Po3 Fri: Rheingold from Leeds

[Mandryka]

Opera North has put on some stunning concert performances in recent years - Tristan in 2001 was totally gripping from beginning to end; Bluebeard's Castle (admittedly easier to put on when you have John Tomlinson looking magnificent on a large throne) in 2005; Elektra in 2009 - all wonderful. The BBC Phil mounted a concert performance of Salome that was mostly perfectly convincing (apart from the Dance of the Seven Veils, where only conductor - Noseda - and orchestra were on the platform, and the very end when a grotesque papier-mache head appeared on the Bridgewater Hall choir seats); the Halle's Gotterdammerung two years ago was unforgettable, and they are following it up in two weeks time with Die Walkure. Another BBC Phil/ B'water Hall opera earlier this year - Otello - was the only concert performance disappointment I've experienced, despite a great Iago (Lado Ataneli) - the Otello and Desdemona didn't have the physical presence to carry the narrative without staging or props. But for everything else my imagination has been free to paint the pictures where staged productions often leave me cold - if I can see some weakness on the stage it's a far greater distraction than making the mental leap from concert dress to my ideal Wagner or whatever.

I suppose it's like radio being superior to television and all that!

Totally agree. In fact, I'd say I've seen most of my favourite operas better served by concert performanceas than by actual productions.

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.

[Richard Tarleton]

Totally agree. In fact, I'd say I've seen most of my favourite operas better served by concert performanceas than by actual productions.

Dare I say this applies to Wagner more than others, in an age when Wagner productions strive to be controversial and end up merely being annoying. The recent ROH Tristan might as well have been a concert performance. Three of my best ever Wagner nights were in the Royal Festival Hall - a Tannhauser and a Meistersinger (both Zurich Opera) and and an ROH concert performance of Parsifal when the opera house was closed for renovations. These days I'd rather have Wagner's stage directions in my head.

[Mandryka]

I'd agree that not many current directors can be trusted with Wagner (though I'd have liked to have seen Richard Jones's notorious Ring cycle from the mid-nineties: Jones may be iconoclastic, but - ime - he's always intelligent), as so many of them seem intent on working against the music and debunking his themes.

I didn't bother with the last ROH Tristan, after seeing what the director (Christof Loy) did - or, rather, didn't do - with Berg's Lulu, in the same timeframe.

Btw, this thread has encouraged me to just make a booking for the final night of Rheingold at the Lowry. :)

[aeolium]

Dare I say this applies to Wagner more than others, in an age when Wagner productions strive to be controversial and end up merely being annoying.

No, I think it applies just as much to operas by Handel and Mozart, where there is just as much scope for annoying and gimmicky productions (speaking as someone who has recently endured two awful WNO productions of Die Entführung and Cosi fan Tutte). In fact the best performance of Cosi that I ever remember seeing was a concert performance in London with Haitink and the LPO - it was simply superb musically.

As someone who has been 'tainted with experience', in Drummond's words, by too many horribly anachronistic opera productions, I'd be more than happy going to concert performances of the operas I most admire.

[Bert Coules]

Yes, I agree with a lot of what's been said. An imaginatively semi-staged concert performance can be far more involving than many a fully-staged farrago. I recall a Fidelio at the Proms with Anja Silja which was the most gripping and theatrical performance of the work I'd ever seen, and the Covent Garden Prom Walküre from a few years back worked a great deal better than in the opera house. The latest ENO Ring too was - for me - infinitely more successful in its "try-out" semi-staging with minimal lighting, sets and costumes. I rather regretted it when the full version was unveiled.

Of course a badly (or non-) staged concert performance of an opera - singers in evening dress neatly lined up in a row behind music stands and barely registering each other - that can be deadly.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'd agree that not many current directors can be trusted with Wagner (though I'd have liked to have seen Richard Jones's notorious Ring cycle from the mid-nineties: Jones may be iconoclastic, but - ime - he's always intelligent), as so many of them seem intent on working against the music and debunking his themes.

I went to this twice - to the individual operas as they were rolled out, and to the last of the three cycles. I went because few enough opportunities for Rings come up in a lifetime unless you have an unlimited budget, and because of the luxury casting - all the greatest Wagner singers of the day. Richard Jones must have, I imagine, set out to debunk. Poor Bernard Haitink just had to put up with it. Nothing intelligent about it, just smart alec gimmicks throughout. It wasn't clever. The more recent ROH Ring was a vast improvement, let down by a feeble Siegfried.

My best semi-staged was a Boris by the Kirov/Gergiev, original version, orchestra and chorus all on stage at Drury Lane. Superb.

[Flay]

Btw, this thread has encouraged me to just make a booking for the final night of Rheingold at the Lowry. :)

I do not think you'll be disappointed, Mandryka. This was my first taste of live Wagner: it was a fantastic occasion, emotionally moving.

However over 2½ hours sitting unmoving is a torment. Could there not possibly be a little break, if only to clear the airways and refresh the thirst? The poor lady near me with the paroxysmal cough would have welcomed this too, I'm sure. I'm so glad that I did not take Mrs Flay. It was indeed very hot. Hitchcock said: "Always make the audience suffer as much as possible." Must it always be thus with Wagner?

[ostuni]

Must it always be thus with Wagner?

Well, Rheingold is an exception: the trouble is, the 4 scenes run into each other without a break in the music, so you couldn't programme an interval. All (?) Wagner's other operas are longer overall, but are divided into Acts - even the longest of these (Meistersinger, Act III) is 'only' around 2 hours.

Maybe I was lucky: Symphony Hall's seats are comfy, and the evening wasn't hot: the 2½ hours sped by! I was initially worried about my bladder (500ml of Pedigree with my pre-concert burger at the excellent Handmade Burger Co was potentially unwise), but the music (and the performances) swept me along... (TMI?!)

[Mandryka]

I went to this twice - to the individual operas as they were rolled out, and to the last of the three cycles. I went because few enough opportunities for Rings come up in a lifetime unless you have an unlimited budget, and because of the luxury casting - all the greatest Wagner singers of the day. Richard Jones must have, I imagine, set out to debunk. Poor Bernard Haitink just had to put up with it. Nothing intelligent about it, just smart alec gimmicks throughout. It wasn't clever. The more recent ROH Ring was a vast improvement, let down by a feeble Siegfried.

My best semi-staged was a Boris by the Kirov/Gergiev, original version, orchestra and chorus all on stage at Drury Lane. Superb.

I thought the Warner/Pappano Ring was very much 'half-finished'. John Treleaven was certainly a 'make-do' (at best) Siegfried and the whole thing only worked in fits and starts (that said, I thought the end of Gotterdammerung Act 2 really 'caught fire', so to speak).

It was, of course, further compromised by Terfel's abrupt walk-out and the subsitution of the past-it Tomlinson.

[aeolium]

Coming up in the autumn at Birmingham Symphony Hall is this semi-staged production of Bluebeard's Castle with 'video installation'. That could also work, and will also have the advantage of the wonderful acoustics of Symphony Hall.

I am slightly surprised that there have not been more attempts at producing film versions of opera, i.e. not merely DVD productions of staged events but films in their own right, such as Losey's famous version of Don Giovanni. This could also apply to new operas, specifically conceived for film as well as stage. There is Britten's Owen Wingrave which was commissioned by the BBC for TV but there don't seem to be many examples of opera-films.

[Mandryka]

Well, Rheingold is an exception: the trouble is, the 4 scenes run into each other without a break in the music, so you couldn't programme an interval. All (?) Wagner's other operas are longer overall, but are divided into Acts - even the longest of these (Meistersinger, Act III) is 'only' around 2 hours.

Maybe I was lucky: Symphony Hall's seats are comfy, and the evening wasn't hot: the 2½ hours sped by! I was initially worried about my bladder (500ml of Pedigree with my pre-concert burger at the excellent Handmade Burger Co was potentially unwise), but the music (and the performances) swept me along... (TMI?!)

In my time, I have stood for whole performances of Meistersinger and the Ring (though, admittedly, it was all some time ago), so I don't anticipate that many problems sitting for an entire Rheingold. :)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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.

Lamentable staging? I didn't think so, though I acknowledge that it wasn't awarded many accolades.
An opera is meant to be staged. Would you go to a Shakespeare play where the performers stood in a line at the front of the stage and simply read out the words?

[JimD]

I don't think the parallel works, both because of the importance of the music in opera, and because its structure and rhythms tend to govern the physical action. The singers' movement last night was quite stylized, and put me in mind of the kind of stylization usually employed to good effect in productions of Britten's Curlew River. That of course was based on Noh plays.

[Mandryka]

Lamentable staging? I didn't think so, though I acknowledge that it wasn't awarded many accolades.
An opera is meant to be staged. Would you go to a Shakespeare play where the performers stood in a line at the front of the stage and simply read out the words?

An interesting point: I long ago stopped going to Shakespeare productions, partly because they fall victim to far too many directors' gimmicks, but mainly because so many of today's actors know not the first thing about verse-speaking. I actually find it physically painful to listen to the text being mangled.....so, I'd be happy to attend a 'concert performance' of a Shakespeare play I liked if good verse-speaking could be guaranteed.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Nice to see so many enthusiasts for semi-staged opera here - you should all move to Cornwall where St Endellion Summer Festival does it superbly.

Since 2002 I've caught Walton Troilus & Cressida, Offenbach Tales of Hoffmann, Tippett Midsummer Marriage, Britten Peter Grimes and Death in Venice, and Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin.

This year it's Walkure AND I'M MISSING IT