Two Boys

[Guest]

Anyone dig it?

I dug it. I went to the first one. Weren't a masterpiece or anything, but I reckon he'll come to that in time and blow us all away. The music here didn't blow me away as a whole, but the choral sections were awesome, most particularly 'cause of the linkage with what was happening on the stage (representations of the internet and the like being a babble of cybervoices). Felt very complete to me, the staging, music and story (and the surtitles too, they were important), like totally linked as one thing, one piece of expression. First opera I've seen that seemed to speak totally to people living today, day-to-day, in the now, pissing time away on the net and what that's like.

Following Mr. Muhly now on Twitter, but it ain't that interesting.

[Mr Pee]

pissing time away on the net

Is there really any need for that? What's wrong with "wasting time on the net"?

[vinteuil]

Mr Pee - do you not piss? isn't it a natural thing to do? and nothing to be ashamed of?

... or do you, (furtively) only 'pee' and hope that nanny hasn't noticed?

[amateur51]

Mr Pee - do you not piss? isn't it a natural thing to do? and nothing to be ashamed of?

... or do you, (furtively) only 'pee' and hope that nanny hasn't noticed?

Excellent stuff, vinteuil!!

[pilamenon]

Anyone dig it?

Yeah. The music especially. The chorus, as you say, and the staging, too. Both excellent. I was less impressed by the plot, but hey that's opera for you...

[Mr Pee]

Excellent stuff, vinteuil!!

"Pee" as in "P" for Phoebus. Nothing to do with bodily fluids. Perhaps it's time to assume a new identity.....

I just find Donnie Essen's use of the P word unnecessary and crass.

I like to think we have some standards here. Perhaps I have been mistaken.

[amateur51]

"Pee" as in "P" for Phoebus. Nothing to do with bodily fluids. Perhaps it's time to assume a new identity.....

But the initial letter of Phoebus is Ph

[kernelbogey]

I like to think we have some standards here. Perhaps I have been mistaken.

But Mr Pee, that's absolutely normal day to day language for a lot of us. 'Pissing time away on the net' has a precision and a connotation that 'wasting time' doesn't.

I'm always taken aback by old Donnie's style and then end up thinking 'good on him'. I expect he has a Harley and a ponytail and gets wasted on the weekends. Just my fantasy, though .

[Mr Pee]

But the initial letter of Phoebus is Ph

Mr. Ph??? Pronounced Fuh? Not much of a monicker, is it?

[amateur51]

Mr. Ph??? Pronounced Fuh? Not much of a monicker, is it?

Ooooh! Suits you, Sir

[pilamenon]

Anyone offended by the language in the opening message is strongly advised not to go to see Two Boys.

[Mr Pee]

Anyone offended by the language in the opening message is strongly advised not to go to see Two Boys.

Don'y worry, on my list of things to do, it's down at about number 534.

[Donnie Essen]

Yeah. The music especially. The chorus, as you say, and the staging, too. Both excellent. I was less impressed by the plot, but hey that's opera for you...

Yeah, funny thing about the plot was I found it far-fetched, truth being stranger than fiction n' all. I see there's a movie coming out soon about it too, called 'u want me 2 kill him?', and that'd be cool, I'd wanna see it, but it might have the trouble like in the Star Wars prequels where you can't aim for real suspense 'cause everyone knows the outcome already. Hopefully, there'll be some analysis of why it happened.

I see Nico Muhly was talking about the creation of masks and identities in an internet sense is just the same thing done always in opera, but just in a new-fangled way of doing it. Not sure he should play the internet angle down like that or reduce it. It's enough of a new phenomenon to make more of it, and it did for a bit, with the lead guy rhapsodizing about it being a real world in there.

All in all, I dug it. I'll look forward to Mr. Muhly's next operas, if any are gonna come. For the moment, I think I'll unfollow him on Twitter. He's boring me there. But Two Boys was a fine start. Not as fine as Lou Reed at the Apollo a couple nights ago. But fine enough.

[hackneyvi]

I had some quite strong anti-feelings on Friday night and about almost every aspect of it.

I thought the venue was wrong. The drama clashed with the mock Classical meringue of a venue. I really disliked the libretto and the music seemed unremarkable.

The worst aspects were the pace and choreography of the chorus. This was an opera about the internet, about speed of communication and yet it could not have been more dragged out. As so often in contemporary opera, the chorus walks across the stage as if they're depicting faulty automata on low power. Two Boys absolutely crawled forward in its predictable sequence. If operas had been written in the 1850's about horse-drawn computers, they'd have clipped along more briskly than this soggy lump.

The libretto interest or character; the vocal music rarely even caught my attention, let alone held it. None of the soliloquies had any feeling and none of the dialogues any genuine spark. None of the figures had character and some of the sequences were lamentably perfunctory; the early scene between the Police Inspector and her mother is an exemplar, having less power and complexity than a similar one might have in an Australian lunchtime soap.

There was one - ONE! - moment when the potential of the subject was exposed; the young man is in custody and the internet chorus - behind him in acrowd on the stage, each holding a lap top, and tiered on either side of him - begins to mouth its views on him; profuse, explicit, vast in number and entirely ignorant of the facts, they spit their stupid hate at him.

The chorus could have given the opera its life, with constant comment but what it's given for the rest of the show are snail's pace stage motions and stale speechbubbles.

Last but not least, in an opera about the corruption of youth by the internet, the chorus are geriatric in their motion and all played by middle-aged, portly men and women representing the life of the chatroom! Who failed to think that one through?

Not least because it was boring, but not only for that reason, I found this a bit of a disaster.

[ardcarp]

...so you didn't like it much then?