Silence

Dear Reader,

Please excuse the silence of this blog.  We are preparing for the new opera season, starting in a few weeks with Mozart's Nozze di Figaro...

Lots more mediocre reviews to follow...

Much love xxxxx

Poetry of the brothel or poetry with big, big, big balls?

La Traviata correspondent, July 2015

Opera is no stranger to controversy. Whether it’s confronting its audiences with the barbarous violations that invariably take place against women during war or the hypocrisy that runs rife in all societies that attempt to quash the free expression of taboo areas of human experience; the medium of opera ploughs the audience face first through the wild grasslands of reality unearthing uncomfortable truths as it does so. If you’re worried you may come out of the field with a mouth full of mud and worms then perhaps it is better to stay at home and watch a re-run of Murder She Wrote. However for those of you who don’t mind leaving the opera a little ruffled and unsettled then you stand a chance of coming closer to truth, if you have the courage to bear it. 

It is the double standards that apply to gender that was the chief concern of Verdi when he conceived La Traviata. Verdi was no doubt inspired by his own predicament of falling in love with soprano singer and mother of four Giuseppina  Strepponi, no doubt knowing full well that this would court social condemnation for flyng in the face of the mores of the time. Indeed Verdi was eventually shunned by the inhabitants of his home town for ‘living in sin’ with Strepponi. But it was a visit to Paris where he saw Alexandre Dumas, fils’ play La Dame aux Camelias with his new lover Strepponi that La Traviata was truly born.  Verdi chose to base the libretto on Dumas’ dramatization of the short adult life of courtesan Marie Duplessis.

Duplessis’ childhood was a brutal one and when she escaped from it she lived fast and hard in a world of pleasure before dying of tuberculosis at age 23. Whereas Duplessis could not afford the luxury of love as the life of a courtesan seldom would, Verdi’s character Violetta who is based on Duplessis finds love as a means of salvation. But in the end, Violletta would be denied real happiness when the father of her lover requests she give up his son because of her reputation and the shame this was bringing to his family. So though the men are free to ‘sow their wild oats’ they are welcomed back to society with open arms. all is forgiven so long as you marry a ‘reputable’ woman. If you still can’t give up your ‘staggish’ ways then fine but try to be inconspicuous about it. However, for the woman it’s ‘once a whore always a whore’. There is no hope for redemption. This hypocrisy continues to this day in various guises in all echelons of society. It’s the grim reality of gender inequality.

So, is it as the critics put it, ‘poetry of the brothel ‘when La Traviata premiered in London in 1856? Or, is closer to Verdi’s rallying cry for, ‘poetry with big, big, big balls’? I would argue they are one and the same. The poetry of the brothel is the poetry of the cruel unforgiving reality of life when in order to survive a woman is forced into a way of life where she is ultimately doomed. But as Verdi shows us, the prostitute retains her humanity and in our hypocrisy, maybe it’s us who have lost ours. Now if that isn’t poetry with big balls then I don’t know what is.

Peter Pan (and the lost songs)

As water droplets in the river of life relentlessly tumble from high tributaries of opportunity, through meandering channels of duty onwards towards the slow venerable estuaries before settling in exhausted anonymity in the ocean of history, the summers shorten, the liver suffocates and routines are layered like a thick bed of rotting silt. 

Such analysis is nugatory and immaterial for good old Peter Pan, J.M Barrie's invincible warrior-boy-cum-tribe-leader who supplements his enviable ability to fly, with seeming eternal youth.  Clearly dear reader you are well familiar with Hook, Tinker Bell and Tiger Lily so I'll leave you with a simple Wikipedia link in lieu of a better synopsis that this blog could never hope to provide. Here you go: Peter Pan

We saw the opera on Saturday 25^th from the upper reaches of the Royal Opera House.  This was a Welsh National Opera (WNO) production, directed by Keith Warner, with the score by Richard Ayres.  Modern operas in English like this are a challenge for me - a challenge to stay awake! There is no doubt this opera is beautiful, stunning, ambitious, dark, fun. The problem -  and I think this is often a problem for modern opera generally - is the absence of decent vocal melody. Not an aria in sight. No songs! The result is basically two hours of people screeching in a silly voice. The issue is magnified by the English libretto which just highlights the absurdity of the silly voice. 

Visually this opera packs punches, with flawless flying the highlight. The stage and costumes were a delight, and the audience were clearly impressed from the gasps and applause.  As seems to be the trend these days a revolving stage device was employed this time a kind of train set going around the stage in a circle carrying all kinds of wares and occasionally trains. The locomotion is charming but I couldn't help but be distracted by the train theme (maybe I’m just a train geek). Seriously though trains shouldn't really be the principle imagery of Peter Pan, and the production really stretched it as a devise representing London.

Better visual highlights included the walking alligator clock, and the alligator on the train track at the climax. The clock inside that alligator image was done tremendously and reflected in the score to great effect. Overall though I can think of better visual devices for this story, which could acknowledge the fantasy island and pirate ship elements of the story (instead of trains - cool as they are).

Peter Pan himself looked good and flew superbly. I'm not convinced by his voice, which fluctuates between high pitched boy and shouty bitchy man.  In fact the whole Peter Pan character is internally discordant - part cheeky arrogant boy part leader fighter but in this area the production probably reflects the conflicts inherent in the original tale.  In fairness the underlying darkness of Peter Pan comes through well in this opera, and in this area I will praise the libretto (even though I thought it was boring).

Finally this brings me onto the family audience pitch.  This opera was designed to bring out the kids – it’s advertised as suitable for families and is pretty cheap entry.  The stagecraft succeeds for family appeal - an excellent showcase for opera.  I'm not convinced that the score is the most accessible, without leitmotifs or repetition that new entrants might enjoy.  Once again, I'm pissed there were no arias.  It is my personal view but you can have as much stagecraft as you like but opera will still be inaccessible and absurd to many people (me included) if the vocals lack decent melody.  But my views are as transient as the Cardiff Bay tides.  Maybe I just need to grow up...

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

We had the pleasure to see Kasper Holten’s production of Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House last night.  As relatively unseasoned opera goers this one felt long (more about this later), but did have some wonderfully performed arias, especially in the second act.

Don Giovanni is a young arrogant womaniser.  Despite the protests of those around him, he fails to repent and eventually meets his match.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni  or better still – see the opera!

The opera was composed by Mozart in 1787 in a golden age of operatic music in Vienna.  The Italian libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote the words for Motart’s other great operas of the age such as La nozze de Figaro (Marrage of Figaro) and Così fan tutte .

The opera is known as an opera buffa, which means it is supposed to be comedy.  I din't find it very funny, although most other people in the theatre did, or at least were pretending that they did.

Mozart’s operas

Its worth reflecting on Mozart’s period of operatic writing, which in the humble opinion of the writer, produced some of the finest ensemble music ever written.  In 1781 Mozart composed the hugely successful Die Entführung aus dem Serail, although legend has it that Emporer Joseph II thought it had “too many notes”.  I guess this is why most countries got rid of their monarchies.

Mozart spent the next five years working on keyboard music.  In 1787 Mozart returned to opera and composed some of the most famous and performed works in the genre.  This includes Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, and The Magic Flute.Each of these operas is characterised by Mozart’s genre defining use of melodic layering, challenging arias and orchestral flourishes. Mozart defined “Classical” music (i.e. 18^th century music written on sheets).  He wrote so much music that a famous catalogue of his music exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6chel_catalogue Proper musicians (as opposed to clueless bloggers) will be able to name the composition if you give them a number from the Köchel catalogue.  Don Giovanni is number 527.

Mozart was writing the vocal parts for specific performers and tailored the parts to the vocal ranges and abilities of the prospective performers.  In the cas of Don Giovanni this lead to some highly challenging arias such as Il Mio Tesoro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4htTs-s5pxc and Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMemCQiA-lY (this one take a minute to get going).

Note in both of these examples the vocal range employed, and the length of notes.  But for me the genius of these pieces comes from the layering of the strings ensemble, a vocal parts, and the tempo.  It seems that Mozart liked to end his best arias with an orchestral flourish and these two pieces both exhibit this.  These flourishes are the orgasmic finale to three minutes at the zenith of musical pleasure.  My favourite moment of music in Don Giovanni occurs from minute 5:00 onwards in Mi Tradi in the performance linked to above or in here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttHuOrn13oA. The drama of this section of music is why I love the opera.

The ROH production

The opera house put on a great show as always.  Unfortunately, this blogger is too clueless and sits too far back to be able to name who was singing what.  According to the cast sheet Leporello was played by Alex Esposito, Donna Anna by Albina Shagimuratova and Don Giovanni himself by Christopher Maltman.

The production made use of a rotating house, with each scene being a different side of the house.  We weren’t especially enamoured by this, but to be fair the opera doesn't call for an especially exciting set.  I think we have become accustomed to mindblowing sets in recent months (Krol Roger and The City of Mahagonnay).

Not for beginners

I hold my hands up:  I’m not a seasoned opera goer (but I thought it would be entertaining to write a blog).   We felt that this was a long opera. The first act is 95 minutes and the second 85 – that’s a long time sitting on a bench.  As we weren’t familiar with the libretto it was also quite hard to keep up with the drama, and as such the first act felt long and slightly boring.  Really sorry to say this, but it’s how I felt.

My recommendation, if you are new to opera, is not to start with Don Giovanni.  Marriage of Figaro or Magic Flute would be a fun introduction to Mozart’s operas. 

Other Observations

For this opera we sat in Upper Slips Left, which is cheap and handy for the bar and prosecco (not a lot of good for me now as I’ve been banned from drinking at operas).  View and sound were fine, but I personally prefer lower slips close to the stage to get the maximum volume from the orchestra pit.  Irritatingly the bearded gentleman behind us, thought it appropriate to play with his phone (not on silent) throughout the first act and occasionally make loud observations about the opera.  It is tradition in theatre to maintain silence during the performance as the experience relies upon complete emersion.  Such distractions are totally unacceptable and I hope the bearded gentleman in upper slips left will behave with more decorum next time, or better still, not go to the opera and take his comments to Speakers Corner or a pub where they possibly belong.

Opera stats (part one of many)

Is there anything we can learn about operas through basic analysis of statistics.
The answer is yes!
This series looks under the surface of key opera statistics.

First of all: the most popular operas by number of productions:

The first chart presents the top 10 operas by number of productions since 1996.  These are all classic operas that one would expect to the most popular.

Interestingly, if the same ten operas are listed by number of performances, the order of popularity changes as shown in chart 2.

It appears that The Magic Flute (the inspiration behind this blogs appellation), is indeed the second most popular opera by number of performances.

On average, the operas in the top 10 are performed 4.87 times per production.  Chart 3 below compares number of performances against number of productions.

It can be seen that in general the top ten operas exhibit typical performance:production ratios of around 4.87.  The clear outlier is The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote), which exhibits an atypically high number of performances per production.

One could easily speculate on reasons for this.  "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" aka The Queen of the Night aria is notoriously difficult to sing covering two octaves and requiring high tessitura (vocal range) as is the other famous aria by the Queen of the Night "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn".  These two arias alone would require significant soprano investment.  Coupled with the magical set there may be that cost seldom permits one-off Magic Flute performances.

Next time we will continue to dig deeper into the data behind the opera

Król Roger

Live from ROH

A blazing Phil Collins bust, swirling malestoms of flesh. Baying crowds. And we've not even started on the singing.

Georgia Jarman delivers. Kwichen exceeds. A superb production at the Opera House.

Burning books.  Live flame in the ROH.  They have special licence for fire.

"Inevitable" opening day

Fate has flown into the amphitheatre on the lauchday of this blog and landed a large splat of delay on the suited shoulders of the baying crowds.

The opera is delayed!

In all our years of opera at the ROH, Rudes and I have never encountered any delay. The opera is always bang on time, looking down on the Transport Museum across the plaza as a smug bastion of timelyness. So what is this? An opportunity for a bonus glass of sparkling wine perhaps?

The director has appeared on stage and apologied profusely, but has described the delay as "inevitable".

The drama of the opera never disappoints...