Tag Archives: opera

Too many ideas spoil the plot

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This about opera, but I have a feeling I’ve been sent a lesson about writing too.

Last night I went to a performance of one of Verdi’s lesser known operas, La Forza del Destino – correction, since I saw it in English – The Force of Destiny. Powerful stuff, you might think, with a title like that. Well certainly complex, with a lifetime of doomed love and revenge for all three of its main characters.

The music for this opera is sublime; a parade of moving tunes and orchestral subtlety, with some humour and drunken revelry to lighten the inevitable fated march of all concerned. It is, however, VERY difficult to stage. It takes place in both Italy and Spain over a number of years, includes battles, pub scenes, a church and a hermitage.Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.18.26

This director opted for The Spanish Civil War (Verdi set his battles in Italy) and EVERYTHING else he could lay hands on. War is not funny, so all of the humour was stripped out (funny arias and characters turned particularly nasty). War is cruel, sadistic and misogynistic – true – so all these factors were hammered home. However, you can actually have too much of a bad thing. When the audience starts to wonder how far the priest is into S & M, or what they are using for blood (in every single scene), or why a warhorse is hovering over a building and was there really a public tearing up of books in that war, and surely that bare girl running was from Vietnam, you have lost the plot and replaced it with too many ideas. You have also splintered your viewer/listener’s attention.Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.15.02Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.14.03 Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.14.38Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.17.18

Verdi wrote a classical tragedy, in which the fates deal cruelly with three particular people in a volatile world. The drama of their story deserves as much respect as the music and much more than the setting.

I have another problem with this production. I go to opera for the music and the drama. Understandably, musical ability trumps all else when casting. However, if the director chooses singers who have no physical resemblance to, or are of a different age from, the people they are playing, he/she should (at the very least) minimise the discrepancies by adapting costumes and staging where necessary so that the drama is not lost, or the singers made a mock of, OR the opera become the joke stereotype of its genre (as this was in the first act – image below).Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 11.16.48In the centre (back to us) you have the beautiful, pure, young woman, whose father (left) refuses to let her marry the young soldier (right) because he is not noble. After killing her father in error, the soldier flees and later (disguised) will become a hero in the army and blood-friend of the girl’s brother (see image 2 above). This brother (also disguised) is searching for the soldier and his own sister to kill them. The girl (not much disguised) enters a hermitage. Everybody dies.

Finally, you can say stuff in Italian that sounds absurd in English. Italian words end in vowels (of which there are few) so many of the lines naturally echo each other. This is emphatically not the same as a rhyming couplet in English, which, unless handled by a skilled poet, often has a nursery rhyme humour to it.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures – all screenshots from the English National Opera website – if not the rant.

Three operas and an interview

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I’m still out breath. We saw Flight by Jonathan Dove at Opera Holland Park, including a delightful interview with Dove beforehand. This opera is a rare thing, a modern, English, comic opera. We saw it once, more than ten years ago, and it was so funny we bought the libretto. It is set in an airport, with a cast of very real types that you might meet in such a place. Each of these has a story, and, in spite of many laughs and farcical lift/elevator passages, their stories are very touching with an element of tragedy thrown in – the music’s good too! (Screenshot from Opera Holland Park website).Screen Shot 2015-06-18 at 22.26.09 For opera two we were guests at Glyndebourne for Donizetti’s Poliuto – so obscure an opera that it is unlisted in our edition of Kobbé. This is about early Christian martyrs (set in Sarajevo in the 1990s (??)), but actually it is a classical tragedy with love, honour and duty fighting it out. The music is stunning and it is clear that Verdi rifled through it at some stage. This is my kind of opera, moving, full of dramatic emotional music, beautifully sung and acted. I loved every minute of this performance and I have never (over many years) heard such wild enthusiasm from a Glyndebourne audience. (Screenshot from Glyndebourne website).Screen Shot 2015-06-19 at 23.07.53 Opera three, also at Glydebourne, was all about the event. We were guests of my youngest brother and wife to celebrate, with my oldest brother and wife (middle brother and wife not able to join us), what would have been our father’s 100th birthday. Oh yes, the opera! This was Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Mozart (shame on me) is a bit repetitive and, um, tinkly (?) for me, but this was a very lively and funny performance, beautifully sung, and I loved the sets. (Screenshots from the Glyndebourne website). EDIT I meant to mention that the highlight of the story was that the ‘bad’ guy, the Turkish Pasha, turned into the magnanimous hero at the end. Screen Shot 2015-06-19 at 23.14.31 Screen Shot 2015-06-19 at 22.07.44 Screen Shot 2015-06-19 at 22.06.52And finally the bonus interview. When we were standing around our picnic table BBC Radio 4 appeared and asked to interview the person who had created the table and the picnic. We happily pushed forward my sister-in-law, Susie, who answered their unexpected questions clearly and coherently. Our menu included lobster tart, lamb cutlets on couscous and peach and raspberry trifle (not to mention olives, salmon sandwiches, cold meats and cheese). We couldn’t wait.  DSCN7802 DSCN7810DSCN7819 A wonderful time was had by all and we raised glasses to our father and mother.

I Due Foscari – one opera; two experiences

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One of our favourite operas – the rarely-performed I Due Foscari (Verdi)* – is on at the Royal Opera House. We went to see it last Thursday and followed this up on Monday by watching the live relay performance in the cinema.

First off, the reviews weren’t great, but experience has taught us to keep an open mind, as performances often warm up. On the stage, as far as the singers were concerned, all was well. With Pappano in the pit and Placido Domingo, Francesco Meli and Maria Agresta giving us glorious music with high tragedy and great passion, we were very happy listeners.

BUT this is a maddening production. It is set in a what looks like a Venetian bomb site. Background figures move constantly, but very, very slowly and distractingly, throughout the performance, with some gruesome slow-motion torture thrown in. If you succeed in ignoring the figures, then the scenery – that is the narrow platforms for keeping your feet dry in watery Venice – also move frequently and erratically. (It brought to mind slow-motion table football). If you manage to stop worrying about whether the singers will fall off the platforms, you are dizzied by the Doge’s dining room and bedroom, which appear on a flying, sloped platform, on which the 89-year-old Doge (72-year-old Domingo) has to look stable AND sing his heart out. Then there’s the costumes; these are a sort of riff on Russian Eighteenth century costumes – with a few spare metres of brocade thrown in, the wealthy have electric colours, the poor are clad in grey, brown and dirty white. The Doge’s son, Jacopo, a prisoner, was the only soloist who didn’t have to drag a weighty costume around as he sang, so instead they hung him above the stage in a cage, or tortured him as he sang. In spite of all the drama, the pace felt slow, due, I suggest, to the staging not the conducting.

So three days later, in some curiosity, we went to the

cinema

to see the same opera. In this case cinema wins, because the cameramen/women could focus on the singers and not on the distractions on stage, they can even correct for the sloping platform (see clip). Of course the sound is not as exciting as being in the same space as the musicians, but it was pretty damn good. In addition the singers responded to the extra stimulation of being on camera, and this performance was a couple of notches above the earlier one.

We just love the music, but I fear the staging of this production is such that we are unlikely to hear it again for a good few years.

*Plot: The Doge of Venice, now 89, is being forced by The Ten (his rivals and who actually rule) to condemn his last remaining son to exile for treason and murder. His daughter-in-law fights desperately to persuade him to use his power to release his son. The Doge is torn between his role as a ruler, who must uphold justice, and as a father whose, possibly innocent, son will be exiled until death.

Book rave – And Then Like My Dreams {a memoir}

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Last night I dreamed about a real person I had never met, Charles ‘Chic’ Stringer. I was, I think, on holiday with my husband and he took this lovely man’s hand very carefully, because we knew that Chic was now fragile… that’s all I can recall.

Chic is the subject of And Then Like My Dreams by Margaret Rose Stringer – a book like no other I have read. Entertaining, unique, breathtakingly honest, funny and heartbreaking, AND all true. In this story the blood, the glory, the coffee and the cream of love are so real it makes fiction and newspaper accounts look like feeble ghosts.

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The structure of the book is also unique. While it is told, like any other memoir, in the first person, Margaret Rose (M-R) and her beloved husband, Chic, inhabit the film world, so she slips regularly and seamlessly into screenplay mode. This gives the narrative a rare light and shade quality and is often used to hilarious effect. Footnotes are scattered throughout. Occasionally they supply further information, more often they are chatty asides, a personal reinterpretation of the truth and often very funny.

I have not even mentioned that half way through Opera (my personal rave) turns up. M-R and Chic live and love mostly in their home, Australia, but they also take four magnificent trips into Europe (where M-R clearly learns to speak French and Italian fluently, but fails to mention this strength). Food, photography, engineering, cats, language, France, Spain, Italy and Germany also feature.

There is only one ending to the book, as we know from the very start. Chic is going to die. We don’t want this book to end, but it continues to be gripping, and yes, even sometimes funny, to the bitter end. M-R wrote this book so that others would know about Charles ‘Chic’ Stringer, Stills Photographer, and never ever forget him. Her own larger-than-life personality flows over every page as does her love, wonder and grief. But she has succeeded; we will envy what she had and we will never forget Chic.

Little story – happy author

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I started this blog, Green Writing Room, early last year. One of the first people I followed was a young music student from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Charlotte Hoather. As she started putting up clips of her singing, I could hear she had a generous voice with enormous promise. In the following eighteen months I have heard it develop in strength and clarity. Charlotte is warm, dedicated, disciplined, thoughtful, with a wonderful supportive family and she looks lovely too. She takes on every challenge that comes her way. Her blog has rocketed in popularity and I have every hope that she will one day be on the opera stages of the world. She is already giving many people pleasure in concerts and competitions around the country.

Recently she came third in the Voice of the Future category of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. For the last of her three songs she sang one of her favourites, Rusalka’s Song to the Moon (Dvorak), and I feel great delight as I hear the development of her voice in this version compared to her earlier recordings.

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Do listen to the final song on this video recording from the competition.

http://llangollen.tv/en/clip/c1-2/

Charlotte reminded me a little of the young man, Luca, that I had dreamed up for my novel Unseen Unsung. I thought her parents might enjoy reading the book. So, late last year, I made contact and sent them a copy. I did not expect Charlotte to read it, because she has a schedule that makes most of the rest of us look like sloths. However a few days ago, she wrote on my post about Unseen Unsung :

My last post didn’t come through don’t know why? Just wanted to say I love, love, loved this story, kept me guessing and intrigued all the way through. Really related to the story, loved the references to opera, good luck with the e-book promotion. Best wishes Charlotte 🙂

As Unseen Unsung had been originally been published in 2008 I was not expecting it to make waves as an eBook but this, along with other wonderful responses from you kind and generous readers out there have made this writer delirious with happiness.

Funnier, sadder and more engaging – Rosenkavalier

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Last night we had the immense privilege of being guests at Glyndebourne Opera House (http://glyndebourne.com) and, for a wonder, the weather was perfect too. (For friends across the world I should mention that Glyndebourne is a top-level, top-quality opera house set in the middle of rural English countryside, where it is traditional to picnic during the long interval, in full evening dress, in the beautiful grounds. Sorry, only a few old photos, as most of mine have identifiable people in them.).

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The opera, Der Rosenkavalier, Richard Strauss, walks a tricky tightrope between tragedy and comedy. It is usually played glamourous, melancholy and decadent, as the beautiful, older aristocratic woman courageously relinquishes her youthful lover to a younger woman, interrupted by the boorish antics of the suitor to the younger woman, usually a caricature elderly buffoon.

Last night’s production by Richard Jones shakes up this tradition. The costumes bounce between 18th and 20th century and the direction is equally bewildering. In the first interval I overheard opera-goers complaining. Yet somehow this weird take on the story drags the tragedy and comedy face-to-face. This results in a funnier, sadder and more engaging story. By the end of the opera, the audience were stomping and clapping enthusiastically.

Musically, I heard no doubts expressed. The singers, orchestra and conductor were sublime. Personally, as an unashamed lover of the Italian Romantic repertoire, I find the long, soaring lines of Strauss a little like being force-fed meringues, but this production, by pulling the dramatic threads together, has brought me closer to appreciating the music.

I don’t have a silver rose to hand, but this allium shubertii after a rainstorm has a silvery look to it.

allium Shubertii

allium Shubertii

As we drove home after the opera, the sky was pretty dramatic too.
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Carmen last night – again

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I like this opera but not that much, and we have seen quite a lot of Carmens over the years, but last December we went to Carmen at the Royal Opera House because we wanted to hear the fabulous mezzo Elina Garanca. Sadly we had failed to note a later cast change. To make matters worse, the opera was conducted at a funereal pace and in spite of fine singers in the cast, the director had opted for an ‘earthy’ interpretation. So we watched the unfortunate female leads (some strapping) singing in a permanent squat, with theirs skirts above their less than seductive knees.

So on Tuesday, when our opera friends came round to watch a DVD of Carmen, I was not wild with enthusiasm.

We had put on the Luis Lima, Maria Ewing, 1997 recording from the Royal Opera House, (not sophisticated in today’s filming terms). I had forgotten how simply fabulous this recording is. Luis Lima, his voice clear, warm, melodic and infinitely touching, and acting his socks off is a vulnerable, passionate Don José.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17iFl8kwUeM

Maria Ewing has the voice and style to carry off the very tricky combinations required of a Carmen. She makes the singing look easy! She is sexy, languid, fatalistic and proud and clearly prizes freedom above her life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHQCOk_7tZ8

Escarmillo (Gino Quilico) has a good strong baritone, with plenty of colour, he is proud without any over-the-top narcissism. Micaela (Leontina Vaduva) was sweetly pretty in both voice and appearance.

Top of the bill, however is Zubin Mehta’s conducting. The spanking pace gives the drama extra edge and the sense that we are caught up in fatal events over which we have no control. The amazing contrast achieved by this speed and Ewing’s deliberately slow pace, gives the whole drama enormous tension.

One very happy opera fan here. Luis Lima deserves to be remembered more often.

Operatic tragedy Nutcracker style

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I’ve just got to get a couple of things off my chest.

I had been looking forward to my first production of the early Verdi opera Sicilian Vespers for some months. I was a little concerned by reviews which talked of excessive violence. This opera is a political tragedy set in the 12th century and murder, rape and treason are very much at its heart. HOWEVER, the director had decided to set it in the 18th century (when it was first written and performed) in ballet mode. The cast of Swan Lake appeared to have strayed onto the stage (and were promptly ravaged en masse), they reappeared several times for more of the same treatment. The villain doubled as a distinctly camp dancing master. The Sicilian conspirators lined up at a bar to execute ballet steps and the executioner was a barely-clad child-as-cherub with an axe.

There were some very clever wheezes when the audience appeared to be watching themselves on stage, the singing was often beautiful and moving AND the saving grace was the sublime music and the conducting skills of Antonio Pappano. But… I like tragedy to be tragic, I want to be moved to tears not giggles.

Grouse two. I read one of a series of books by a popular historical fiction writer (for a book group). I was given some facts I never knew. Fine. I was also treated to a scummy, slanderous, prurient version of the mental state of several historical figures. I was left with a feeling of disgust – a real mental indigestion.

Here is a suitably sad silver birch in winter to express my feelings.

Betula Tristis

Betula Tristis

Hungary to Japan in a weekend

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Wonderful couple of days. Small but international poetry meeting with the theme ‘dwelling’ very freely interpreted. Poems ranged from the romantic to the starkly tragic, with English, Hungarian, Czech, Polish and Bengali contributions, most read in both English and the original. For bonus we had two singers – one operatically trained (who indulged me and delighted us all with the Handel aria Did You Not Hear My Lady unaccompanied), the other a charming cabaret/folk story-teller singing in (?) Turkish. We all regretted that these meetings are so very rare.

Yesterday we went to the Holland Park Opera for Madame Butterfly. The best interpretation and staging of this that I have ever seen. A story of its period, but no longer silly. Anne Sophie Duprels made us believe in Butterfly’s moral outlook, her dilemma and her ultimate choice. She brought out a strangely modern problem – that of the cultural immigrant who accepts a country’s hype at face value, and is fatally damaged as a consequence. Strong stuff, cleanly and simply staged.

Yet more Verdi

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Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, and it turned out to be the first night of the run so there was a buzz in the audience and we spotted several musical bigwigs during the intervals. The contrasts between this and the six-man Ballo in the pub on Thursday were mind-bending, though my personal enjoyment of both was high (and I preferred the seating in the pub).

Don Carlo is just about my favourite opera, and we must have seen this particular production at least three times. The music is magical and with Pappano at the helm I could have shut my eyes and been in bliss the whole evening. On stage, the opening didn’t quite grab me – Kauffman as Don Carlo, in spite of his admirable voice and acting ability doesn’t move me in the way both Villazon and Alagna have in this production, he and Hateros (as Elizabetta) were passionate, anxious and tentative in a modern way – and not enough to set up the drama, which needs vulnerability and individuals caught up and made helpless by bigger events (i.e. classical tragedy). EG was enthralled by the Cloister scene – as were the rest of the audience and I thought Kwiecień as Posa was in stunning voice and perfect for the part and they gave us a ringing duet. In the garden scene there was a new singer, Uria-Monzon, in the part of Princess Eboli, pretty, but her voice was uneven.

If anyone has read this far they will notice that I have sat though Acts I and II without becoming absorbed by the music – this may be my fault for being too tired or overdoing the opera this week. And yet, as the opera progressed and Furlanetto as Philip took the stage I did become involved and lose myself.  By the time of King Philip’s great nighttime lament that his wife never loved him, I was hooked. This was hauntingly sad and as good as I have ever heard it. Eboli’s aria to her beauty was much more secure than the veil song. Posa’s death and the final scene with Don Carlo and Elizabetta in the monastery were musically superb.

Three great operas in a week in a cinema, a pub and a grand opera house, with enthusiastic audiences of all ages. Tickets at the pub were £23 each [this is a correction]. Who says opera is dead or only for the rich?