Crisis at ENO?

[french frank]

Hmmm. Today's latest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31437883

[NickWraight]

Opera in English is not the same as in the original language but is often a most rewarding experience, the immediacy of understanding can be powerful especially when allied to the visual event. It is known that German speakers attend Wagner performances at ENO due to English being somewhat easier to follow than Wagnerian German! I have attended many exciting, challenging and profoundly enjoyable evenings at the Coliseum and trust it continues for many years. While the auditorium is undeniably large, and unhelpful to solo voices, the acoustic is generous and warm and allows the singers and orchestra to blend superbly: if you've never sat in the front few rows of the middle-shelf or balcony do experience it - much better than the stalls where the singers predominate. The ROH seems harsh and boxy in comparison. While board struggles and political interference, from within and without ENO and the ACE, have taken place for whatever reasons (personal; organisational; governmental) today's announcement back-pedals significantly on the previous £5m cut however it is dressed up.

[Ein Heldenleben]

A lot of the press coverage has put a very negative spin on today's announcement It seems indeed that ACE is indeed giving "some of the money back" . I hope this will give the beleaguered company some sort of stability . Four days on the extraordinary performance of Mastersingers on Saturday is still ringing in my head. The company richly deserve our support. I've seen four recent productions Grimes, Otello , Fancuilla - all in their own way excellent. I've never subscribed to the " Coliseum unsuited to opera " theory. I much prefer the stalls there to the side Balcony at ROH (broadly similar in price ) . I realise that I am lucky to be able to afford either and also able to make the 500 mile round trip a visit there involves .
The fundamental problem perhaps is not the management of ENO but ours as a society and culture . We are willing to spend £5 billion on televising football but not a few pence , in relative terms , on this wonderful art form. When Sachs was greeted with Wacht Auf on Saturday I thought how wonderful to live in a society where poets rather than footballers are praised . But on reflection medieval Nuremberg was probably no paradise for artists or any one else .The final irony is that the Germans now seem to do both public arts subsidy and national football better than we do and perhaps for the same reasons . A tiny bit of national pride and a belief that society is enriched by both.

[MrGongGong]

Maybe the 'problem' for ACE is that ENO has the name
English National Opera?

London is not 'National' it is but one small part, and far too much of the ACE budget is spent there (even though much of what happens is wonderful stuff)

[Flosshilde]

Perhaps the English National Opera should follow the lead of the English National Ballet and become a touring organisation without a permanent theatre?

[Darkbloom]

Opera in English is not the same as in the original language but is often a most rewarding experience, the immediacy of understanding can be powerful especially when allied to the visual event. It is known that German speakers attend Wagner performances at ENO due to English being somewhat easier to follow than Wagnerian German! I have attended many exciting, challenging and profoundly enjoyable evenings at the Coliseum and trust it continues for many years. While the auditorium is undeniably large, and unhelpful to solo voices, the acoustic is generous and warm and allows the singers and orchestra to blend superbly: if you've never sat in the front few rows of the middle-shelf or balcony do experience it - much better than the stalls where the singers predominate. The ROH seems harsh and boxy in comparison. While board struggles and political interference, from within and without ENO and the ACE, have taken place for whatever reasons (personal; organisational; governmental) today's announcement back-pedals significantly on the previous £5m cut however it is dressed up.

The idea of opera in translation is a good one in theory, but so often it never quite works. The combination of an unhelpful acoustic and ordinary diction means that too much is muddy in there and you often strain to hear what is being sung. I haven't been for a long time; I know that there was a big call for surtitles years ago, but am not sure whether they got their way in the end. If they did it rather makes you wonder what the point of doing it in English was in the first place. I would imagine that diction is not top of the list for young singers studying today, and you hear that very clearly next to someone like John Tom, where you can hear every word, no matter where you're sitting. There has also been the joke that some composers are best you when can't understand what the singers are on about - Verdi is sometimes compared to G & S, for example. In addition, there are so many things that can go wrong when staging an opera, and a bad, or unmusical, translation can add another layer of difficulty to a set of problems that are already daunting.

[gurnemanz]

The idea of opera in translation is a good one in theory, but so often it never quite works.

I don't think it is even good in theory, especially nowadays with surtitles. Even if it is translated into English you cannot necessarily understand it. The composer is not just setting words but the sounds, rhythms and inflections of a language -Janacek, for example. In translation you are not hearing exactly what the composer intended. Nowadays, no one would dream of performing songs in translation.

[Darkbloom]

I don't think it is even good in theory, especially nowadays with surtitles. Even if it is translated into English you cannot necessarily understand it. The composer is not just setting words but the sounds, rhythms and inflections of a language -Janacek, for example. In translation you are not hearing exactly what the composer intended. Nowadays, no one would dream of performing songs in translation.

You can get a lot of tortuous syntax to fit the music, that's true. I have heard Osmin singing something Germanic like, 'impertinence now you are showing', that sounds so odd in English I am sure most people hearing it in the theatre wouldn't quite understand it anyway. That's opera in translation, but translated into what I'm not quite sure. Also Kundry's last words of 'dienen, dienen' get turned into 'service, service', as if she is in a restaurant calling for the waiter. I think the Goodall Ring is a case where it often works quite well, although many would disagree, where I think I get closer to the drama. But it is all a compromise, at best. Unless you have a good knowledge of the language the work is in, you will miss out on something one way or the other. That's why I think ENO is important, that they provide the option.

[mercia]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31794103

[Honoured Guest]

Arts Council England doesn't fund ENO to be *one of the UK's greatest cultural ambassadors". The issue is that ENO has failed to operate as a sustainable business, and now has two years' grace to demonstrate that it will do so in future.