Poor Richard

[A.C. Douglas]

PULL-QUOTE: "Poor Richard. We've done him a deep wrong."

(The following TinyURL is a link to an S&F entry titled as above. The TinyURL has been used instead of the full URL to ensure its rendering here in clickable form.)

http://tinyurl.com/asxy3d8

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

"...we don't know of a single on-the-boards major opera house staging of any
of his stageworks worldwide that Wagner would recognize as being his own
stagework, even remotely."

Assuming that "we" actually means "I", I have to say that I envy you the
ability to know the thoughts of a long-dead genius. My word, I wish we -
sorry, I - could do that.

[@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude]

Bert Coules schreef op 19-5-2013 het volgende:

*We* wonder if you will receive the standard reply... :-?

--
Met vriendelijke groet,
Cheers!
Herman van der Woude

[Richard Partridge]

On 5/19/13 2:49 PM, Bert Coules, at ma...@bertcoules.co.uk, wrote the
following:

Well, he didn't claim to know what Wagner's opinion would be if Wagner were
asked. He said Wagner would not recognize any of today's performances as
being his own stagework. I don't see that it's possible to quarrel or even
politely disagree with that statement.


Dick Partridge

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>Assuming that "we" actually means "I", I have to say that I envy you the ability to know the thoughts of a long-dead genius. My word, I wish we - sorry, I - could do that.

I don't have to "know the thoughts of a long-dead genius" to make the assertion I made. If it weren't for the music or being told so, NO ONE would recognize any of the present Eurotrash (i.e., _Konzept_) Regietheater Wagner stagings as being a staging of a stagework by Wagner.

And as for the "we" business, stop playing the simpleton. You know perfectly well the use of an editorial "we" when you see it. I'm not so sure the same could be said for others here.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[A.C. Douglas]

Oh, and I forgot to add that the S&F entry referenced has been updated to correct a major oversight.

ACD

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> If it weren't for the music or being told so, NO ONE would recognize
> any of the present Eurotrash (i.e., _Konzept_) Regietheater Wagner
> stagings as being a staging of a stagework by Wagner.

But you're imposing a condition which would never happen: under what
possible set of circumstances would anyone be required to identify a Wagner
opera from an unidentified staging without music?

And even should it happen, I question the assertion. However, if you can
cite a specific example of a staging which obscures the basic plot or
dramatic shape of one of the works so completely as to render it
unidentifiable, I'll certainly reconsider my opinion.

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>I question [your (ACD's)] assertion. However, if you can cite a specific

>example of a staging which obscures the basic plot or dramatic shape of one
>of the works so completely as to render it unidentifiable, I'll certainly
>reconsider my opinion.

Easy as shooting the proverbial fish in the proverbial barrel: the current Bayreuth _Tannhäuser_, for one.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> ...the current Bayreuth _Tannhäuser_, for one.

Alas, I haven't seen it and so cannot make any meaningful comment.

[Bert Coules]

I've now found this description of the staging:

http://www.wagneropera.net/Articles/Bayreuth-2011-Berry-Baumgarten-Tannhauser.htm

which certainly sounds peverse enough to just possibly meet your criterion
of unrecognisability, though the presence in at least one scene of several
large signs reading "Wartburg" might reasonably be expected to give a fairly
hefty clue.

Has it been broadcast or released on DVD? I'd like to see it.

[A.C. Douglas]

The "Rat" _Lohengrin_, then. I know you must have seen that. (And be careful how you object to that as an example of a staging being unrecognizable as the staging of a Wagner stagework. On seeing that staging sans the music or being told it's a staging of Wagner's _Lohengrin_, one might easily say, "Hey, it looks like this playwright stole a lot of stuff from a Wagner opera named _Lohengrin_," which is NOT the same as saying it was recognized as a staging of that very same Wagner opera.)

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>I've now found this description of the staging:
>http://www.wagneropera.net/Articles/Bayreuth-2011-Berry-Baumgarten

>Tannhauser.htm which certainly sounds peverse enough to just possibly meet
>your criterion of unrecognisability, though the presence in at least one
>scene of several large signs reading "Wartburg" might reasonably be
>expected to give a fairly hefty clue. Has it been broadcast or released on
>DVD? I'd like to see it.

Not of the full production that I know of. I've seen several trailers of the production, seen a number of production photos, and read numerous descriptions of the physical staging. Taken together, that was more than enough to make an accurate and infallible judgment concerning the staging.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> Taken together, that was more than enough to make
> an accurate and infallible judgment concerning the staging.

Enough to know that it wouldn't be to your taste, fine. But enough to be
able to assert that it would be completely and totally unrecognisable as
Tannh�user if stripped of its music and its title? That seems to me to be
pretty unsupportable.

I'll try to find out if a record of it does exist. As I said, I'd be very
interested to see it.

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> The "Rat" _Lohengrin_, then. I know you must have seen that.

You do? It's impressive that you are so completely certain.

Mind you, it would be a lot more impressive if you were actually correct,
which you are not.

[A.C. Douglas]

On Sunday, May 19, 2013 6:48:48 PM UTC-4, Bert Coules wrote:
> AC Douglas wrote:
>
>
>
> > Taken together, that was more than enough to make
>
> > an accurate and infallible judgment concerning the staging.
>
>
>
> Enough to know that it wouldn't be to your taste, fine. But enough to be
>
> able to assert that it would be completely and totally unrecognisable as
>

> Tannh�user if stripped of its music and its title? That seems to me to be
>
> pretty unsupportable.

It has nothing to do with "my taste". Even what you read should be enough for you to determine that it would be unrecognizable as a staging of Wagner's _Tannhäuser_.

ACD

[A.C. Douglas]

I was completely certain because it was streamed live from Bayreuth. Couldn't imagine any Wagnerian not seeing that live stream.

ACD

[A.C. Douglas]

Here are the YouTube videos of that _Lohengrin_ that comprise the entire production.

http://www.youtube.com/user/wagklassik#p/a

ACD

[@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude]

A.C. Douglas schreef op 20-5-2013 het volgende:

Yes! I remember having seen this, a completely hopeless production (but
there are worse!). Nevertheless, it was still Lohengrin.

[@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude]

A.C. Douglas schreef op 20-5-2013 het volgende:
A.C. Douglas wrote on 20-5-2013 as follows:

> On Sunday, May 19, 2013 6:48:48 PM UTC-4, Bert Coules wrote:
>> AC Douglas wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Taken together, that was more than enough to make
>>> an accurate and infallible judgment concerning the staging.
>>
>>
>>
>> Enough to know that it wouldn't be to your taste, fine. But enough to be
>>
>> able to assert that it would be completely and totally unrecognisable as
>>

>> Tannh�user if stripped of its music and its title? That seems to me to be

>>
>> pretty unsupportable.
>
> It has nothing to do with "my taste". Even what you read should be enough for
> you to determine that it would be unrecognizable as a staging of Wagner's

> _Tannh�user_.
>
> ACD

No, I don't agree, it still /was/ Tannh�user. It just demonstrated to
me why I don't want to go to Bayreuth anymore. At least not as long as
they will not show me a decent one, just telling me the tale without a
"hidden" message from the director - well, those messages aren't hidden
anymore...
The same reason why i don't go to the Amsterdam opera anymore, not for
a Wagner opera, not for anybody else's opera.

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> Even what you read should be enough for you to determine

> that it would be unrecognizable as a staging of Wagner's _Tannh�user_.

Well, I would never make a general determination about any theatrical event
based merely on what I had read about it. But that apart, it seems clear
that the meaning you give to that phrase - "a staging of Wagner's
Tannh�user" - is so completely different from the way I would define it that
we're simply never going to agree on this. But thanks for an interesting
discussion.

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> Here are the YouTube videos of that _Lohengrin_ that comprise the entire
> production.

Aha, thank you, I'll download them and watch them on a big screen as soon
as I can.

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> Here are the YouTube videos of that _Lohengrin_ that comprise the entire
> production.

And as promised I'm watching it this evening: I write this in the second
interval. And I'm enjoying it greatly, rats and all. No, it's not a
staging faithful to Wagner's instructions, but that was never going to
happen in the current climate, was it? And for all its idiosyncracies and
its basic concept - which seems to be that the good folk of Brabant,
including their ruling elite right up to the throne are the subjects of some
kind of large scale experiment and are under constant observation and
control - this is, as Herman says, still Lohengrin. I'd go further and say
that in the main it's a very good Lohengrin indeed, searingly dramatic and
focussed.

The one weak link, sadly, is the Ortrud, who has a phenomenal voice but not
the acting skills to match: as third wicked sister in a village hall
pantomime she'd be tremendous, but in this company and this production she
sticks out like a sore and unintentionally comic thumb.

Maybe it's the way they're miked but I heard nothing but enthusiastic
applause from the audience after the first act, and a mere scattering of
boos after the second. I'm going back now, with a frersh cup of tea, to see
what act three has to offer.

[Mike Scott Rohan]

On Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:43:56 PM UTC+1, Bert Coules wrote:
No, it's not a
>
> staging faithful to Wagner's instructions, but that was never going to
>
> happen in the current climate, was it?

Is that any reason for accepting it? By that logic, Wagner should have gone on writing like Meyerbeer, and never fought to establish his own style.

And for all its idiosyncracies and
>
> its basic concept - which seems to be that the good folk of Brabant,
>
> including their ruling elite right up to the throne are the subjects of some
>
> kind of large scale experiment and are under constant observation and
>
> control - this is, as Herman says, still Lohengrin.

When they've dissected away your flesh, your bones remain your own. Nevertheless, there's something wanting.

What's still Lohengrin here resides wholly in the sound -- nothing in the dramatic or visual, nothing whatsoever. That would render any dramatic work incompletr, but all the more so Wagner's. And it removes the advantage of staging it at all, as opposed to just popping on the recording. It's all very well being open-minded and tolerant, but that can be too easily taken advantage of -- and the fact that a Bayreuth audience, large chunks of which aren't specially Wagnerian and don't pay for their tickets, can be found to cheer it makes no difference whatsoever.

I'd go further and say
>
> that in the main it's a very good Lohengrin indeed, searingly dramatic and
>
> focussed.
>

I would have thought you'd prefer Wagner's.

Mike

[Bert Coules]

Mike Scott Rohan wrote:

> I would have thought you'd prefer Wagner's.

Mike, I know what you mean by that (or at least I think I do) and please
believe me that I'm not arguing merely for the sake of arguing, but really,
just what is Wagner's? A totally representational, historically-accurate
pageant? A late nineteenth-century theatrical attempt to present such a
pageant? A fairy story-cum-myth-cum-parable? A piece of work which
embodies his own journey from the old to the new? An artistic endeavour
which gives gainful employment to a couple of hundred people or so? An
evening out for the rabid fan and the mildly curious alike? Four hours of
elitist entertainment, scorned and misunderstood by most? "Wagner's"
Lohengrin isn't any one thing.

I'd argue that all the essential, core elements of the work are present in
that production.

And I enjoyed act three, the odd excess apart.

The YouTube recording doesn't include the final curtain calls, but there was
a fair bit of booing, far more so than after the first two acts. And
there's no cast list either, so I must check that out. There were some very
fine performances there.

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>[A]s promised I'm watching [the "Rat" _Lohengrin_] this evening: I write
>this in the second interval. And I'm enjoying it greatly, rats and all. No,

>it's not a staging faithful to Wagner's instructions, but that was never

>going to happen in the current climate, was it? And for all its

>idiosyncracies and its basic concept - which seems to be that the good folk
>of Brabant, including their ruling elite right up to the throne are the
>subjects of some kind of large scale experiment and are under constant

>observation and control - this is, as Herman says, still Lohengrin. I'd go

>further and say that in the main it's a very good Lohengrin indeed,
>searingly dramatic and focussed.

For what it's worth to you, Bert, Alex Ross's 2011 response to the "Rat" _Lohengrin_ (I take it you know who Alex Ross is) was that it was "an austere, elegant, darkly enchanting piece of theatre. Great Wagner performances like this give the sensation of looking down at the world from a sadly omniscient height, like an empathetic scientist observing rats in a cage."

Alex and I enjoyed a warm cyber relationship, both privately and publicly, from about 2004 onward. But since the publication of his book (_The Rest is Noise_) we've grown steadily apart as, more and more, Alex became an outspoken champion of and cheerleader for the avant-garde in music and music theater, and his above comment on the "Rat" _Lohengrin_ (for which I couldn't forgive him and let him know about it) was pretty much the final straw for me as was, I suspect, my response for him as we haven't "spoken" to each other, privately or publicly, since.

Look, Bert, it's NOT a matter of a Wagner staging being literally "faithful to Wagner's instructions" (by which I take it you mean his stage directions and indicated dramatic actions). That would be simply slavish. It's a matter of a Wagner staging being faithful to the FULL SPIRIT AND SENSE of Wagner's idealized dramatic and theatrical vision as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions).

For exemplary example, Wieland's original post-war staging of the _Ring_ (of which I am a first-hand witness to the _Walküre_ of 1958) was anything but "faithful to Wagner's instructions", yet it was not only the most powerful staging of that work in my experience but the most true as well to the full spirit and sense of Wagner's idealized dramatic and theatrical vision as made manifest in the score. As I put it on S&F:

=== Begin Quote ===
With Wieland taking his (unacknowledged) cue from the groundbreaking work of the brilliant Swiss theater theoretician Adolphe Appia, [Wieland's] production's almost total absence of stage furniture, its use of non-period-or-place-committal costumes, and the creative use of lighting to model and shape space and the characters who inhabit it, Wieland — taking his grandfather at his word when in 1853 he declared that the yet unwritten music of the _Ring_ "shall sound in a way that people shall hear what they cannot see" — created a neutral "frame" or "matrix" for the tetralogy, so to speak, that permitted the music itself, working in tandem with the text and the audience's own imagination, to fill in all the missing stage furniture as if it all were right in front of the audience's eyes. It was a brilliant stroke, a stroke of genius even, as it made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the _Ring_ while rendering Wieland's properly transparent.
=== End Quote ===

Does all that explain or make more clear to you where I'm coming from (you should forgive the expression) on this matter?

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> ...his above comment on the "Rat" _Lohengrin_ (for which I couldn't

> forgive him and let him know about it) was pretty much the final
> straw for me as was, I suspect, my response for him as we haven't
> "spoken" to each other, privately or publicly, since.

I think that's rather sad. What's wrong with a civilised agreement to
disagree?

> It's a matter of a Wagner staging being faithful to the FULL SPIRIT
> AND SENSE of Wagner's idealized dramatic and theatrical vision as
> made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions).

I understand your point (or if you prefer, I see where you're coming from)
but this surely raises the question of just what that full spirit and sense
actually is. I can't see that it *is* actually made manifest in the score.
You speak as if it was an absolute, an unchanging almost tangible essence,
something to be recognised and described and captured (or embodied, to use
what might be a better term) in every staging, however that staging chooses
to present it: whatever the frame, the picture stays the same.

I'm not sure that's true. I think that the spirit and the sense differ,
perhaps radically, from person to person and from age to age. I think the
Lohengrin in question *is* true to what I see as the essence of the work.
You (and others, hi Mike) do not.

What I do have trouble in understanding is why this dislike of such stagings
seems to be such a extreme thing with so many. I've seen avant garde
productions I liked and avant garde productions I thought were terrible.
The same is true of traditional stagings. In the negative cases I've
shrugged, written off the expense (if there was any) as an unfortunate loss,
taken what was positive from the whole thing and put the rest down to
experience. I haven't railed against an entire theatrical movement: I
simply can't see the point. Beyond letting off steam, I don't understand
what you and others of the same mind think you can achieve. Theatrical
fashion will change, as it always does, in its own sweet time, not yours.

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>I understand your point [, ACD] (or if you prefer, I see where you're

>coming from) but this surely raises the question of just what that full
>spirit and sense actually is. I can't see that it *is* actually made
>manifest in the score. You speak as if it was an absolute, an unchanging
>almost tangible essence, something to be recognised and described and
>captured (or embodied, to use what might be a better term) in every
>staging, however that staging chooses to present it: whatever the frame,
>the picture stays the same. I'm not sure that's true. I think that the
>spirit and the sense differ, perhaps radically, from person to person and
>from age to age.

And there in a nutshell is the pernicious, sophistic rationale and justification put forward by *every* self-involved, self-serving, parasitic vandal for his (or her) Eurotrash (i.e., _Konzept_) Regietheater stagings.

*Of course* the full spirit and sense of an opera creator's vision is made manifest in the opera's score (music, text, and stage directions). How could it not be? One would have to be willfully deaf and blind to not perceive it. And *of course* it's "an unchanging almost tangible essence, something to be recognised and described and captured (or embodied, to use what might be a better term) in every staging, however that staging chooses to present it." The opera's creator depends and is absolutely dependent upon his opera's producers, during and after his lifetime, to ensure precisely that. Any material change to the full spirit and sense of the opera creator's vision as made manifest in the score results invariably in another work altogether and always involves adding insult to injury by the necessity of the parasitic vandal having to hijack the opera creator's music and text to serve his (the vandal's) own "vision".

I don't want to be misunderstood here. Once an opera's copyright lapses and the work enters the public domain it's perfectly fair game for opera directors to make of and do with what they will. What they may NOT do, however, is call, bill, promote, or otherwise represent their new show as the original opera creator's show. To do so is to perpetrate a fraud; one that should be actionable at law.

The "Rat" _Lohengrin_ is not by any stretch or twisting of fact Wagner's _Lohengrin_. It is Hans Neuenfels's _Lohengrin_ with Wagner's music and text hijacked for use for its own purpose the show then fraudulently represented as a presentation of Wagner's _Lohengrin_.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> *Of course* the full spirit and sense of an opera
> creator's vision is made manifest in the opera's
> score (music, text, and stage directions). How
> could it not be? One would have to be willfully
> deaf and blind to not perceive it.

This is a fascinating subject, I think. Do you regard this full spirit and
sense as something which can be put into words? If so, would you be willing
to say what you think it is as far as Lohengrin is concerned?

This would help me enormously in understanding and appreciating your point
of view.

[A.C. Douglas]

A.C. Douglas wrote:

>I don't want to be misunderstood here. Once an opera's copyright lapses and
>the work enters the public domain it's perfectly fair game for opera
>directors to make of and do with what they will.

Words missing in the above. It should have read:

"I don't want to be misunderstood here. Once an opera's copyright lapses and the work enters the public domain it's perfectly fair game for opera directors to make of and do with what they will and the resulting new work judged on its own terms."

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[A.C. Douglas]

No, it can't be put into words. It's the *totality* of the score itself (music, text, and stage directions) as regards the staging. We are NOT here talking about a music-drama's "meaning" or "meanings" (all great music-dramas have any number of "meanings"). That's another matter and another subject.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> No, it can't be put into words.

Your reply reinforces my conviction that this "totality of the score itself"
is and has to be subjective. If you can't express in words what it is to
you, how can you possibly know that what you feel to be a work's spirit and
sense is the same as that perceived by anyone else, let alone everyone else?

But clearly this is a subject on which we shall have to agree to disagree.

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>Your reply reinforces my conviction that this "totality of the score
>itself" is and has to be subjective. If you can't express in words what it
>is to you, how can you possibly know that what you feel to be a work's
>spirit and sense is the same as that perceived by anyone else, let alone
>everyone else? But clearly this is a subject on which we shall have to
>agree to disagree.

Once again, and not to belabor this past the point of agreeing to disagree, my saying the full spirit and sense is "the totality of the score itself" refers to the opera's *staging*, NOT its "meaning(s)". There's very little subjective about that. I say it can't be put into words not because it couldn't be but because to do so would be a tedious, lengthy, and entirely
redundant exercise.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/'

[Bert Coules]

Since you now say that you could explain to me exactly what you mean but
choose not to do so, I'm afraid I have nothing further to add to this
discussion.

[wagnerfan]

What I look for in any stage production is for the director to
illuminate aspects of the characters I hadn't been aware of. HOWEVER
the director can't just slather on his own views (usually political)
that have nothing to do with the character motivations and feelings as
set forth by the composer. The sets mean little to me - Wieland threw
everything out and concentrated on the characters via lighting so the
argument that you have to follow the composers stage directions
literally is ridiculous since it doesn't matter if the props are
there or not. The big problem I have with the Lohengrin is I see
little of the character interaction and motivation as presented by
Wagner - its as if the director decided to present a drama that he
wanted and used the music as background - thats bec\ause interacting
with the music means little to current run of opera directors and more
often than not you are hearing beautiful romatic music while your eyes
are being assaulted by ugliness. Wagner Fan

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>Since you [ACD] now say that you could explain to me exactly what you mean

>but choose not to do so, I'm afraid I have nothing further to add to this
>discussion.

I *have* explained "exactly what [I] mean." You simply refuse to accept it.

Your prerogative.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Richard Partridge]

On 5/22/13 9:27 PM, A.C. Douglas, at acdo...@acdouglas.com, wrote the
following:

[snip]

>
> For exemplary example, Wieland's original post-war staging of the _Ring_ (of
> which I am a first-hand witness to the _Walküre_ of 1958) was anything but
> "faithful to Wagner's instructions", yet it was not only the most powerful
> staging of that work in my experience but the most true as well to the full
> spirit and sense of Wagner's idealized dramatic and theatrical vision as made
> manifest in the score. As I put it on S&F:
>
> === Begin Quote ===
> With Wieland taking his (unacknowledged) cue from the groundbreaking work of
> the brilliant Swiss theater theoretician Adolphe Appia, [Wieland's]
> production's almost total absence of stage furniture, its use of
> non-period-or-place-committal costumes, and the creative use of lighting to
> model and shape space and the characters who inhabit it, Wieland ‹ taking his
> grandfather at his word when in 1853 he declared that the yet unwritten music
> of the _Ring_ "shall sound in a way that people shall hear what they cannot
> see" ‹ created a neutral "frame" or "matrix" for the tetralogy, so to speak,
> that permitted the music itself, working in tandem with the text and the
> audience's own imagination, to fill in all the missing stage furniture as if
> it all were right in front of the audience's eyes. It was a brilliant stroke,
> a stroke of genius even, as it made manifest to the audience in the most
> intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the _Ring_
> while rendering Wieland's properly transparent.
> === End Quote ===
>

[snip]


I saw the "Ring" in Bayreuth exactly five years before that. I agree with
your comments about it. I have wondered, though, whether Wieland's
liberties paved the way (as in the thin end of the wedge) for the subsequent
atrocities we see everywhere today.


Dick Partridge

[Richard Partridge]

On 5/22/13 10:14 PM, Bert Coules, at ma...@bertcoules.co.uk, wrote the
following:

[snip]

>
> What I do have trouble in understanding is why this dislike of such stagings
> seems to be such a extreme thing with so many. I've seen avant garde
> productions I liked and avant garde productions I thought were terrible.
> The same is true of traditional stagings. In the negative cases I've
> shrugged, written off the expense (if there was any) as an unfortunate loss,
> taken what was positive from the whole thing and put the rest down to
> experience. I haven't railed against an entire theatrical movement: I
> simply can't see the point. Beyond letting off steam, I don't understand
> what you and others of the same mind think you can achieve. Theatrical
> fashion will change, as it always does, in its own sweet time, not yours.
>

I think it should not be hard to understand. We complain loudly because
something we loved -- Wagner's operas, staged in a way that he might have
recognized as his own work -- has been taken from us and thrown in the dust
bin. If there were still authentic performances of his operas somewhere in
the world, with occasional sets of DVD's from them, we would still criticize
Eurotrash when we see it but we would not fill this newsgroup with our
vociferous laments.

Imagine the art works of a painter you admire -- let's say Rembrandt. If
you saw all around you silly parodies and grotesque distortions of his
paintings, you might not like it but you wouldn't mind so much if there were
still a museum somewhere in the world where you could see the originals, and
buy reproductions of them. Now imagine that there is no such museum, and
that Rembrandt's works exist only as a memory. You can no longer see the
originals anywhere. For people who like Wagner's operas to be staged in a
form that is recognizable as what he called for, the world has been turned
into a desert -- worse, into a garbage dump.


Dick Partridge

[A.C. Douglas]

Richard Partridge wrote:

>I saw the "Ring" in Bayreuth exactly five years before that [i.e., 1953]. I
>agree with your [ACD's] comments about it. I have wondered, though, whether

>Wieland's liberties paved the way (as in the thin end of the wedge) for the
>subsequent atrocities we see everywhere today.

Oh, no question about it. I made note of that in a lengthy 2005 S&F entry (titled "Elegy") from which my previously quoted remarks on the Wieland staging were extracted. That very same 2005 S&F entry had as its impetus and principal subject the very point made by you in your above post to Bert Coules. For those interested, "Elegy" can be read at http://tinyurl.com/cf2jg.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Richard Partridge]

On 5/23/13 4:55 PM, A.C. Douglas, at acdo...@acdouglas.com, wrote the
following:

I followed your link and read "Elegy." I think it is excellent as an
appraisal of Wieland Wagner's work and as an outline of the history of
Eurotrash. I commend it to Bert's attention. It might help him understand
what we are bitching about.


Dick Partridge

[Bert Coules]

Richard Partridge wrote,

> I commend it to Bert's attention.

I shall read it.

> It might help him understand
> what we are bitching about.

Dick, I understand what you're compaining of. I just don't understand why
you're doing so at such frequency and with such vociferousness. You don't
care for the production style, fine: there are many things in the theatre
that I don't care for myself. But I don't feel the need to take every
conceiveable opportunity to say so in public.

[Bert Coules]

AC Douglas wrote:

> ..."Elegy" can be read at http://tinyurl.com/cf2jg.

It's an interesting piece. I've heard it said that Wieland's "New Bayreuth"
minimalism owed almost as much to the struggling finances of the revised
festival as to considerations artistic, though of course there was, as you
say, already a general theatrical trend in that direction. I believe that
some of Siegfried's last Bayreuth productions were influenced by Appia (and
possibly were even designed by him, but I can't remember for sure).

I'm less convinced (though I speak only on the evidence of reviews, videos
and stills) of the argument that Wieland's initial sympathetic stagings
gradually gave way to precursors of the kind of thing you so dislike. True,
there was the famous "Kiss Me Eva" Meistersinger, which as I understand it
subverted the basic premise of the opera in that Sachs was presented less as
a wise and sympathetic advocate of change than as an interfering old
busybody to whom nobody paid any attention, but that's the only relevant
instance I can remember hearing of.

I never saw a Wieland production live: his Parsifal was still being revived
when I first became interested in Wagner, but it was many years after that
that I managed to get to Bayreuth. One of my several Wagnerian regrets.

[A.C. Douglas]

Bert Coules wrote:

>AC Douglas wrote:
>
>> ..."Elegy" can be read at http://tinyurl.com/cf2jg.
>
>It's an interesting piece. I've heard it said that Wieland's "New Bayreuth"
>minimalism owed almost as much to the struggling finances of the revised
>festival as to considerations artistic, though of course there was, as you
>say, already a general theatrical trend in that direction. I believe that
>some of Siegfried's last Bayreuth productions were influenced by Appia (and
>possibly were even designed by him, but I can't remember for sure).

It's doubtful that any of Siegfried's Bayreuth productions were influenced by Appia and certainly were never designed by him. Years before, Cosima had put the official Wagner Nix on Appia and his ideas and Siegfried, as we know, was mama's dutiful son in all matters Wagner. As to the popular lack-of-finances explanation of Wieland's "New Bayreuth" stagings, lack of funds may have played a very small part at the very beginning but that was the extent of it. Wieland was a committed Modernist and those very stagings would have emerged had the festival been awash in filthy lucre.

>I'm less convinced (though I speak only on the evidence of reviews, videos
>and stills) of the argument that Wieland's initial sympathetic stagings
>gradually gave way to precursors of the kind of thing you so dislike.

Once the traditional mold of Bayreuth-style staging was broken so flagrantly and decisively, and broken by a Wagner, no less, the way was opened for all sorts of staging mischief the only restraint being aesthetic taste and a devotion to the idea that in opera, and most particularly in the case of Wagner, the composer is the work's creator and the director merely his and the work's servant.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Mike Scott Rohan]

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 12:12:26 AM UTC+1, Bert Coules wrote:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
>
>
>
> > I would have thought you'd prefer Wagner's.
>
>
>
> Mike, I know what you mean by that (or at least I think I do) and please
>
> believe me that I'm not arguing merely for the sake of arguing, but really,
>
> just what is Wagner's? A totally representational, historically-accurate
>
> pageant? A late nineteenth-century theatrical attempt to present such a
>
> pageant? A fairy story-cum-myth-cum-parable? A piece of work which
>
> embodies his own journey from the old to the new? An artistic endeavour
>
> which gives gainful employment to a couple of hundred people or so? An
>
> evening out for the rabid fan and the mildly curious alike? Four hours of
>
> elitist entertainment, scorned and misunderstood by most? "Wagner's"
>
> Lohengrin isn't any one thing.

Yes. it most certainly is -- a single work, conceived and executed by Wagner. It's as integral as a painting. Staging exists not to superimpose the producer's concepts, any more than the painting exists to be spray-painted or slashed to ribbons and reassembled. Staging exists to provide that painting with a suitable place to be seen, and perhaps also a suitable frame -- although there's a strong argument with Wagner that the frame also is outlined, and a production needs to fit those outlines, or at least be reconcilable with them.

>
> I'd argue that all the essential, core elements of the work are present in
>
> that production.

If that's the case, I'm unable to see them for the producer's own barrage of irrelevant images. And that is surely a definition of failure.

>
> And I enjoyed act three, the odd excess apart.
>

But if you accept any of this, how can you possibly complain about the "odd excess"? The excess's reason for being there is exactly the same as the points you profess to admire, namely the producer's will imposed on Wagner's. If one example of this is justified, all must be, and what you call an excess represent a failure of your judgement in setting itself against his. You can only have one or the other.

I cannot believe in this reading for a moment, not even as a mistake in good faith. This is because Neuenfels invariably and monotonously superimposes wildly irrelevant distortions to every opera he stages, usually involving sex, brutality and the like, to the point of obsession. His Seraglio, among many other unpleasantnesses, turned Pasha Selim into a dirty-mac'd knife-wielding pervert, who interrupted the final music for a deconstructist discourse. His Fledermaus involved drug abuse and incest, to a point where even "progressive" critics baulked. So I don't feel there's any actual response to Lohengrin here; it's just a spray-can called Neunfels scribbling random outlines on the painting. And if I don't believe any argument to the contrary is possible, well, that's no more than Neunfels demands.

Mike

[Bert Coules]

Mike Scott Rohan wrote:

>> "Wagner's" Lohengrin isn't any one thing.
>
> Yes. it most certainly is -- a single work, conceived
> and executed by Wagner.

As an object for study, perhaps. As a work of art intended for performance,
no it isn't. Opera is a collaborative medium and any individual opera
requires the input of a great number of people to make it live. I wouldn't
argue, of course, that the score/text/directions aren't the most central,
most essential element, but try putting a copy of the score on a stage in
front of an audience and see what sort of artistic experience results.

> It's as integral as a painting.

No, there's a fundamental difference. A painting, once painted, is complete
and final. An opera, like a play, never is and shouldn't be: the process of
bringing of it to life - to existence, in the fullest sense - is as vital a
part of the whole as are the words and the notes.

[Bert Coules]

I wrote:

> try putting a copy of the score on a stage in front of an audience and see
> what sort of
> artistic experience results.

It's just occurred to me, reading that back, that it's one form of
deconstructionist staging that I don't believe anyone's yet thought of.
Inviting the audience to sit in (relative) silence for five hours simply
looking at the closed score of G�tterd�mmerung on an otherwise empty stage
while *imagining* the performance - I reckon that could be the answer to any
cash-strapped opera house's problems.

And I wouldn't mind betting that if you did it, some people would actually
be willing to buy tickets for the experience.

I herewith lay claim to the copyright in the idea.

[Mike Scott Rohan]

On Monday, May 27, 2013 1:42:23 AM UTC+1, Bert Coules wrote:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
>
>
>
> >> "Wagner's" Lohengrin isn't any one thing.
>
> >
>
> > Yes. it most certainly is -- a single work, conceived
>
> > and executed by Wagner.
>
>
>
> As an object for study, perhaps. As a work of art intended for performance,
>
> no it isn't. Opera is a collaborative medium and any individual opera
>
> requires the input of a great number of people to make it live. I wouldn't
>
> argue, of course, that the score/text/directions aren't the most central,
>
> most essential element, but try putting a copy of the score on a stage in
>
> front of an audience and see what sort of artistic experience results.

Opera is collaborative only to the extent of fulfilling what the score sets out -- otherwise, why have a score? Why not assemble the music randomly? But there was never any composer less random than Wagner. The score point is, I'm afraid, not valid. The score is not complete without interpretation -- but what would you think of the interpretation if the conductor took the equivalent liberty to the producer? It would be a ridiculous jumble.

>
>
>
> > It's as integral as a painting.
>
>
>
> No, there's a fundamental difference. A painting, once painted, is complete
>
> and final. An opera, like a play, never is and shouldn't be: the process of
>
> bringing of it to life - to existence, in the fullest sense - is as vital a
>
> part of the whole as are the words and the notes.

The key concept here is "bringing it to life". That means awakening the life within it; it does not mean plastering all kinds of other life on top of it.

Bert, you are by profession an adapter and a very capable one. I write this having just discovered the most magnificent TV adaptation of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Over the years I must have seen about twenty such, in all sorts of forms from straight stage to comic strip to opera and of course film -- and while art, acting, music, dramaturgy etc were important, the most important single ingredient that defined how well they worked was this -- how close they stuck to Bulgakov. Did you see the adaptation of Day of the Triffids on TV a couple of years back? It rewrote the plot and the characters, adding a father for the protagonist who was also the developer of the triffids, and a silly race-to-the-solution plot, straight out of the cheapest Hollywood fright movie, which wholly ruined Wyndham's realistic eco-point and the slowness of the fight back. When I protested, I was greeted with a sneer -- didn't I know an adaptation was supposed to be different? Not, I retorted, to the point where it travestied the original, or it should not try to ride on the back of a greater work. Pinter took the same line when a stellar Italian producer spiced up one of his plays with explicit lesbian scenes, "to make it less boring" (it certainly brought a new meaning to his pauses...) Pinter chose not to give this man such leeway -- and who has the right to judge, better than Pinter? So we can ask ourselves if there's evidence Wagner would have objected likewise; and yes, there certainly is!

And, how would you feel if Neuenfels took one of your Holmes adaptations, chopped it about randomly, changed the characters arbitrarily to make Holmes a gratuitous paedophile and Watson a drooling idiot, and all the other protagonists as, yes, rats? What would remain of you in the process, and what of Conan Doyle? Would you be pleased, if your work and care were rendered meaningless in that arbitrary fashion?

If Neuenfels were so sodding brilliant, wouldn't he be creating something of his own, instead of slathering crap over someone else's? Yet what he is, everything he does, requires another work to be defaced. Without that process he has nothing to offer. Doesn't that demonstrate his essential emptiness?

Mike

[Bert Coules]

Mike,

Those are excellent arguments which deserve more thought than I can give
them just at the moment. But I will pick up on one point:

> If Neuenfels were so sodding brilliant...

You say that as if I'd argued that he is. I certainly haven't. By no
stretch of the imagination would I describe that Lohengrin (the only
production of his that I've seen, as far as I recall) as a work of
brilliance. I found it interesting and (for the most part) enjoyable. I
also thought it very well executed. It was, if I can reuse the slightly
underwhelming term you used of me, competent.

It's possible, surely, to find enjoyment in a production without
whole-heartedly admiring every aspect of it? Or perhaps even in any aspect
of it? It saddens me slightly that opponents of the whole avant garde allow
that opposition to stop them finding anything positive at all in the
results.

But more later. Thanks for your reply.

[Bert Coules]

Damn.

"...opponents of the whole avant garde *approach*"

Sorry about that.

[A.C. Douglas]

A Metaphor For Eurotrash (i.e., Konzept) Regietheater

http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2011/07/a-metaphor-for-a-metaphor-or-tit-for-tat.html

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/

[Mike Scott Rohan]

On Monday, May 27, 2013 11:08:28 AM UTC+1, Bert Coules wrote:
(snip)

>
> It's possible, surely, to find enjoyment in a production without
>
> whole-heartedly admiring every aspect of it? Or perhaps even in any aspect
>
> of it? It saddens me slightly that opponents of the whole avant garde allow
>
> that opposition to stop them finding anything positive at all in the
>
> results.
>
> But more later. Thanks for your reply.

Bert, perhaps it is saddening. But the reason may lie in the term "avant garde approach" -- the fact that it is so easily definable suggests that it is somewhat narrow and formulaic, as in fact it tends to be. We can lump together the various producers who produce this kind of thing, because they have so much in common -- to the point of being fairly predictable. It isn't hard to dream up your own productions in this vein. Hence the weary groans when the Gibichungs are once again Bright Young Things of 30s dress and incestuous propensities, or, as happened throughout the 1980s, Wotan turned up in Wagner's dressing gown. I personally find them much easier to imagine than their werktreu equivalents, precisely because you can shape the interpretation to your convenience. That it itself suggests something is wrong; to be genuinely profound it surely shouldn't be so much easier. That suggests one is at best being glib.

But I think the opposition is not demanding merely literal stagings, but ones which don't deform the work. I've recently acquired the Maryinsky's new DVD of Verdi's Attila, a staunchly trad staging -- and very dull it is, far more so than Opera North's staging, which cast the Huns as Hell's Angels and featured Karen Huffstodt concluding her grand coloratura run by kicking John Tomlinson in the goolies. That staging worked admirably, because, though hardly the original, it did no violence to the concept, atmosphere, characters and relationships. Likewise, I've long imagined, in some detail, a Lohengrin staging which would not be the original; it would involve substantial updating, for example. Yet it would fit, in a way Neuenfels doesn't even try to, the characters, the atmosphere, their relationships. The medievalism would be there, yet be of Wagner's kind rather than the original. Most people can live with that sort of rethinking, because it does no violence to the work.

Cheers,

Mike

[chris.c...@worldspan.com]

I think we went through this here a year or so ago. With the possible exception of the Seattle Ring (which is being retired this summer) there do not appear to be any Ring productions worldwide that Wager would recognize, but there are certainly traditional productions of some of his other works still being revived from time to time. The New Orleans Dutchman production comes readily to mind. It's one of the most revived, best traveled productions in North America. Maybe ever.

I *think* that is the production Delavan and Indra Thomas will be on in Princeton later this month.

And unless it's been replaced by something else, I think the Met production is more-or-less traditional. Certainly their production of TANNHAUSER I caught in the mid-1990s was traditional, but I assume that's since been retired. Ditto the Covent Garden MEISTERSINGER.

[Peter]

I think we went through this here a year or so ago. With the possible
exception of the Seattle Ring (which is being retired this summer) there do

not appear to be any Ring productions worldwide that Wager would recognize.
. .

Although I believe that the money for the "Machine" was wasted, I do believe
that the Met's LePage Ring would indeed be recognized by Wagner, and I am
indeed very grateful that the Met did not produce a "Eurotrash" Ring.

[Richard Partridge]

On 6/3/13 10:38 PM, Peter, at reply to newsgroup only, wrote the following:

Unless there is a palace revolt against Peter Gelb, I fully expect that the
next "Ring" production at the Met will be Eurotrash, and the sooner the
better as far as I'm concerned. I think we have to hit rock bottom, and hit
it hard, before the old-fashioned stagings will start to look attractive
again.


Dick Partridge

[chris.c...@worldspan.com]

If by eurotrash you mean akin to the new RIGOLETTO and PARSIFAL productions, you will probably be correct. If you mean something akin to the LA "Star Wars" RING, or the Munich RIGOLETTO, I doubt it. The Met can't mount a new RING without a LOT of doner money, and I suspect that cash has a lot of conservative strings attached to it.

[Richard Partridge]

On 6/11/13 1:39 PM, chris.c...@worldspan.com, at
chris.c...@worldspan.com, wrote the following:

I wouldn't count on conservative strings. Why would you expect the rich
donors to be more conservative than Peter Gelb himself?

Moreover, the Met is quite capable of taking money with conservative strings
and then ignoring the strings. There was a lawsuit about that about 25
years ago. Some rich Texans had put conservative strings on their gift; the
Met took the money and proceeded to ignore the strings. The donors sued to
get their money back. Guess which side the New York press supported. The
Met, of course. How dare those ignorant rednecks in Texas interpose their
artistic judgment over that of the New York Metropolitan Opera?


Dick Partridge