What about Opera North's production last night? I've never seen it live, though Tony Palmer film is on YouTube in its entirety - I watched it last week. Certainly beautiful to look at - and I thought Robert Gard very good. What about Alan Oke's performance last night?
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It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. -
I've seen Death in Venice live several times. The Palmer film is a bit sad, because it was meant to be Pears and he had a stroke just as they were about to go ahead. Robert Gard looks a bit like Pears, at least when dressed as Aschenbach, but his voice just doesn't have the character. In the latest DVD issue, Tony Palmer has managed to work in a clip of Pears that was filmed just before he had the stroke.
At first last night I thought Alan Oke (who used to be a baritone, after all) was struggling a bit with some of the notes. He could sing them, but it sounded effortful and unnatural - a bit careful. I wondered how familiar he was with that kind of recitative that came so naturally to Pears. (The score has tail-less notes, pitches indicated but not rhythms.) However, by the second act I was convinced by him - he's clearly very strong dramatically.
I thought Peter Savidge excellent as all the other characters, and also the orchestra under Richard Farnes. And at least, being radio, I could pretend that Tadzio wasn't being played by a female. Whatever possessed them?
The interval discussion was quite thoughtful - in fact I must listen to it again. -
Thanks for the run-down! Yes, the YouTube version has Pears, and there are interviews with Robert Gard about taking over from PP. I gather there were some who didn't find Tadzio beguiling enough, but I thought he was okay. But a girl!?
It isn't as if they had to find a suitable singer ... ????
Originally posted by Mary Chambers View PostIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Yes, I was amazed that the R3 / interviewed production team saying nowt about the ON glossing over the fact that their Tadzio was a GIRL!! Forgive me, but I thought the whole point of the novella is that it is a BOY, part of Aschenbach's complex guilt and desperation for contact and perfection?
Otherwise the series of interviews and discussions were among the best I've heard on opera for some time. Oke was nothing special...maybe you had to see it?Comment
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In a letter to Ronald Stevenson thanking him for his splendid Peter Grimes Fantasy for piano (a latter-day Lisztian operatic fantasy so brilliant as to be almost worthy of Liszt himself), Britten observed that completing Death in Venice had almost killed him...Comment
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I doubt if he'd have lived much longer anyway, and at least he died knowing he'd completed the opera. He'd have been very unhappy if he hadn't.l,
Opera North's Tadzio was a girl acting a boy. They hadn't decided to give a new twist by making Aschenbach fall in love with a girl. It still seems ridiculous and unnecessary, though, as I've said elsewhere, I have never seen a good Tadzio. At least, the one who appeared in the ENO production with Bostridge might have been all right, but I was too far from the stage to see him properly. As far as I remember he was at least young.
I thought Bostridge, as so often, made the best observations on the opera last night. I also enjoyed Pears saying that it had some significance for him as well as for Britten - "an ageing performer in his last desperate role".Comment
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What would a good Tadzio be like?Originally posted by Mary Chambers View PostIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Well, certainly NOT the one they had in the Bogarde film.Comment
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I still don't see what all the fuss is about (at least on these boards). Tadzio is played by a girl but, apparently, not as a girl. Odd, perhaps. But even if the character were played differently it is difficult to see how the sexual specificities could undermine the opera's central concerns, which, I suggest, lie elsewhere. We are told in the Guardian review that the opera "constitutes Britten's most explicit statement on his own sexuality". Really? I suspect this is to miss the point on a large scale.Comment
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It is hardly revolutionary for girls to play boys in opera. I saw the dress rehearsal and found it a very moving production with an androgynous Tadzio. If they had kept quiet most people wouldn't notice.
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I saw this production last night in Leeds, and all will be glad to hear Tadizio is dressed as a boy, and looks very boyish, but why a French female dancer was employed is a mystery.
I have only seen the Opera once before ,with Bostridge at ENO and enjoyed this performance far more, the smaller house and smaller stage really helped and Oke acted so much better than Bostridge. I find the free recitative and Aschenbach's arioso the best part of the opera and preferred Oke here too
I am not a great Britten fan though, Sibelius and Britten are my blind spots, that's not to say there are some works like "Winter Words" that I really like but there are others that leave me cold and find this work is a bit of a curates egg
I just felt with only one real character the work is too long, and I really can't get much out of the gamelan dance music.
For a Britten lover I would recommend this production, in period and a sensible set. Shame for me that there are only 6 staged operas this year by ON,, 3 Britten and 2 Puccini and a Macbeth production that I never want to see againComment
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I agree with you. That's why I enjoyed Ian Bostridge's comments in the interval. He can see beyond that. I do agree with kuligin, though, that Bostridge's performance of Aschenbach didn't quite work. He just isn't a great actor. (I love the gamelan music, though!)Originally posted by JimD View Post
An ideal Tadzio? Well, he is described in the book, so I suppose he should, above all, be remarkably beautiful, graceful, rather fragile-looking and about fourteen years old. The imperfect teeth mentioned by Mann probably wouldn't be too noticeable on the stage!Comment
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This evening I published the Opera Britannia review of Thursday's opening night:
The female Tadzio was a big issue for our reviewer, I'm afraid.
Members may be interested in an interview I conducted with tenor Alan Oke, Aschenbach in Opera North's production, which I'm looking forward to catching at Snape.
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....Comment
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I attended on the 17th and enjoyed most things about the production. I thought Alan Oke was very effective as von Aschenback and was delighted to be able to understand every single word (as there were only side titles for choral parts). The whole thing worked very well for me, even having just heard the production at ENO. The Tadzio was a curious choice. I was aware of it so probably focused too much on watching him/her. At ENO, the Tadzio was quite muscled so seemed much older. From the back of the stalls, the female Tadzio wasn't so obviously anything. The two people I went with hadn't noticed and assumed that it was a boy dancing, but weren't surprised when I told them it was a female. It is a curious choice, but I can't say it affected my enjoyment as much as many things other directors put into operas these days! I'd certainly go to see this production again. The only negatives for me were the video screen which didn't do much and the lack of a visual match to the music when the view of the sea is revealed -- small issues, all in all, in an effective production.Comment
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I saw this last night at the Lowry. It's an opera I love, and I was looking forward to it very much. I was pretty disappointed in both the production and the performance (apart from the orchestra, which was excellent) - perhaps my expectations were too high. I was very surprised, because the reviews have been almost universally good. Alan Oke at least had good diction, and he sang the notes (usually) perfectly well, but I felt he lacked presence. His Act 1 Aschenbach was such an insignificant figure, so undistinguished and lacking in noticeable intellectual repressed dignity, that his Act 2 disintegration - vastly overplayed in my view - simply didn't register as it should. If he's going to fall, he has to have something to fall from.
I felt Savidge as the multi-faceted figure luring Aschenbach to his fate also lacked something important. The essential sinister quality didn't quite come over to me. - and diction was a problem here.
In the end the fact that Tadzio was played by a girl (though I don't think it's a good idea) mattered less to me than the fact that s/he was stony-faced throughout, not beautiful, and again lacking in charisma or indeed any of the qualities described in the libretto or the novella. Where was the 'mortal child with more than mortal grace', or the 'bright perfection, a golden look, a timeless air"? The choppy, over-sophisticated choreography didn't help. It in no way reflected the delicate brightness of the gamelan music. I'm afraid I thought of Pears's comment, in a letter, about the Tadzio he was provided with in the Met production - " I wouldn't dream of looking at him for more than five seconds". (Perhaps the best I've seen in this respect was Philip Langridge's concert performance, where Tadzio was left to our imagination!)
As you've gathered if you've read this far, I didn't much like it. I might have thought I was perhaps in the wrong mood except that the people I went with, all of whom had seen the opera several times, felt the same. We were glad that we went, though. New perspectives, even if one doesn't agree with them, are necessary and stimulating.
I should add that the programme, at £7, is a very good buy. There's a lot to read in it - I still haven't finished it - and it covers Opera North's three Britten productions.Comment
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