Michel Legrand (1932-2019): 6-10/1/25

[Master Jacques]

But no one would surely deny that there are 'opera snobs' who do the usual cultural rounds to be seen by all the right people in the right places. It's the lazy generalisation that to prefer to hear opera in the original language makes you a snob who just wants to keep the great unwashed out.

Generalisations become generalisations, when they embody circumstances which are generally true. I'm not alone in often having felt (and still feeling) a fish out of water at the Royal Opera, though many get used to the feeling.

In the 1970s and 1980s, at least, you'd get a very different crowd and atmosphere at ENO, where the generalisation was that most people were there to see the opera, rather than strut about the theatre.

As an artist who generally funded his own projects, Beecham had a perfect right to be snobbish about the snobs who were "there to be seen", and had no fiscal reason for kow-towing to them.

[Serial_Apologist]

... ceci explique cela, as we say in Shepherd's Bush

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I may be skating on thin ice, but I do recall a stallholder interviewed for TV in Shepherd's Bush market referring to "that Bollero, by that bloke, er what's his name? Ravle", at the time of Torville and Dean!

[Master Jacques]

I may be skating on thin ice, but I do recall a stallholder interviewed for TV in Shepherd's Bush market referring to "that Bollero, by that bloke, er what's his name? Ravle", at the time of Torville and Dean!

Hmm. I think the ice just broke under you!

Of course, that particular piece has been the constant victim of snobbery itself, but that's another story....

[Ein Heldenleben]

That's the root of it. When something goes as fast as Janacek, for example, I've seen entire audiences completely glued to watching the proscenium arch.

The two worst knock-on effects (which our conductor has plenty to say about) are (1) that stage directors devise ever more desperately outrageous scenarios, in the vain attempt to get people to look at what's going on; and (2) that singers stop bothering to even try and project the texts over the footlights, and ever-louder orchestras, let alone trying to make theatrical sense of those texts. The net result - for him - is the kind of forensic perfection, delivered with soulless musical unanimity, which our forbears would have absolutely hated, as still-born artistic nullity. Surtitles, for him, kill opera dead.

I'd only add that they make opera audiences even lazier than ever, in not "doing their homework" before attending these expensive charades.

Interesting example that, I went to the Jenufa rehearsal on Monday ( wonderful* ) and sitting in row A lower slips - the surtitles were only a fraction above my line of vision to the stage whereas in the stalls one would always be flicking up . Because I can read very quickly I don’t find them at all distracting even in the stalls . They have transformed my appreciation of Janacek. I just don’t buy the outrageous scenario theory or lack of projection - definitely none of that on Monday though maybe some marking (?) as the first night was 24 hours later.

* the orchestra clearly rate Jakub Hrusa - applauding him in the pit .

[Ein Heldenleben]

You probably know the Beecham story about the woman who liked to listen to "Shubér's Liedah" in German, because that was the right language for songs!

In my experience too many opera attendees are exactly such snobs - I often find them sitting behind me in the stalls at the Royal Opera, talking about how they'll be heading off next week to Geneva (or wherever) to hear "Jonas" in "Werther" (or whatever and whoever). Such folk convey to me that they are more interested in swanking around at the opera, in a nice comfy seat in a lovely old building after a nice dinner, than actually watching the stuff in front of them. Some of them audibly fall asleep.

This is a matter of observation, not inverted snobbery. And RVW was quite right to get angry about it. And so yes, (with all respect) I think that if an English person prefers to hear La boheme in Italian, they probably are a dilletante, as far as the art of opera is concerned. I certainly wouldn't have much to talk about with them about the piece, beyond whether Madame Y's top C was unusually radiant that night, or whether Mr X's production was a self-indulgent desecration.

(If you think I'm exaggerating, try reading the tweets which Covent Garden publish these days on their website, in preference to any comments from professional writer-reviewers. You'll lose the will to live, I promise!)

Ooh I say steady on , I’ve lost count of the intelligent opera conversations I’ve had with ROH audience members over the years. Very little showing off and plenty of intelligent analysis be it the slips (where I always seem to get rehearsal tickets ) or stalls Row E seats 1 and 2 my preferred performance seats .

Maybe the braggers are Centre stalls and Grand tier ( sadly unknown territory )

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good for you!

Mind you, it's not just listeners who like the noise more than the drama.

I'll share a little anecdote, as it's so long ago (c.1990) that none of the singers involved is still singing any more (or hardly at all). I was directing Carmen in Tokyo, in French, with the Giraud recitatives, and with three alternating casts. We had a spare hour in the schedules, so as a theatre person, I thought I'd give my pairs of Carmens and Don Josés a little exercise: to speak- rather than sing - the crucial Act 3 recitative between the lovers, where it becomes apparent that not all is rosy in the garden.

Fascinatingly, only one of the singers could even remember the words without tying it to Giraud's very functional recitative line (they kept humming each line before saying it, very much as they sang it). The exception was a mezzo-soprano who had played Carmen for Peter Brook in Paris. But by the end of the hour, they'd "got it", and were acting the scene marvellously well.

At the end I was surprised when the first cast José (a world famous tenor, by the way) came up to me and said that he'd learned an incredible lesson in that session, which he wouldn't forget - to really treat the text as the drama, with the music as support - rather than the other way round.

A very good anecdote and it amazes me that this isn’t standard practice .
Wagner of course would read his entire libretti or poems as I think he called them to the acolytes pre and inter composition.

That must have made for some long evenings. I’m not sure if he ever “responded to feedback “ as they say in management.

[oliver sudden]

I was directing Carmen in Tokyo, in French

Not in Japanese?

[Roslynmuse]

A very good anecdote and it amazes me that this isn’t standard practice .
Wagner of course would read his entire libretti or poems as I think he called them to the acolytes pre and inter composition.

That must have made for some long evenings. I’m not sure if he ever “responded to feedback “ as they say in management.

This is standard practice in the conservatoire sector - for recitative, aria and song repertoire, but especially for interaction between characters in operatic roles.

[Roslynmuse]

On the subject of languages and opera - three things:
it would be nice to hear enough text in the theatre to tell which language is being sung
surtitles - especially when in the same language as the production!!! - are a terrible distraction and yet, much as I dislike them, my eyes cannot be helped but be drawn to them...
I can't help feeling that - even if I don't understand word for word what is happening - that the sound of the original language is what has driven the composer to write the music in a particular way and so those vowels and consonant groups are a part of the music itself. Now, I know from conversations with translators that they go to a lot of effort to try to match as many of those sounds as they can - especially when vocal lines lie high - but the actual sound of a Romance language is so different from a Germanic one that it can be a bit like finding sugar in the salt cellar. But I totally understand the desire to perform in the audience's mother tongue; I just think some operas work better than others. It can be (for me at least) disturbing to hear an indifferent translation of an opera whose original text I am reasonably familiar with. But I stress that that is simply my own experience of things.

[vinteuil]

I can't help feeling that ... the sound of the original language is what has driven the composer to write the music in a particular way and so those vowels and consonant groups are a part of the music itself.

... one can go further than that : it's not just vocal works that are affected by a particular language. Kenneth Gilbert said that the best way to an understanding of the rhetoric underlying the harpsichord music of Couperin was to recite the Oraisons of Bossuet

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[Master Jacques]

... one can go further than that : it's not just vocal works that are affected by a particular language. Kenneth Gilbert said that the best way to an understanding of the rhetoric underlying the harpsichord music of Couperin was to recite the Oraisons of Bossuet

While that was an interesting and instructive exercise for the performer, in this case, it has no reference to the audience experience, which is what we've been talking about. Unless Gilbert was saying that listeners ought to go and read their Bossuet before hearing one of his performances, which I am quite sure he wasn't. No doubt his Couperin conveys his research findings to audiences subtextually, to save them the trouble.

Nobody is saying that music doesn't grow out of the original text's phrase patterns: but surely even diehard original language fundamentalists cannot deny that a theatrical experience is seriously compromised by being given in a language that the great majority of the audience don't understand (Wotan's Act 2 Narration in German, anyone?) And phrase patterns are the business of the translator to get right, in any fluent translation. Oohs and Ahs don't matter anything like so much, though a good translator will always make sure that their words are singable.

[vinteuil]

a theatrical experience is seriously compromised by being given in a language that the great majority of the audience don't understand

... I think you have made your view, as a theatre person, quite clear

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[Master Jacques]

But I totally understand the desire to perform in the audience's mother tongue; I just think some operas work better than others. It can be (for me at least) disturbing to hear an indifferent translation of an opera whose original text I am reasonably familiar with. But I stress that that is simply my own experience of things.

I agree with you that some operas yield up their secrets to translation better than others, though I would say that it is usually more a question of period than of the specific language. It also depends on the local language concerned: Spanish-language productions of 19th century Italian operas have an immediate fluency about them, which German translations have to work harder to achieve. But this, once again, is everything to do with phrasing (English and German's lack of feminine endings to same) and much less to do with vowel sounds.

Just about the best Rigoletto I've ever heard on disc - musically and dramatically - is the 1950s Fricsay set, with Schock, Metternich and Rita Streich, and it is of course in German - as was almost invariable in Germany at that time. I defy even original-language fundamentalists not to be drawn into something as marvellous as this set. Or try the English Traviata with Masterson (c. Mackerras), which will give listeners insights into the work, and character, which they could only dream of in Italian.

[Master Jacques]

... I think you have made your view, as a theatre person, quite clear

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Thank you, vinteuil, you are too kind - I can but try!

[Ein Heldenleben]

While that was an interesting and instructive exercise for the performer, in this case, it has no reference to the audience experience, which is what we've been talking about. Unless Gilbert was saying that listeners ought to go and read their Bossuet before hearing one of his performances, which I am quite sure he wasn't. No doubt his Couperin conveys his research findings to audiences subtextually, to save them the trouble.

Nobody is saying that music doesn't grow out of the original text's phrase patterns: but surely even diehard original language fundamentalists cannot deny that a theatrical experience is seriously compromised by being given in a language that the great majority of the audience don't understand (Wotan's Act 2 Narration in German, anyone?) And phrase patterns are the business of the translator to get right, in any fluent translation. Oohs and Ahs don't matter anything like so much, though a good translator will always make sure that their words are singable.

Didn’t Peter Hall and Colin Davis lobby for an English sung Marriage of Figaro at Covent Garden once ? Only to be turned down by the powers that be. The “problem “ with the Da Ponte operas is that the text proceeds at such a rate the subtitles skate over a very brilliant surface. A lot of the text is just left untranslated or , worse, even mistranslated .
It’s evident that some people don’t mind missing things , others think that somehow English is second best not “authentic.” The problem is that you then lose quite a bit of the total meaning of the opera - which is of course a musico- theatrical one . Even on disc with crystal clear diction and a libretto - that is very far from the total live experience . Indeed I’m not sure Opera on disc is really opera at all. (And I must have dozens of recordings - very largely left unplayed these days )

Re native languages - The other problem is that some singers diction these days is not that good even in their own language. That Wotan narration though is so well scored even in German every word should be audible esp at Bayreuth with its orchestra cover. The reason I like listening to the Goodall ring is that the diction is consistently good , Goodall favours the singers and has clearly prepared them so you hear all the words - and it’s a live recording. I reckon at Die Walküre in May I’ll be lucky to pick out more than 70 per cent. But having listened in English I reckon I wont need the surtitles so much,