The Mask of Orpheus. ENO

[Master Jacques]

But in the case of The Mask of Orpheus, written mostly in English, it might be a viable option, and as I suggested, a duty, to preserve the performance?

Your point about needing to have something to show to people outside the London catchment area is well made: we seem to be light years behind France and Germany (for example) when it comes to free streaming of such important events to taxpayers, at least for a limited time. Having people paying to see them in cinemas would be better than nothing: and it might help (with repertory pieces) to counter this absurd modern fashion for pooh-poohing opera being sung in a language its audience can understand!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well - I managed to miss both previous Live performances of a work I regard as the finest (and by some considerable distance) opera/Music Theatre piece ever produced by a British composer, so I was damned if my eye problem was going to stop me from getting to this production. And there was a great deal revel and celebrate in it --- but I cannot get away from my feeling of disappointment.

OK - having seen filmed excerpts from the first production (broadcast on Channel 4) and several photographs, I have over the years built up an idealised image of what a production might achieve, and any divergence from that image (that "prejudice", even) was going to cause me difficulties - but that is equally true of many other opera productions I've seen that have completely transformed my ideas of what the work is about, and what it can be. What kept occurring to me was that the original production (and the semi-staged version that provided the material for the recording) used ideas about staging originating in the work of Artaud and Gordon, which clarified the heterophonic narrative - mime, singing/vocalisation, puppetry each complemented the various lines of narrative - using Theatrical practices entirely in keeping with how Birtwistle's Music developed from his own immediate predecessors, as if what happens on stage was conceived alongside the creation of the Music, movement and utterance emerging from the Music.

With the new production, I felt again and again that the production had been placed "on top" of the Music, responding to it - it was like a student answer to an Exam question "How would you present this scene?" (The costumes emphasised this "amateurish" aspect, too - provided with the help of a Grant from the Ministry of Silly Frocks.) Overladen with references (yes, I got the Clockwork Orange and Bride of Frankenstein references, and Live & Let Die, and two or three 1970s Doctor Whos, too). As a result, I felt again and again that the complexities of the narrative threads were futher obscured and complicated - which might have been the intention, but which I felt trivialised the work (I overheard a couple of people chatting in the intervals using the word "frivilous" - and this rich, powerful work should never be frivilous).

Even the Music performance was a smidgen under-par at times. The balance between Electronics and "acoustic" sounds gave the former relishable clarity, but made the
orchestral Musicians sound much more distant and "muffled" - though this might have something to do with the Coliseum acoustics (I was in the Upper Circle - and was appalled that a £60 ticket could not only offer so poor an acoustic result, but also that about a sixth of the stage was eclipsed by the head of the bloke in the seat in front). But Brabbyns' underpowered speed and understated drumming of the percussionists in the Act One First Ceremony was entirely an artistic/interpretive decision, surprising from a Musician of Brabbyns' calibre (a calibre better demonstrated at the start of Act Three - that's the way to do it! ... oh, different opera).

There was much to celebrate: Act Two was tremenodus - the multiple deaths of Eurydice as Orpheus looks back was breath-takingly powerfully done - and that ten-minute scream of despair couldn't have been done better. The singers were all excellent; the aerial acrobatics superb. But considering how, after Donnerstag at the Festival Hall back in March the adreneline sang around my veins for weeks afterwards, so fantastic was the total experience, things here seemed rather flat and "ordinary". And this astonishing work deserves so much, so very much better.

If only Le Balcon had been in charge.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It is a criminal shame that the production wasn't broadcast (and even more so that Donnerstag wasn't either), but I suspect/reckon/wouldn't be surprised if it were shown that at least part of a digit should be levelled at Universal Edition for their broadcasting fees*. Given the free advertising R3 gave to the Mask, it might have been hoped that some arrangement could have been reached enabling the work to reach a wider audience.

( - a lifetime of being stung by UE's excessive prices lies behind this entirely unsubstantiated claim.)


Incidentally, a little quiz

In the Coliseum Bookshop, which of the following titles is not on sale:

Stephen Fry Mythos; Colm Toibin House of Names; Jonathan Cross Birtwistle's "The Mask of Orpheus"?

[Joseph K]

In the Coliseum Bookshop, which of the following titles is not on sale:

Stephen Fry Mythos; Colm Toibin House of Names; Jonathan Cross Birtwistle's "The Mask of Orpheus"?

I overheard a conversation at the corner where books were being sold, and I heard reference about the last book you mention, saying it was very expensive etc. I think I saw Stephen Fry's book, so I'll say Toibin?

Thanks for the review, BTW. This was the second opera I've ever seen live (the first was Wozzeck in Wales) so I don't have much to compare it with... I too was in the upper circle. It was quite a spectacle, with some peculiar choices in the production etc. guitars on the wall, a setting which was like the room of an apartment. Many things that would make me think 'why?' then, 'well, why not?' I too wish this had been made a DVD of. I don't think it was frivolous, however.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I overheard a conversation at the corner where books were being sold, and I heard reference about the last book you mention, saying it was very expensive etc. I think I saw Stephen Fry's book, so I'll say Toibin?

Ach! They must have sold out of the Cross book by the time I got there! (It would have cost me a lot of money, but under those circumstances, I would have been prepared to fork out.) I'm a huge admirer of Colm Toibin's work (I really should go on a diet) but can buy his books anywhere - getting it from the Coliseum bookshop (they had several copies on sale) seemed a bit odd.

[Master Jacques]

Ach! They must have sold out of the Cross book by the time I got there! (It would have cost me a lot of money, but under those circumstances, I would have been prepared to fork out.) I'm a huge admirer of Colm Toibin's work (I really should go on a diet) but can buy his books anywhere - getting it from the Coliseum bookshop (they had several copies on sale) seemed a bit odd.

There's at least a claim on the sales page that you can read Jonathan Cross's book for free on Amazon Prime - but I can't quite work out how!

Thank you for your detailed and generous summary of the production. I must admit that, in my opinion, the original production was no great shakes either. It erred on the side of bleak, worthy monotony, and though it allowed everyone the leisure to get the score right (musically it was magnificently prepared and sung) the staging added little to the aural experience.

This time it sounds as if Daniel Kramer's gone to the opposite extreme, and decided to work theatrically in parallel to Birtwistle's music, rather than engage with it. I wonder what Old Harry thinks?

[Boilk]

I overheard a conversation at the corner where books were being sold, and I heard reference about the last book you mention, saying it was very expensive etc. I think I saw Stephen Fry's book, so I'll say Toibin?

At £6.00, I declined to purchase a programme. I'd have thought all the advertising within would have covered its printing costs, and then some!

On the Friday 25th performance (maybe others too?) I found it bizarre how long we were kept waiting for the curtain to go up on Act III, whilst they played the electronic wind/buzzing bees audio
segment which (to my ears) may have been repeated 2 or 3 times. Must have eaten up 4 minutes.

[Felix the Gnat]

At £6.00, I declined to purchase a programme. I'd have thought all the advertising within would have covered its printing costs, and then some!

On the Friday 25th performance (maybe others too?) I found it bizarre how long we were kept waiting for the curtain to go up on Act III, whilst they played the electronic wind/buzzing bees audio
segment which (to my ears) may have been repeated 2 or 3 times. Must have eaten up 4 minutes.

I didn't so much decline the programme, more I completely forgot.

Does anyone know if it contained the libretto? It doesn't come with the NMC CD set, so it would have been good to have if it did.

[Howdenite]

Does anyone know if it contained the libretto? It doesn't come with the NMC CD set, so it would have been good to have if it did.

No, the programme didn't contain a libretto, so you didn't miss that. I thought it was quite a good programme, though.

[Felix the Gnat]

No, the programme didn't contain a libretto, so you didn't miss that. I thought it was quite a good programme, though.

Thanks. Not sure why the libretto is so elusive.

[jayne lee wilson]

I didn't so much decline the programme, more I completely forgot.

Does anyone know if it contained the libretto? It doesn't come with the NMC CD set, so it would have been good to have if it did.

Sorry to hear that.... the CD issue I have (NMC D050, 1997, which I bought early 2000s) does have a very voluminous such book, complete with all the words, charts and diagrams....although the format doesn't make it terribly easy to follow (Cd size, stiffly bound, small print, it reads top to bottom like a calendar on your wall...).

It might be worth seeking out earlier 2ndhand sets, but caveat emptor and check with the seller...

[Felix the Gnat]

Sorry to hear that.... the CD issue I have (NMC D050, 1997, which I bought early 2000s) does have a very voluminous such book, complete with all the words, charts and diagrams....although the format doesn't make it terribly easy to follow (Cd size, stiffly bound, small print, it reads top to bottom like a calendar on your wall...).

It might be worth seeking out earlier 2ndhand sets, but caveat emptor and check with the seller...

That's the set that I have and the booklet is a nightmare to read (in the way you say). I'm looking at it now and it's ok for 'the first poem of reminiscence' (from page 18) but by 'the first ceremony' the layout is too complicated for me to follow (page 20). What I want is a straight forward libretto (it's almost as bad as the booklets that come with 'Licht', but not quite).

[jayne lee wilson]

That's the set that I have and the booklet is a nightmare to read (in the way you say). I'm looking at it now and it's ok for 'the first poem of reminiscence' (from page 18) but by 'the first ceremony' the layout is too complicated for me to follow (page 20). What I want is a straight forward libretto (it's almost as bad as the booklets that come with 'Licht', but not quite).

When I recorded the 1996 RFH performance off-air I asked the local library to get the large format "libretto" sent over from Manchester Library for me.... sure enough it came, IIRC complete with all (or at least some/many of) those diagrams and charts....but much more readable...

I photocopied it at the library..... All of it. Probably illegal and took quite a while (!), but that's enthusiasm for you....
I can't find it now.......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How deep are your pockets, Felix?

https://www.musicshopeurope.com/product/ue90017683/mask-of-orpheus-libretto.aspx

... which, IIRC, is a larger (and more conventionally laid-out) version of the NMC CD booklet. (There was a woman with a copy of the libretto at the performance I attended , so I caught an extended glimpse of it. Certainly easier to read ... but at that price, I can cope with the CD booklet.)

[Felix the Gnat]

How deep are your pockets, Felix?

https://www.musicshopeurope.com/product/ue90017683/mask-of-orpheus-libretto.aspx

... which, IIRC, is a larger (and more conventionally laid-out) version of the NMC CD booklet. (There was a woman with a copy of the libretto at the performance I attended , so I caught an extended glimpse of it. Certainly easier to read ... but at that price, I can cope with the CD booklet.)

I've got a bid in on eBay. 50p so far, eight others watching, ending in 5 minutes. Fingers crossed.