Po3 Fri: Rheingold from Leeds

[aeolium]

Have you seen any opera performances at the Minack Theatre, LMP, or are the companies too amateur for your taste? I suppose it's mostly G&S or other light opera.

[Flosshilde]

But of course. However, I'm still very disappointed. The size of the orchestra pit in Leeds Grand Theatre is a limiting factor. I'm just disappointed. That's all. It would be great to stage The Ring in the North of England, even if that meant reducing the size of the orchestra. It's a compromise I'd prefer to dumping the stage.

I understnad your disappointment, Alpen - as I said, I shared it initially. But comments on this board, & the generally enthusiastic reviews of the production in question, changed my mind in this case, & I'll try & make sure that I book for the full Ring when it's done.

On the size of house/orchestra pit, Longborough Festival Opera is putting on the Ring in a theatre that must be smaller than the original Glyndebourne. "After LFO’s acclaimed production of the reduced version prepared by Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove for the City of Birmingham Touring Opera company, Longborough is now producing a fully orchestrated version making use of Longborough’s excellent pit, modelled on that at Bayreuth, which accommodates 65 players" Clearly a reduced orchestration is being used, as Wagner specified rather more than 65 instruments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Rin...nstrumentation) whatever they say about it being a 'fully orchestrated version'. This year it's reached Siegfried, with what must be the youngest (looking) lead ever. http://www.lfo.org.uk/siegfried/

[LeMartinPecheur]

Have you seen any opera performances at the Minack Theatre, LMP, or are the companies too amateur for your taste? I suppose it's mostly G&S or other light opera.

aeolium: I live a long way from the Minack and sadly have never seen anything there. I've no idea whether they do any opera.

My only experiences of nearly-open-air music-drama in Cornwall have been Fiddler on the Roof and Sweeney Todd at Sterts Theatre, a big loose-footed tent on the edge of Bodmin Moor nr. Liskeard, just down the road from us. Not exactly polished, but well worth the dosh.

[Flosshilde]

Have you seen any opera performances at the Minack Theatre,

Now that would be a theatre for Tristan unde Isolde! Mind you, those concrete seats would be a bit hard for an hour + : ouch smiley:

[ostuni]

Yes, we're coming to see the St Endellion Walküre in Aug. Can't get to either of the church performances (a pity: although a squash, should be a wonderful atmosphere in there), so we're seeing in in Truro's Hall for Cornwall. Never been there - what's it like?

[Roslynmuse]

Opera North's last Wagnerian venture (Tannhauser in 1997) would have worked far, far better in concert form (and sung in German) than it did as a lamentable stageing.

I'd forgotten that one! A depressing evening in the theatre; lots of pink and silver (symbolism that must have taken all of five seconds to devise), and a quantity of inflatable women if I remember correctly. Ghastly.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'd forgotten that one! A depressing evening in the theatre; lots of pink and silver (symbolism that must have taken all of five seconds to devise), and a quantity of inflatable women if I remember correctly. Ghastly.

Musically, Opera North has much going for it, but its productions are variable, either through lack of imagination, or a desire for minimalist sets and costumes. Their Figaro, a few years ago had the characters hiding behind trees of hand-mirror size. Actually, that production was dodgy musically too, with a hideously amplified harpsichord in the recitatives. (Mind you, that was nothing like as bad as the electric piano in Puccini's "La Rondine".

But there have been some wonderful stagings - Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Peter Grimes spring to mind.

[Mandryka]

Musically, Opera North has much going for it, but its productions are variable, either through lack of imagination, or a desire for minimalist sets and costumes. Their Figaro, a few years ago had the characters hiding behind trees of hand-mirror size. Actually, that production was dodgy musically too, with a hideously amplified harpsichord in the recitatives. (Mind you, that was nothing like as bad as the electric piano in Puccini's "La Rondine".

But there have been some wonderful stagings - Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Peter Grimes spring to mind.

My main beef with Opera North is the number of non-British operas they insist on singing in English. To me, this smacks of defeatism and of having insufficient confidence in their audience.

[Cavaradossi]

My main beef with Opera North is the number of non-British operas they insist on singing in English. To me, this smacks of defeatism and of having insufficient confidence in their audience.

Not sure I would agree with that. Taking a look at the upcoming season.

Madama Butterfly sung in Italian
Ruddigore sung in English (of course)
The Queen of Spades sung in English**
Giulio Cesare sung in Italian
Norma sung in Italian
Die Walkure sung in German

So only one non-British opera out of six in total for the season will be sung in English, hardly "defeatism and of having insufficient confidence in their audience"

[amateur51]

But there have been some wonderful stagings - Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Peter Grimes spring to mind.

I greatly enjoyed their staging of Jonathan Dove's Pinocchio and Britten's Turn of the Screw with all its shadow work

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Let's not forget that Opera North was an off-shoot of English National Opera. The number of operas sung in their original languages has increased progressively since then.

But there are many of us who are more than happy for operas to be sung in the tongue of the audience, rather than the original, intended for a very different bunch of people.

[Flay]

But there are many of us who are more than happy for operas to be sung in the tongue of the audience, rather than the original, intended for a very different bunch of people.

Too right. I regretted having to spend so much time staring at a screen on Friday when I should have been concentrating on the performance. But hopefully next time I see it I will not need to.

Native tongue would be best for the first viewing.

[ostuni]

Native tongue would be best for the first viewing.

Or, for a first viewing, try to watch it on DVD, where the subtitles are right next to the singers in your field of view. Occasionally annoyingly obliterating the singers, though (some of the Rhinemaidens' cavorting in Barenboim's Rheingold Scene 1).

[JRussell]

I don't agree that ON's productions are more variable than any other opera company and the orchestral playing is always the best you can here in England. I can not recommend ON's Das Rheingold any highly this was my first live Wagner performace and the 2.5 hours flew by and the seats at the Sage Gateshead are a pleasure to sit on for 2.5 hours. ON's recent Tosca, Cosi Fan Tutte, Rusalka, Maria Stuarda, Pinoccio, Turn of the Screw, Carmen and From the House of the Dead are all still alive in my mind and all were of the consistant high standard I expect from ON.

[Roslynmuse]

I think the question of original language v audience's native tongue is an even more vexed one than concert v staged productions. Of course, the main advantage is comprehensibility (if one can understand the singers...); however, the pain of hearing familiar and glorious music with a dreadful/ mundane/ laughably portentous translation is as bad as seeing a woefully inadequate production (at least, I find it so). I couldn't listen to the ENO Parsifal broadcast for that reason. At a more philosphical level, the composer has set the libretto in a particular language and surely that has affected the way he has set it - a composer who knows his craft and what singers can and can't do (easily) certainly would have done so. Try it the other way round - Britten or Tippett (or Gilbert and Sullivan!) in German, for example - an interesting thought experiment. Despite this, however, I've enjoyed many other English language performances of French, German, Italian, Czech, Russian etc opera - my enjoyment increasing the less familiarity I have with the original language.