Technology, technology, everywhere

Every few decades the world of technology infects all the arts and it eventually arrives at set design for stage productions of all kinds. Not that technology and projections have been absent from stagecraft. Dance has been using projections forever. Twenty something years ago, I saw a performance of wonderful pieces by Merce Cunningham (and how sad I was when he died) and the only sets for all of them were projections on a cyclorama that seemed to have no bearing on what the dancers were doing. This was a tenet of his work--all "aspects" of performance were independent of each other. But they were often beautiful--projections and dances--and I was always engrossed. And, of course, Peter Sellars has made his name as a "genius" (he did get a grant) for his mixing of media. (Just how many works DID he stage with piled up televisions?) Certainly at least two works by Steve Reich have been accompanied by a wall of screens (which helps, if you ask me.) And the projections during the Paris production of Les Troyens in 2003 were wonderful in an effectively "sparse" staging. But starting in Beijing during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, technology changed and everyone seemed to have had the same ideas about how to use it. I think we are at the beginning of a Golden Age of creative design and I hope it lasts and expands and enriches. London's (and then Broadway's) production of Sondheim / Lapine's Sunday In The Park With George was one of the most creative use of projections I have ever seen. The audience gasped when everything went white and then pencil strokes slashed across the stage, as if we were seeing George's paper as he was sketching. And the MET has created another projection extravaganza in La Damnation de Faust and there were plenty of ideas to make one gasp. The moment when Faust falls into the water and slowly spins around is an unforgettable moment in an opera-ish work (Berlioz called it a "Dramatic Legend") that has previously been mostly unsuccessful when put on a stage in any way but a concert version. The MET version seems to have solved its "problems" and added a dazzling production that has a good shot at becoming a (semi) staple of the rep, like Lulu or the Janacek operas. I'm sure we are in for more. Some people have worried that this is just more distraction from the "singer" and the art of "singing". Maybe it will effect how we see and hear. No way of knowing this soon. But surely this Faust is just a new form of the older generation's massive moving parts, such as the MET's Aida and it's spectacle of giantism. When it was first introduced, critics complained the sets dwarfed the singers. Now audiences and critics have gotten to know it and appreciate it. May the "new" technology get the same chance to shine.

Operatic duds

I come not to praise Wagner but to bury him. A few weeks before the start of The MET season, an "illustrious" critic for an "illustrious" publication wrote that a new opera he had just seen and heard needed to have cuts to be more effective but he wanted to assure his readers that some operas, even some long ones, are perfect at their actual length. He sighted Wagner's Parsifal as a perfect opera that needs all five hours to make its point(s). He actually said six hours, but he seems to be counting the famously long intermissions at The MET as opera time. He went on to say perhaps the most cliché "accepted truth" in all opera: that works like Der Rosenkavalier (a perenial choice for this "truth") need their (usual) cuts to keep from being "boring"--intimating their composers (for some reason, invariably it's Strauss) are lesser beings than opera "gods" like Mozart or Wagner. Anyway, he made me think (more than he has poor taste) that many "accepted truths" hide actuality. (At least as I hear it.) I don't care how many people claim Wagner as a genius that must be heard in full--he wrote more than one "dud". And Parsifal is the dudest of the duds. A 20 minutes or so here and there in each act of "good" music that is meant to be profound does not a masterpiece make. In fact, I don't trust anyone who thinks Parsifal is a "perfect" five hours. At five hours, it's perfectly dreadful. As is Siegfried. Maybe an hour and a half of truly great music is hidden in an atrocious five hour monstrosity. And, yes, the other operas of The Ring Cycle are much better and the events depicted in Siegfried need to be told. So get someone to play a highlights disc while a narrator explains everything you need to know. There. Three and a half hours saved. I could go on. In fact, other than a few operas by Wagner (and I love much of his music so don't think "I just don't understand him") most of his works would be more effective with cuts. Even Gotterdammerung, my vote for his greatest "masterpiece", could do without a few minutes here and there that seem superfluous. (The Norns really add little and their music is merely "good." Cut 'em, I say.)

So, any other suggestions for "repertory" works you think are duds? (Or at least, not worth the time to get to the end.) A rule first: they have to be works heard around the world and recorded at least once. And please, no "atonal" works. We know, you just don't understand what everyone hears. Got it.

Why the same "old" operas?

Now that The MET has officially opened, the opera critics come out in force and the love it / hate it / don't understand it wars begin with a vengeance. The new Tosca was a case in point. No two people seemed to agree about anything. This is not exactly bad for the MET. Critic wars make news. And Peter Gelb certainly gets his opera company in the news. I think this is healthy for the venerable company and good production (Madama Butterfly) bad production (Sonnambula), people are coming and noticing. The war of words between Zeffirelli and Bondy certainly didn't hurt. (The comment that Zeffirelli was just merely "...Visconti's assistant" was one of the more cutting put-downs of recent years.) Of course, all this talk about productions and (even) singers doesn't really disguise the fact that the rep is still pretty set in stone. And we know this and occasionally complain about this but to no avail. The Lulu's and the From the House of the Dead's are few and far between (as are performances of them.) Even a piece like Hamlet will swoop in for a few seasons and certain singers will triumph in the two main roles and then it will fly right out of vogue just as quickly. And I doubt seriously that even the great artist Renée Fleming can make Armida a popular recurring addition to the roster. None of this is new. The reasons are myriad but one of my strong beliefs is people have to be "taught" what is good or bad, and no one is "teaching" Armida. I learned from others (fans, singers, teachers, etc.) the works that were considered "great" and I set about to understand why. "Learning" Le Nozze di Figaro is relatively simple. We've heard this harmony and these kinds of melodies everywhere, whether we know it or not. The more "debated" or shall we say, less performed and recorded works I had to discover for myself. And I worked at it and studied them and tried to learn the "language" that each composer was using. And I discovered quite a few "masterpieces." But I sometimes fear I am in a strong but wavering minority. Your majority opera listeners don't have the time or inclination--they want ready made "masterpieces" or at at the very minimum, lesser works by confirmed "geniuses" (mostly from the 19th Century unless it's Handel.) And often they take "genius" on faith and accept the faulty syllogism that if A) a composer is a genius and B) he wrote a piece in his adulthood at the "height" of his powers then C) the piece must be a "great" piece. So they listen and they listen until they "know" it by the time they hit their seats. And they accept as fact that the mutually agreed upon "masterpiece" is one. Which leads me to my next blog...but first, what do you think? Any answers to the age-old question? Any solutions?