ENO announce new Ring

[Bert Coules]

Starting with The Valkyrie, ENO are launching a new Ring this autumn, a co-production with the NY Metropolitan Opera (who are evidently ditching their controversial current staging). And ENO are dumping the ugly and awkward Jeremy Sams English text from their last effort in favour of a completely new one from musicologist and Wagner scholar John Deathridge. He's written and published a non-singing translation which is notable for deliberately avoiding any equivalent of Wagner's exuberantly archaic language. According to one critic, Deathridge's

...plainspoken approach imbues the text with a cool, abstract modernity, imprinting the characterisation more boldly and cleanly than the ornate blackletter of Wagner's original style.

The director is to be Richard Jones, and the conductor Martyn Brabbins. It will be good to see a new Ring at the Coli and, let's hope, have a R3 relay, both of the individual nights and the eventual cycle.

More details at: https://tinyurl.com/srbnnp7k

[Katzelmacher]

Don’t like Wagner in English, but Jones may be a draw for me.

[Bert Coules]

I prefer opera in English, with the essential provisos that the text has to be good, the singers have to have the skill and determination to get it across, and the audience in turn has to be willing actually to listen and not just sit back and let the supertitles do the work for them. But for audibility and comprehensibility the Coliseum isn't an ideal venue, even (or possibly especially) for large-scale pieces: it's a real barn of a place. I'd like to see the company experiment with amplifying the voices.

I didn't see Jones' Covent Garden Ring but the reviews I've read haven't been too enthusiastic. The Guardian's reference to his "taking refuge in ironic slapstick" isn't exactly encouraging.

[Keraulophone]

Don’t like Wagner in English

Same here. I have tried, but walked out of Goodall’s slo-motion Parsifal when some of the scenery started falling down. It was the final straw. Having to listen to the sound of Andrew Porter’s English words without being able to hear them, necessitiating surtitles, seems the worst arrangement.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Same here. I have tried, but walked out of Goodall’s slo-motion Parsifal when some of the scenery started falling down. It was the final straw. Having to listen to the sound of Andrew Porter’s English words without being able to hear them, necessitiating surtitles, seems the worst arrangement.

I think ENO now surtitle in English - good thing given some singer’s diction. Even the great Alberto Remedios , who had v. good diction had a tendency to sing “Notung Sword of my knee” (rather than need) in the Porter translation.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Don’t like Wagner in English, but Jones may be a draw for me.

Would you watch Peer Gynt in Norwegian?

[vinteuil]

Would you watch Peer Gynt in Norwegian?

... rather than Danish?


.

[Bert Coules]

Deathridge's non-singing, non-archaic translation has some striking moments (at least it does in scene one of The Rhinegold, which is as far as I've got). Wellgunde describing Alberich as a "horny freak" did rather leap from the page.

[kernelbogey]

There's been some discussion of this new ENO production on this thread (originally about the recent R3 broadcast of ROH performances)

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?22804-Four-consecutive-nights-for-The-Ring-on-R3/page3

starting at post no 24, but I think that thread ranges wider, so I don't think it's worth merging them.

[Bert Coules]

Apologies. I searched for a dedicated thread, didn't find one, and started this. But perhaps it's not too bad a thing to have a specific area for chatting about this?

[kernelbogey]

Apologies. I searched for a dedicated thread, didn't find one, and started this. But perhaps it's not too bad a thing to have a specific area for chatting about this?

No need for apology - it's excellent to have one just on the ENO Ring - IMVHO.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... rather than Danish?


.

I had no idea...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Apologies. I searched for a dedicated thread, didn't find one, and started this. But perhaps it's not too bad a thing to have a specific area for chatting about this?

Good idea to start it - a vote of faith in the future and the opportunity to dredge up happy memories ....also there aren’t many Wagner threads which given his cultural importance is surprising.

[gurnemanz]

I had no idea...

Neither had I until I got the Grieg complete orchestral music box from BIS a few years ago. I had never seen Ibsen's play and like many people, I suspect, I mainly knew Peer Gynt in terms of the orchestral suites. On these discs there is a concert version over two CDs incorporating all the music Grieg wrote. It's a fine recording with Bergen Philharmonic under Ole Kristian Ruud. Text and translation are included and I was able to really get to know Peer Gynt for the first time. I'm sure the experience would not have been so vivid and idiomatic if it been in English.

On topic: For me if you do opera translated into English you lose a vital element. English vowels are much more diphthongised, which makes for a quite different sound experience. It is the pure vowels of Italian that make it so singable. Also, you're not hearing what the composer wrote and in Wagner's case he wrote the whole lot. I did see the ENO's English language Parsifal in 1999 and enjoyed it - opportunities to attend this supreme work do not come along so often. Prior to that I had only been to two concert performances.

I shall probably not feel the need to attend the new ENO Ring, especially having been to the 2018 ROH cycle.

[Katzelmacher]

Neither had I until I got the Grieg complete orchestral music box from BIS a few years ago. I had never seen Ibsen's play and like many people, I suspect, I mainly knew Peer Gynt in terms of the orchestral suites. On these discs there is a concert version over two CDs incorporating all the music Grieg wrote. It's a fine recording with Bergen Philharmonic under Ole Kristian Ruud. Text and translation are included and I was able to really get to know Peer Gynt for the first time. I'm sure the experience would not have been so vivid and idiomatic if it been in English.

On topic: For me if you do opera translated into English you lose a vital element. English vowels are much more diphthongised, which makes for a quite different sound experience. It is the pure vowels of Italian that make it so singable. Also, you're not hearing what the composer wrote and in Wagner's case he wrote the whole lot. I did see the ENO's English language Parsifal in 1999 and enjoyed it - opportunities to attend this supreme work do not come along so often. Prior to that I had only been to two concert performances.

I shall probably not feel the need to attend the new ENO Ring, especially having been to the 2018 ROH cycle.

I saw that Parsifal (Nikolaus Lehnhoff, I believe). The text was incomprehensible, as it usually is at ENO, but I swear ‘Vergeh, unseliges Weib!’was translated as ‘Clear off, you ****ing bitch!’