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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #136 on: 19:28:01, 29-04-2008 » |
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if I've finished the piece of writing I'm currently in the middle of by then.
A bloke called Rodolfo said that once... |
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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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duncan
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« Reply #137 on: 20:06:12, 29-04-2008 » |
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I'm not sure if this is the place to advertise but I have a spare stalls-standing ticket for tomorrow night. Contact via my profile.
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...trj...
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« Reply #138 on: 09:57:09, 01-05-2008 » |
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Saw this last night. Very impressed.
Not sure I have much to add to the general praise (and niggles) above. Yes, it was mostly very strong, the central performances outstanding, the staging effective. But at the points where it should have been at its most shocking (the slaughter of the innocents, the Keres), the stage action didn't quite match the power of the music - they seemed a little weak to me. (Although the first victim's rape and murder was very powerful.) I liked the presence of the Keres - as the story descended through series of layers from the human, sunlight world, through the bestial labyrinth, and below, they seemed to represent an absolute bedrock (of inhumanity, amorality ?). I didn't have a problem with the fact of the ending, but like others here I thought they could have been handled better in general.
In retrospect, the pacing wasn't a problem - Ariadne's character arc was one of the highlights for me, and needed this extended opening. Theseus was a bit meh though.
Actually, is Theseus (not just here, but overall) the worst Greek hero? He doesn't save anyone, screws up with the sail thing, sends his despairing father to his death, and abandons Ariadne. I call that a bad day at the hero office.
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harpy128
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« Reply #139 on: 10:13:05, 01-05-2008 » |
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Well, to be fair to Theseus, in earlier versions of the myth he did perform a bit of a public service through his zero-tolerance policy on Minotaurs (and a few other monsters/bandits IIRC). I agree his private life didn't bear close scrutiny though.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #140 on: 10:19:42, 01-05-2008 » |
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Actually, is Theseus (not just here, but overall) the worst Greek hero? He doesn't save anyone, screws up with the sail thing, sends his despairing father to his death, and abandons Ariadne. I call that a bad day at the hero office.
And I always think there must have been a "D'oh! Of course! Why on earth didn't I think of that? What a waste of a precious question to The Oracle!" moment when the twine trick was suggested. |
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« Last Edit: 11:31:29, 01-05-2008 by George Garnett »
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...trj...
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« Reply #141 on: 10:33:51, 01-05-2008 » |
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Indeed. James Bond would have least demanded some sort of GPS system.
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Peter Grimes
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« Reply #142 on: 10:35:59, 12-05-2008 » |
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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martle
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« Reply #143 on: 11:09:18, 12-05-2008 » |
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This from the readers' comments: 'Birtwhistle [sic] is to music what Mugabe is to democracy.'   |
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« Last Edit: 11:21:13, 12-05-2008 by martle »
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Green. Always green.
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #144 on: 11:13:33, 12-05-2008 » |
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There's something terribly cod about all that to my mind.
I find the Englishness of RVW and all that early c20 folk song revival very moving. But there's something odd about saying RVW was more English than Elgar. Indeed completely meaningless. RVW studied with Ravel, for goodness' sake. As for Britten not being English as Tippet!! The operas reek of East Anglia. Even Curlew River takes a Japanese text, and makes it seem like an English medieval morality. (Britten cannot be the only English composer whose knowledge of plainchant owes more to RVW's editing of English Hymnal than to the original stuff edited by the monks of Solesmes.)
Just seen martle's comment. Was that in the Grauniad piece? I missed 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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Ron Dough
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« Reply #145 on: 12:02:27, 12-05-2008 » |
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It was the last comment by the serial whinger, DB.
As for the comparative Englishness of composers, well, that's a complex matter. But it's been said before that Elgar's Englishness is more redolent of a particular era (an era, moreover, with decidedly Germanic overtones) whilst RVW's music is rooted in the land itself, impervious to the changes of time. It was orchestration that was RVW's chosen study with Ravel, too: clearing away the thick, stolid soundworld inherited from the Germanic influence and replacing it with a diaphanous clarity closer to that of the French impressionists. Think of it more in terms of a painter adopting a new technique from abroad for painting a local landscape, rather than one going abroad to paint.
In many ways, Britten was always an international composer rather than a British one, for all that most of his operas have English roots. If you look at his big orchestral and instrumental works, from the Frank Bridge Variations through the Sinfonia da Requiem, the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia, the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas and the Cello Symphony, for example, there's very little that is obviously 'English' as such. And (although I find that particular sentence in the Grauniad leader difficult to construe) I'd suggest that the Tippett up to The Midsummer Marriage at least does have a stamp that it would be hard to mistake for any other nationality: from the second symphony onwards, and certainly by the time of King Priam and The Vision of St Augustine his language has moved into the international field as well.
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #146 on: 12:11:08, 12-05-2008 » |
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Thank you for the clarification, ron.
I am suspicious of ethnic stereotyping in other areas, but there is definitely such a thing as national characteristics in music. I fear it can become all to easy to splash around generalizations on that basis.
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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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Peter Grimes
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« Reply #147 on: 16:12:24, 12-05-2008 » |
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Interesting to compare this with the same newspaper's leader on Elgar: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jun/02/comment.music1This prompted an interesting comment: Elgar never lost his Welsh-Worcester accent. You can hear it, even through the surface noise, when he was recorded rehearsing the Second Symphony. Sadly, he's usually portrayed dramatically as a stereotypical Home Counties upper-class gent. |
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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...trj...
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« Reply #149 on: 10:34:30, 27-05-2008 » |
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Great news - thanks for posting, Iggy.
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