; and some other familiar names...

RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN responded on 7 November 2014 at 8:28am:
ONE of the most depressingly modish and mindlessly vacuous productions I have seen at Covent Garden in years - even worse than Due Foscari, Maria Stuarda and Manon Lescaut ... some lovely singing from Bevan, Polenzani, de Barbeyrac, but as for the sound of Franco Fagioli's male soprano, words fail me.

)

[Flosshilde]

Might not the brohaha surrounding this Idomeneo attract people who enjoy theatrical presentations

It might also be just as likely to put them off, if it seems that the 'theatrical presentation' doesn't have much to do with the opera; I'm sure that people who go to spoken theatre are just as likely as opera audiences to prefer productions that illuminate rather than obfuscate.

think that "Opera" is still done in tights?

Was opera ever 'done in tights'? Are you thinking of ballet?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Was opera ever 'done in tights'?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPYjqz7nToY

Are you thinking of ballet?

No, Flossie; strangely enough, when I wrote of "people who ... think that 'Opera' is still done in tights" I was thinking of "people who think that 'Opera' is still done in tights".

[Flosshilde]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPYjqz7nToY.

Two men in tights (perhaps the singers were rather proud of their legs) - but rather more in breeches. I think the phrase 'men in tights' is rather more associated with ballet.

[Flosshilde]

So your business plan is to alienate a hard core of fanatical opera lovers in the unproven hope of substituting an alternative set of people who currently don't listen to opera music.

Sounds rather like Roger Wright's plan for Radio3

[amateur51]

Interesting links, Giacomo, I've never visited those discussion pages before. Thanks

(Esp interesting to see Holten getting involved; and some other familiar names...

RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN responded on 7 November 2014 at 8:28am:
ONE of the most depressingly modish and mindlessly vacuous productions I have seen at Covent Garden in years - even worse than Due Foscari, Maria Stuarda and Manon Lescaut ... some lovely singing from Bevan, Polenzani, de Barbeyrac, but as for the sound of Franco Fagioli's male soprano, words fail me.

)

Mr Christiansen has recent form in non-musical criticism, as we all know, so his remarks about Frank Bean's voice means that he came off lightly. Thank goodness no sopranos were damaged in the course of this review

[Don Basilio]

I went last night. I am still feeling depressed. There are some concept productions where I don't understand what's going on. Here I understood only too well and in its terms it was produced well. Its terms where that Idomeneo chooses to have his son killed as a potential political threat and is only stopped by an armed rising.

That may be a good story but it isn't the one Mozart set to music. Idomeneo's words and music all show his reluctance.

There was a total misunderstanding how myth works.

The staging of the quartet with nearly static singers was fine - just leaving the music to carry the drama.

Elettra is a peach of a role and her music could make me overlook to line of children in white gym slips. I didn't mind the Mary Quant get up and she and Sophie Bevan as Ilia were nicely contrasted.

The counter tenor was not impressive.

Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Arabace got wild applause for his first aria, despite his accordion and wooly hat.

I thought surtitles were meant to translate the text. Here they were used to inform us of the alternative plot that wasn't in the text.

[Don Basilio]

In the programme, Olaf A Schitt, dramaturg, writes:

“In Mozart’s opera, references to the captured Trojans and Idamante’ humane act of liberation suffice for us to acknowledge that Idomeneo’s rule is tyrannical, violent and fearful.”

No it doesn’t. It may suggest, hint or be consistent with all that, but it does not suffice to make that out to be the only interpretation. In the original text there is no suggestion that Idomeneo resents the release of the prisoners and he treats Ilia with sympathy and respect in Act II, rather than resent her release.
Schitt writes further:

“If Neptune is to be understood as the divine justification of Idomeneo’s regime, then this monster represents that same regime in concrete form: it is the violent power of the state that Idamante has to fight.”

That’s a big IF. On the contrary, Idomemeo clearly sees Nepture as a potential threat or he wouldn’t try to get Idamante out of the way. He clearly sees the monster and plague as major misfortunes, to put it mildly. I disagreed with the staging of the finales to Acts 1 and 3, but at least I realised the bone headed consistency of the staging. The Act 2 finale is a mess as there is no representation of the monster.