Believing in Opera

Rating:
Summary: Pure Rhetoric
Review: Few subjects have produced more twaddle in print than the current, regrettable fad of decontructionist staging of opera, and this book is no exception. Like flappers and disco, this too shall pass. The current generation of opera producers have grown up with television and commercials. They have the attention span of a gnat. One suspects that they have never taken the time to read Shakespeare's plays or the Bible. Their style of opera consists of a random jumble of visual elements and designs taken from disparate sources, cultures, and time periods. Mr. Sutcliffe has been a British opera critic for a very long time and has seen the ebb and flow of many trends in the opera house. His book would be more valuble if he had concentrated on documenting rather than trying to justify the off-the-wall staging of opera.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Rhetoric
Review: Few subjects have produced more twaddle in print than the current, regrettable fad of decontructionist staging of opera, and this book is no exception. Like flappers and disco, this too shall pass. The current generation of opera producers have grown up with television and commercials. They have the attention span of a gnat. One suspects that they have never taken the time to read Shakespeare's plays or the Bible. Their style of opera consists of a random jumble of visual elements and designs taken from disparate sources, cultures, and time periods. Mr. Sutcliffe has been a British opera critic for a very long time and has seen the ebb and flow of many trends in the opera house. His book would be more valuble if he had concentrated on documenting rather than trying to justify the off-the-wall staging of opera.

Rating:
Summary: A spirited defence
Review: The elusive world of opera direction,set design,and philosophic /interpretive concept is here captured for the first time. The age after post-modern, now is for the eye, for the concept,and the cloistered world of opera was indeed ripe for picking to nourish it with this interest in production.Not that singers and conductors have receded into disuse,but this priority for concept is far more interesting than a Diva's vacation spot. Sutcliff's first premise is that you should do something to opera to make it exciting and those who simply sit back contented with old stuffy,dust-ladened productions only do the future of opera a disservice. Sutcliffe has seen it all, and he summons this knowledge to speak on profound directions we have perhaps only heard about. He has a great skill for analysis touching the aesthetic, how the stage looks, the overall philosophic content,the inherent meaning all become clear. Heavy hitters here are Patrice Chereau,who had almost no operatic experience when he was summoned to direct the One-Hundreth Ring of Wagner,with Pierre Boulez. In short a scandale resulted,but here Sutcliffe vaults over the obvious and identifies Chereau's working language and concept of a somewhat Marxist(George Bernard Shaw) interpretation, although Chereau himself hasn't little proclivities in those political areas.He identifies how for instance a stage lit in somber colours can convey the sense of the timeless. Peter Sellers as well and the Americanization of opera , a director that fits within Sutcliffe's criteria of making interest on Operas stage is here.Handel's Giulio Cesare, set updated to a resort with lawn chairs,puffy Presidential speeches, and a Cleopatra with terri-cloth robe, sunglasses and cheap dangly beads all serve as a means of deconstructing the present or past. Still the element of humanism emanated from Sellers sensitive characterizations, the various solo arias Sesto,and Cornelia on death,on future,on vengeance and national wishes. Pioneers as Peter Brook are also here his Salome where Salvador Dali constructed the constumes and sets were sabotaged we learn. Brook started at an early age,yet here he was a good experimentor, alone voice with opera going against the tide of British narrow-minded criticism. Ruth Berghaus's political Wagner Ring is also discussed within categories of Feminism. But I fail to see the committment to ideology there,only another piece of ornament to infuse the opera.Still Sutcliffe introduces all these categories to ponder. David Alden, Graham Vick, Richard Jones all are given analytic space with a focus on Welsh Productions, The English National Opera and Covent Garden.Directors haven't the time to write their concepts down. Jonathan Miller being the most prolific, and Peter Brook. But the result is usually short cursive essays. Here Sutcliffe admirably fills this conceptual void, on what is now opera's most important feature, what opera is.

Rating:
Summary: a massive elusive subject dealt with admirably
Review: The elusive world of opera direction,set design,and philosophic /interpretive concept is here captured for the first time. The age after post-modern, now is for the eye, for the concept,and the cloistered world of opera was indeed ripe for picking to nourish it with this interest in production.Not that singers and conductors have receded into disuse,but this priority for concept is far more interesting than a Diva's vacation spot. Sutcliff's first premise is that you should do something to opera to make it exciting and those who simply sit back contented with old stuffy,dust-ladened productions only do the future of opera a disservice. Sutcliffe has seen it all, and he summons this knowledge to speak on profound directions we have perhaps only heard about. He has a great skill for analysis touching the aesthetic, how the stage looks, the overall philosophic content,the inherent meaning all become clear. Heavy hitters here are Patrice Chereau,who had almost no operatic experience when he was summoned to direct the One-Hundreth Ring of Wagner,with Pierre Boulez. In short a scandale resulted,but here Sutcliffe vaults over the obvious and identifies Chereau's working language and concept of a somewhat Marxist(George Bernard Shaw) interpretation, although Chereau himself hasn't little proclivities in those political areas.He identifies how for instance a stage lit in somber colours can convey the sense of the timeless. Peter Sellers as well and the Americanization of opera , a director that fits within Sutcliffe's criteria of making interest on Operas stage is here.Handel's Giulio Cesare, set updated to a resort with lawn chairs,puffy Presidential speeches, and a Cleopatra with terri-cloth robe, sunglasses and cheap dangly beads all serve as a means of deconstructing the present or past. Still the element of humanism emanated from Sellers sensitive characterizations, the various solo arias Sesto,and Cornelia on death,on future,on vengeance and national wishes. Pioneers as Peter Brook are also here his Salome where Salvador Dali constructed the constumes and sets were sabotaged we learn. Brook started at an early age,yet here he was a good experimentor, alone voice with opera going against the tide of British narrow-minded criticism. Ruth Berghaus's political Wagner Ring is also discussed within categories of Feminism. But I fail to see the committment to ideology there,only another piece of ornament to infuse the opera.Still Sutcliffe introduces all these categories to ponder. David Alden, Graham Vick, Richard Jones all are given analytic space with a focus on Welsh Productions, The English National Opera and Covent Garden.Directors haven't the time to write their concepts down. Jonathan Miller being the most prolific, and Peter Brook. But the result is usually short cursive essays. Here Sutcliffe admirably fills this conceptual void, on what is now opera's most important feature, what opera is.

Rating:
Summary: A spirited defence
Review: This is a spirited defence of the the indefensible, and most idiotic, trend of modern opera: the movement away from an emphasis on singers and conductors towards the director and the production itself. Dramatically, most opera is essentially absurd. Nineteenth century opera is largely based on dramatic forms that have not survived into this century and have primarily historical interest for scholars. No one, for example, would ever stage the kind of melodramas so popular in the preceding century with a serious expectation that an audience could enter into it in some dramatic sense. Neither can any kind of production, in itself, bring Il Trovatore (my favorite opera) "alive" for me or make me "believe" that the second act of Tristan and Isolde (my second favorite opera) is anything more than overblown romantic twaddle with a German transcendental twist. Opera simple does not live in and through it's silly plotting and narrative. Rather, it the the glory of the music, as it is realized through great voices, that makes these operas of real interest and gives them emotional power. There is a wonderful video of Tebaldi and Corelli singing La Forza del Destino in Naples in front of a typical, old-style Italian set: a painted curtain that looks like it's from a bad high school play. Yet this video captures one of the most glorious moments of singing I've ever heard: huge, matchless voices singing Verdi's great music (and uttering the rather predictable words characteristic of melodrama). It's the singing that brings this alive, and no production can have much of an effect without that as it's basis. In an age where conductors are more intent on flying around the world rather than truly learning about voices, and few singers can even begin to match the great voices of the past, we might indeed look to the director to bring us relief from the second rate. But Serafin didn't need a director to bring opera alive, and Callas didn't need a strange production to make us "believe" in opera. If the production has taken center stage, it's because audiences have accepted the second rate.