Innocence - ROH

[Dave2002]

I wonder if it will generate enough interest to gain replays in cinemas. I can't attend in London, but I could go to cinema showings - if they ever happen.

The very short teaser trailer video is so short as to be next to useless regarding deciding whether to go, or not!

[Beresford]

This production can be seen in full (I think) on YouTube, with French subtitles.
I skimmed through it a few days ago. I was interested in the music. Not sure about the plot, which wasn't quite as grim as a MacMillan opera.

[Master Jacques]

This production can be seen in full (I think) on YouTube, with French subtitles.
I skimmed through it a few days ago. I was interested in the music. Not sure about the plot, which wasn't quite as grim as a MacMillan opera.

In the same category as a Martin Crimp libretto for 'Baby George' Benjamin, perhaps.

[Serial_Apologist]

This production can be seen in full (I think) on YouTube, with French subtitles.
I skimmed through it a few days ago. I was interested in the music. Not sure about the plot, which wasn't quite as grim as a MacMillan opera.

In addition, there was an item on Saariaho on last Sunday's The Listening Service - link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000drdl

[Master Jacques]

Not to be outdone by the moral questionings of Innocence, across town ENO are putting on Blue, "A touching tale of a family broken by violence and how we can process grief". As this opens tomorrow, it would be perfectly possible to come down to London for a two-day jolly, and take in both!

[Master Jacques]

Having tonight watched the Aix premiere of Innocence in its entirety on YouTube - in superb sound and video - to supplement my reading of the libretto and hearing of extracts from the score, I will stick by my decision not to pay to see the opera at Covent Garden. Once is enough.

Without going into reviewing detail, my headline would be that this is an exploitative, pretentious and above all frivolous piece, exactly the kind of work Brecht would have condemned as "culinary opera". That is, it takes easy moral positions, dresses them up with paradoxical, clever "plot twists", and treats opera as a medium for lavish theatrical spectacle (it's a superlative production!) rather than drama through music. Though I was gripped by the production, the opera neither moved me, nor made me think.

"Exploitative"? How else describe something which pulls at our heart strings with a two-hour parade of dead and damaged children? "Pretentious", in its disguise of a banal and sadly implausible script by having it declaimed and/or sung in a random mixture of many languages. There's no sense to the division between Finnish, English and the rest, but we're made to feel that the whole charade is somehow "intriguing", and that there must be a key to this polyglot, universalising ploy. Its "frivolity" lies in the huge expense of engaging a massive cast and orchestra, not to mention the hi-tech revolving set, to create a great financial mountain which delivers a dramatic mouse.

As for the music, I could not agree more with David Nice's characterisation of its seductive charms and ear-catching timbres as "incidental". The score ambles along inoffensively, but doesn't drive the narrative, and signally fails to rise to the presumably climactic confrontations of Act 2. I was reminded a great deal of Aulis Sallinen: like her great compatriot, Saariaho has a fine sense of orchestral colour. Unlike him, she has little gift for writing drama per musica.

The singers? So many good performers, pulling so many faces, but with so little memorable material to actually sing. The speaking actors had the best of it. It's significant that none of the international singers on view really seemed to have anything much to do beyond conventional operatic vocal gestures.

There was one major exception, for me: the Finnish folk material given to the non-operatic singer who plays Marketa, the waitress's dead daughter, suddenly made me sit up and pay attention, in a way which nothing else did. I was held, and - for a few seconds - deeply moved. That is the root of the problem: apart from that rich and strange music, nothing moved me. Nothing challenged me. I know that serial killing is a bad thing. I know that society may sometimes be partly to blame. I know that the sins of the children are sometimes visited on the fathers, rather than the other way round. I don't feel guilty about it. So there is nothing remotely shocking or challenging here, but much that's conventional, easy on the ear and .... well, culinary.

[Belgrove]

To be broadcast tonight at 6.30pm.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lzf1

[RichardB]

my headline would be that this is an exploitative, pretentious and above all frivolous piece, exactly the kind of work Brecht would have condemned as "culinary opera". That is, it takes easy moral positions, dresses them up with paradoxical, clever "plot twists", and treats opera as a medium for lavish theatrical spectacle

I will watch it some time because there's always something interesting to be heard in Kaija's work, even though I've always found its expressive and timbral range rather limited (although beautifully realised within those limitations). But this is the whole problem with what composers do in opera houses, since the 1970s at least. I don't think there's any way that a new work written for the resources of an opera house can be anything but decorative in Brecht's sense. There are too many conservative vested interests involved. It can only be challenging and thought-provoking within a certain allowed range, as in Chomsky's oft-quoted "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." Boulez had the right idea about opera houses in 1967, although he backtracked from it almost immediately afterwards.

[Master Jacques]

I will watch it some time because there's always something interesting to be heard in Kaija's work, even though I've always found its expressive and timbral range rather limited (although beautifully realised within those limitations). But this is the whole problem with what composers do in opera houses, since the 1970s at least. I don't think there's any way that a new work written for the resources of an opera house can be anything but decorative in Brecht's sense. There are too many conservative vested interests involved. It can only be challenging and thought-provoking within a certain allowed range, as in Chomsky's oft-quoted "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." Boulez had the right idea about opera houses in 1967, although he backtracked from it almost immediately afterwards.

Boulez did have the right idea. The major "houses" have sucked the blood out of opera, by increasingly focusing their diminishing funds on administrative and staggering production costs. This model ensures that composers only get one or two shots at the target, making them terrified of failure - which always happens, as a consequence of the "safety first" approach (Chomsky's limited spectrum of debate) which they have to adopt, with everything nailed down months or even years in advance. There's no incentive for them to write, revise, and then write something new (rinse and repeat) which is the only way for music dramatists to learn from their failures and improve their mastery. It's as if a one-shot Shakespeare had only been allowed to write Titus Andronicus.

The result, is that the great majority of so-called "modern operas" are hopelessly stuck in 19th century dramaturgies which have little to do with living theatre, and nothing at all to do with the 21st century - however acceptably 'culinary' their subject matter. That's why we get an Adès Tempest, a Written on Skin or an Innocence, all hailed as masterpieces by many of the critics (complicit in the illusion) and then promptly forgotten within a few years.

[ahinton]

Very pertinent points from RichardB and Master Jacques, sad as is their undeniable veracity. A long time ago I answered what I felt to be a somewhat silly question about particular ambitions as a composer but answered it promptly with "never to write for the stage"; I'm not for one moment seeking to credit myself with any prescience at that early stage but I have to say that nothing has changed since...

[Master Jacques]

Very pertinent points from RichardB and Master Jacques, sad as is their undeniable veracity. A long time ago I answered what I felt to be a somewhat silly question about particular ambitions as a composer but answered it promptly with "never to write for the stage"; I'm not for one moment seeking to credit myself with any prescience at that early stage but I have to say that nothing has changed since...

"Never to write for the stage": it is sad, but true, that so many promising composers now take that vow. In truth, the operatic scene can only improve when composers and writers take it upon themselves to work together, to make music theatre in the way they wish to, rather than the impossible way dictated by the prestigious "houses". The lack of specialist theatre writers devoting themselves wholly to "libretto" work (now seen as a star turn, or even a lark!) is part of the reason for opera's current decline. It won't last forever - there will always be music theatre!

[RichardB]

The result, is that the great majority of so-called "modern operas" are hopelessly stuck in 19th century dramaturgies which have little to do with living theatre, and nothing at all to do with the 21st century - however acceptably 'culinary' their subject matter. That's why we get an Adès Tempest, a Written on Skin or an Innocence, all hailed as masterpieces by many of the critics (complicit in the illusion) and then promptly forgotten within a few years.

Indeed. There was a time when theatre and opera were evolving an innovating alongside one another, but, while theatre still does evolve, opera (that is to say, works that require the resources of an opera house) is hobbled by all kinds of irrelevant conventions. As you go on to say, there will always be music theatre, but it seems to me that the opera house as such is hopelessly hypertrophied in relation to what a 21st century music/drama hybrid might consist of.

[edashtav]

Indeed. There was a time when theatre and opera were evolving an innovating alongside one another, but, while theatre still does evolve, opera (that is to say, works that require the resources of an opera house) is hobbled by all kinds of irrelevant conventions. As you go on to say, there will always be music theatre, but it seems to me that the opera house as such is hopelessly hypertrophied in relation to what a 21st century music/drama hybrid might consist of.

Splendid, RichardB.
‘hypertrophied’ : such a well-chosen and graphic word.

[Master Jacques]

As you go on to say, there will always be music theatre, but it seems to me that the opera house as such is hopelessly hypertrophied in relation to what a 21st century music/drama hybrid might consist of.

Coincidentally, yesterday I had a friendly debate with a contributor (academic) to a book I'm currently editing, over the semantic perils of 'hybrid'. He had contrasted 'hybrid' music theatre forms against 'pure' forms, which made 'hybrid' sound like a rough mongrel pup, not quite respectable. I argued that 'pure' forms don't exist: as another of my contributors (a performer) had put it, no theatre that ever was, is, or shall be doesn't involve music at some level or other. So 'hybrid' was OK for me, if we're talking about combining forms to make something distinct from either - like cultivating a beautiful tea rose from a spiny hedge rose and a rough climber. (As I'm the editor, I won!)

[ahinton]

Whilst I am wary of making observations about fellow composers, it does occur to me - notwithstanding my earlier responses - to question whether the respective fates of The Tempest, Written on Skin or Innocence look likely to be "promptly forgotten within a few years" (or either "promptly" or "within a few years" - take your pick)...