Ariadne auf Glyndebourne

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm going on Sunday. Mixed reviews: - LPO/Jurowski superb, singers middling, production annoying - that seems to be the consensus...

Anyone been yet?

Oh well... forecast's not too bad, and it won't be the first time I've shut my eyes and tried hard not to let the producer or the singers get in the way of a pleasurable musical experience....

[Belgrove]

There's always the picnic to enjoy Caliban...

It is being streamed from 6.55pm on 4th June from the Glyndebourne

http://glyndebourne.com/production/ariadne-auf-naxos

and Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/may/13/glyndebourne-guardian-2013-season

websites.

I'm seeing it in July, so will refrain from taking a peek.

[Richard Tarleton]

I have on my wall a print of Osbert Lancaster's lovely 1960 ink-and-watercolour of Glyndebourne during the interval - people strolling about, a picnic or two, an elderly couple peering at a couple of brown cows in the lower right hand corner, a croquet game in progress, a couple of gardeners looking on....I'll think of you, Caliban

[Nick Armstrong]

I have on my wall a print of Osbert Lancaster's lovely 1960 ink-and-watercolour of Glyndebourne during the interval - people strolling about, a picnic or two, an elderly couple peering at a couple of brown cows in the lower right hand corner, a croquet game in progress, a couple of gardeners looking on....I'll think of you, Caliban

Thanks yes, there will be pleasure to be had (assuming we don't get snow or hail ), but I'm bracing myself for disappointment once inside (more likely to be pleasantly surprised that way!)

[Bax-of-Delights]

I too have tickets for Ariadne, Caliban, but not until July 5th. I shall be interested to read your review as, like you, I'm a bit worried about the "updating" that the mittel-European director has layered on to the opera. I've read the mainstream reviews too and they are all pretty damning with faint praise.

I remember with great affection a previous Ariadne at the old Glyndebourne theatre (1981 I think) which worked perfectly in the period it was actually set.

Also down to see the Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie in August which is new ground for me but hopefully there will plenty of dancing, spectacle, fancies and furbelows. (I've read the synopsis twice already and can't make head nor tail of it. )

[Nick Armstrong]

Also down to see the Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie in August which is new ground for me but hopefully there will plenty of dancing, spectacle, fancies and furbelows. (I've read the synopsis twice already and can't make head nor tail of it. )

That's the other one I'm going to, too! Also in August...

The four reviews quoted on the Glyndebourne site for Ariadne are pretty positive... needless to say they don't include the ones I think we are talking about. The Daily Mail loved it, apparently

"It is a bold rearrangement of Hofmannsthal's own concept of the work" says one of their quoted reviews... There's the rub. As Strauss's conception was presumably in accord with Hoffmannsthal's, is a 'rearrangement' legitimate or necessary? Were they not good enough in their "conceptions"? Oh well, that's "The Opera" for you. We shall see if it works or not...

At least we seem to have struck lucky with the weather for Sunday

[Richard Tarleton]

Found my Osbert Lancaster on the internet - seems it was the cover to the 1960 programme.....

[Bax-of-Delights]

That's the other one I'm going to, too! Also in August...

August 1st is our date for Rameau

We used to drag along all the table and chair picnic paraphanalia each year until one year it absolutely bucketed down and we ended up tucked under one of the balcony canopies. Now Mrs B-o-D requires comfort (and warmth) in one of the restaurants. We do take a turn around the lake with a bottle of bolly if the weather is clement before curtain up.

[doversoul1]

Hippolyte et Aricie

Thank you for the pointer, BoD and Caliban. This looks great.

http://glyndebourne.com/production/hippolyte-et-aricie

Live broadcast to cinemas and online on 25 July 2013

[Bax-of-Delights]

At least we seem to have struck lucky with the weather for Sunday

Well, Caliban, in this neck of the woods - a bit further down the South Downs Way from Glyndebourne - the day has dawned and blossomed into one of those rather rare and beautiful summer days which is hard to describe other than English.
Do have a lovely time.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, Caliban, in this neck of the woods - a bit further down the South Downs Way from Glyndebourne - the day has dawned and blossomed into one of those rather rare and beautiful summer days which is hard to describe other than English.
Do have a lovely time.

Now officially excited

Thank you!

[Nick Armstrong]

Do have a lovely time.

Well, we certainly did, Baxo! Super weather, as anticipated - we got there about 2.30 and set up in the corner of the main lawn just by the ha-ha So picnickers and the house in front of us, the sound of lambs and birds behind The sun was hot and UV unguents had to be applied... adjourning back to the table during the interval, and then afterwards for dessert was more comfortable (thanks to the 4.35 kick-off, it finished about 8.30 so it was still light - great).

Oh yes! the opera... ! Well - musically, entrancing. Both the piece itself (packed full of musical felicities, to my ears) and the performance - above all by the orchestra. The friends who had organised the trip had brilliantly got seats in row 2 of the stalls, right of centre - so just above the woodwind players of the LPO, and - looking slightly left - a fantastic view of Vladimir Jurowski at work. Sheer joy. Hearing the bassoons and clarinets (2 of each) excelling themselves just a few metres away, with David Pyatt and his colleague just behind them delivering horn perfection... well, that was the main pleasure for me.

Singing good - especially the Composer, I thought - very moving performance (although someone I spoke to sitting at the top of the auditorium said her voice didn't carry) and the tenor playing Bacchus... Isokowski was ok but not knockout (that may just be me - I could never understand why her 'Four Last Songs' recording was praised to the skies)... and not really right dramatically (not least as she looks just like Imelda Staunton).

And the production? Well the first half, the 'Prologue', works fine - clear staging of what Strauss and Hofmannsthal wrote.

Then out of nowhere (well, out of the director's head) came rather lame back-projected aeroplane silhouettes and a slightly underwhelming 'bomb' explosion (some flames licking up a pillar back right, plus smoke) - and into the bin went the scenario...

The entertainment is cancelled after the bombing, the house has been converted into a temporary hospital ward, and the Prima Donna is in one of the hospital beds that fill the set - the three attendants are nurses... The 'commedia dell'arte' singers (an "ENSA" concert party) are still around and try and cheer the patients up... Zerbinetta tries to talk 'Ariadne' out of her shell-shock... but when she starts all her coloratura antics, she is put in a strait-jacket by the nurses, having been groped by one of the "ENSA" party (frankly all a bit tacky)... Then the nurses get all excited because they are about to be visited by Squadron Leader Bacchus (much business with tabloid newspapers). He comes in (patient, or celebrity visitor? it wasn't clear to me - ditto why he kept singing about 'Circe' - a former conquest, perhaps?) and he manages to talk 'Ariadne' out of her 'illness' and in the ultimate operatic case of

Nurse! the screens!

they get passionate in front of the final 'canopy' made by lining up the white screens and raising them slightly...

Oh well

I just revelled in the orchestral sounds and watching how Jurowski piloted the show, and let the 'business' on stage play out on the peripherary of my vision...

It didn't spoil a great day!

[Bax-of-Delights]

Thanks for the report Caliban. We were entertaining friends in the back garden here at Bax Towers and I thought of you around mid-afternoon wondering if the weather was holding up the other side of the Downs.

In my experience Glyndebourne has rarely put a foot wrong in terms of production and I rate their Pelleas and Melisande and Janacek's Makropolous Affair among the very best in any opera house I've visited. I will reserve judgement on this Ariadne until I've seen it myself but it sounds from your - and other - reports a bit of a mare's nest. The "joke" of the second act is the two very different groups, high and low art, trying to perform on the one stage simulataneously. An opera within an opera. It would appear that this has been completely abandoned in favour of a continuing narrative running from Prologue to Final Curtain.


I wonder if Gus Christie tinkered with the idea of having some fireworks going off in the garden as the patrons made their way back to the car park? Now, that would be a neat...

[Bax-of-Delights]

Just remembered:

You can watch Ariadne TONIGHT and for free here:

http://glyndebourne.com/

click on "Learn More" and you'll be connected

[Nick Armstrong]

I rate their Pelleas and Melisande

I went to that one too - magnificent wasn't it - that staircase...

It was kind of you to spare a thought!

And thanks for the reminder about the streamed version