"Nazi-themed Wagner opera cancelled in Dusseldorf"

greg lee

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May 9, 2013, 5:57:47 AM5/9/13

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22461400

A.C. Douglas

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May 9, 2013, 6:18:00 AM5/9/13

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Howls of indignation could be heard emanating from the champions of and cheerleaders for Eurotrash (i.e., Konzept) Regietheater at the decision by Deutsche Oper am Rhein to cancel its new Burkhard C. Kosminski Nazi-themed staging of Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ because of angered objections by certain segments of the opera-going public. "Deutsche Oper Am Rhein capitulates to morons who never even saw the production," sputtered one prominent Eurotrash champion, a card-carrying member of the "progressive" crowd whose members champion The New in opera stagings provided, of course, that those new stagings bear no resemblance to or have any connection with anything the opera's creator could have had in mind.

Well, as one doesn't have to actually eat a rotten egg to judge it rotten, one doesn't have to actually see a Eurotrash staging of a canonical opera to know it's Eurotrash and therefore self-indulgent, self-serving crap no matter how well executed. A descriptive sentence or ten describing the physical staging is, in most cases, all that's required to make that determination.

And so it is in this case.

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

A.C. Douglas

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May 9, 2013, 7:21:44 AM5/9/13

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A.C. Douglas wrote:

>...a card-carrying member of the "progressive" crowd whose members champion
>The New in opera stagings provided, of course....

Words missing in the above. It should have read:

"...a card-carrying member of the "progressive" crowd whose members champion The New in opera stagings of canonical operas provided, of course....

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

Mike Scott Rohan

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May 9, 2013, 6:00:47 PM5/9/13

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It seems to deserve any amount of mouth-foaming, this affair -- not only ridiculous and distorting, but grossly offensive. And to what end? Not the service of the work, since it runs so squarely against its various themes. Not Wagner, whom it equally misrepresents. Not the audience, which hardly needs reminding about concentration camps, and can only be misled by the association. Only the theatre, desperate to attract attention, and the producer, likewise, stand to benefit in any way. The scandal is not that it has been taken off, but that it was ever allowed to see the stage.

Cheers,

Mike

@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude

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May 9, 2013, 8:02:37 PM5/9/13

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Mike Scott Rohan schreef op 10-5-2013 het volgende:

Who knows, Mike, we may be the witnesses of the return of common sense
on the opera stage... Not that I am that hopeful, but who knows...

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

Giuseppe Sottotetti

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May 11, 2013, 11:43:44 AM5/11/13

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Il 10/05/2013 02:02, Herman van der Woude ha scritto:
> Not that I am that hopeful, but who knows...

We must wait for the moment someone will try to get the headlines with a
traditional performance.

--
Giuseppe Sottotetti
gso...@alice.it
giuseppe....@fastwebnet.it
http://SottotettiGiuseppe.ilcannocchiale.it/
http://betasom.blogspot.com/