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Don Basilio
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« Reply #210 on: 21:59:49, 17-03-2008 » |
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DB, did you also try 'which trouser role are you'?
Sorry? ? O hang on, this is operacat's questionnaire, isn't it? I didn't notice. There's an interesting discussion on this subject for some other thread. Back in panto season I thought of starting a thread on "Heros in fish net tights," but didn't get round to it. |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #211 on: 22:02:15, 17-03-2008 » |
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On the 'which heroine are you' quiz I came out as the Marschallin. Which might be a bit skewed by my having to make up some of the answers. The 'how do you like your mean' one for example. I contemplated answering 'decapitated' since I knew which heroine that would be leading to...
Cuts? None. Ever. Call me picky if you like...
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #212 on: 22:08:16, 17-03-2008 » |
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Cuts? None. Ever. Call me picky if you like...
Never, Ollie? Well, there are two I can think of, albeit that the first is a bit mischievous: cut the final scene from Don Giovanni so that it ends with his descent into hell. The final scene seems so pointless and anti-climactic, which I suppose is the point Mozart was trying to make. The one I’d be more serious about is at the end of Verdi’s Macbeth. Cut the final, trite chorus and go back to the original 1847 ending, as performed by Glyndebourne last season…far more effective; Macbeth dies, end of.  |
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #213 on: 22:13:50, 17-03-2008 » |
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Oh, I didn't know we could do mischievous ones. Well in that case: I've always wondered how Peter Grimes would go if it stopped after the spoken passage, where Balstrode gets Grimes to push the boat out. Opera ends with speech and crunch of shingle. Now that would be a downer. And it would leave room for a sequel! |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #214 on: 22:23:49, 17-03-2008 » |
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If we are doing mischievous ones, you could just cut the bits of The Ring that don't have Rheinmaidens. It would save an awful lot of bother...
Tommo
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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martle
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« Reply #215 on: 22:32:34, 17-03-2008 » |
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Depends on the production, Tommo.   |
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Green. Always green.
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #216 on: 22:37:11, 17-03-2008 » |
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Now don't tell me those ones at the bottom are Rhinemaidens, martle! They have a distinct look of the Three Ladies from The Magic Flute to me! How about these three?  (Good job I couldn't find a photo of the ROH Rhinemaidens in fatsuits from the 90s Jones production!!  ) |
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #217 on: 22:39:54, 17-03-2008 » |
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Now don't tell me those ones at the bottom are Rhinemaidens, martle! They have a distinct look of the Three Ladies from The Magic Flute to me! They are indeed Mozartian ladies of the... ahem... night - in the ENO Nicholas Hytner production! |
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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martle
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« Reply #218 on: 22:51:25, 17-03-2008 » |
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Sloppy googling, IGI. How about these disembodied Athena babes?  |
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Green. Always green.
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #219 on: 23:27:02, 17-03-2008 » |
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Now that looks more like it might be a back-projection accompanying Le Jugement de Paris from La Belle Helene...
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #220 on: 00:27:04, 18-03-2008 » |
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Now, Ollie's point about not cutting anything in Cosi could set off an interesting new question/ discussion.... which operas do you think would benefit from a cut and why?  TANNHAUSER, please. The whole of Act One can be cut without losing a thing Now that looks more like it might be a back-projection accompanying Le Jugement de Paris from La Belle Helene...
The lengthened skulls suggest they might be Beketaten, Mekhetaten, etc |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #221 on: 01:18:01, 18-03-2008 » |
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Now, Ollie's point about not cutting anything in Cosi could set off an interesting new question/ discussion.... which operas do you think would benefit from a cut and why? ROSENKAVALIER - much of the first half of Act 3. Not sure where I'd open and close the cut, but the Ochs/Mariandel scene doesn't half go on. IDOMENEO. Most of it In fact I can't think of a Mozart opera I wouldn't cut in some way or another. TRISTAN - Act 2 has always seemed imbalanced to me. I always expect the end of the "love duet" to be much nearer the end of the act. I'd restore the balance by halving the length of King Marke's monologue. GOTTERDAMMERUNG Act 2 always seems overlong for its content, but I'm not sure quite how I'd chop it. It would have to come out of the last couple of scenes: the double wedding scene and Brunnhilde's plot with Gunther and Hagen. (I always find myself wishing that one of the characters would simply think to ask for confirmation of the timelines involved in each version of events  "Siegfried, when you say you got that ring from a dragon, are we talking today or less recently? Brunnhilde, when you say that Nothung stayed in its hilt while you and Siegfried consummated your love, was that last night or at some point in the past?" - but then I suppose Hagen's plot would be thwarted and we'd be left with having to find a new way to resolve the plot and get the gold back into the Rhine...) THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA would benefit from losing much of the moralising from the Choruses, especially at the end. I'm sure I'll think of more tomorrow, but for now I'm off to bed  |
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #222 on: 05:27:43, 18-03-2008 » |
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In fact I can't think of a Mozart opera I wouldn't cut in some way or another.
I was called "a philistine" on TOP for saying that once, along with "Keep your bloody hands off what you don't understand!" by one particularly curmudgeonly member of the fogey brigade. The reality of course is that they're always cut anyhow (although the TOP crowd in fact know the works so poorly that they haven't a clue it was done). FIGARO runs for over four hours if you don't cut. Audiences simply won't accept that these days (especially if they are depending on British public transport to get them home before sunrise). But more particularly, anything that goes over three hours immediately incurs extra-time working by the orchestral players, cast, crew, foh staff, etc.. the cost is staggering. But go from four to five hours (ie any performance that runs for 04:01 or above) and the costs escalate into figures that look like the national debt of Peru. Moreover, Mozart frequently cut them himself - or changed them, added or replaced arias with new ones etc. The notion of an "Urtext" version of an opera didn't really exist before Wagner - and even he proved malleable about changes, cuts and alterations if it got his work onto the Paris stage WILLIAM TELL is usually performed with a fairly large cut - from the last bar of the Overture, through to the end |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #223 on: 11:55:01, 18-03-2008 » |
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TANNHAUSER, please. The whole of Act One can be cut without losing a thing Limit the cut to the bit between the end of the Overture (Dresden version, please) and the shepherd boy's song, and I'd heartily agree. The obvious reason why Tannhauser left the Venusberg is that is was so bluddy boring. ROSENKAVALIER - much of the first half of Act 3. Not sure where I'd open and close the cut, but the Ochs/Mariandel scene doesn't half go on.
. I've always thought that the best way to approach Rosenkavalier is an hour-long compendium of the good bits. Act 3 in particular is a trial. Agreed about Mozart - but one approach to Cosi might be to respect the tempo markings and speed it up a bit ... |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #224 on: 12:10:31, 18-03-2008 » |
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Well, there are two I can think of, albeit that the first is a bit mischievous: cut the final scene from Don Giovanni so that it ends with his descent into hell. The final scene seems so pointless and anti-climactic, which I suppose is the point Mozart was trying to make.
I believe that was how it was done in the C19, to make it a Faustian tragedy. Maybe I just can't face a tragic ending, but DG is far more than that, and the epilogue is integral. (It certainly is integral to The Rake's Progress, a clear allusion to DG.) I used to think DG was my least favourite Da Ponte/Mozart opera, but I saw it last week for the first time in years at the Hackney Empire and was overwhelmed by what a wonderful work it is. The cuts were Dalla sua pace, Mi tradi, DG's Act 2 aria before beating up Masetto and, if Masetto has a Act 2 aria, that as well. I was struck how fast the dramatic pace moved. The diction could have been clearer, but I thought the Icelandic tenor did jolly well in the circumstances. |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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