[soc.motss] Re: more evidence Wagner is bad for yer health / CBC
Gary Robert Kelly
From: Nick Fitch <Nick.TAKET...@btopenworldANDTHIS.com>
Newsgroups: soc.motss
In article <c60pjo$mhr$1...@panix5.panix.com>, co...@panix.com says...
> I'm sure this is going to get me castigated as an unimaginative old
> fart, but get really tired really fast of these "updated' productions
> of "old" operas (and plays, for that matter). I suppose the idea is
> that a modern audience will have a better appreciation for the story
> if it's presented in a context that they're familiar with, but the
> fact is that at the end of the day the text is still the text, and
> most of the time what the characters are actually singing and saying
> makes no sense against the context in which they're saying it.
In opera, what they're singing makes no more sense than the plot
regardless of what they wear while they're doing it.
However, I do think there should be a moratorium on jazzed-up Wagner. If
you're going to spend large amounts of money and lose several hours of
your life waiting for the odd memorable tune between long periods of
gods shouting at each other, then it should at least have plenty of big
women with spikey helmets. And they should be HUGE.
I was given a spare box ticket to see Carmen at the ENO once, many years
ago, and I was bored to tears with it all. But then, several years
later, I chanced to be channel-hopping one evening and came across a
live performance of the Ring cycle on the BBC. It was from some big posh
opera house. Somewhere foreign. La Scala, possibly, or that one that
does lots of Wagner. What is it? Beruit, or Baywatch, or something like
that. Anyway, as I tuned in, this short, puffy middle-aged chap in a
pair of leggings and a balsa-wood sword was apparently having a nervous
breakdown. I could tell he was having a breakdown because he was talking
to an invisible bird. That's generally a good indication of mental
infirmity. Another good indication was the way he wore this continuous
expression of extreme startlement -- as though someone had just stuck a
finger up his bottom. And the way he repeatedly cocked his hand to his
ear while singing to Harvey the Bird something which the subtitles
helpfully translated as something along the lines of "What's this you
say? There's a stunningly beautiful young maiden over there in full
armour asleep in the middle of a bonfire? I love you, little bird!"
Now at this point, I would have had fat-boy gently led away, but to my
dawning delight I began to realise that this was not, in fact, a lunatic
bank manager with high cholesterol, but the legendary 17 year old boy-
hero, Siegfried. So I watched enraptured as Segfried very carefully, and
very, very slowly -- sweating visibly from the exertion of it all --
bounded up a short flight of closely spaced stairs and rescued the fair
Brunhilde from her enchanted sleep.
I was not disappointed. Brunhilde was fucking ENORMOUS. She rubbed her
knuckles over her eyes and yawned theatrically in a way I hadn't seen
since I watched a documentary on the very first days of holywood -- when
heroines had to make certain the audience were fully aware they'd just
woken up -- and assumed the bottom-poked look of astonishment. Then she
stood up and it all became sublime, since she was at least 6" taller
than he was. And then they started singing about undying love and she
made sure the audience knew she was a youthful maiden, despite all
appearances, by skipping about a lot and causing the stage to vibrate.
And all the while I was watching them and wondering how the hell they
were ever going to consummate this undying love, since unless Siegfried
was a hell of a lot better hung than he looked the mutual curvature
would make a natural mating as problematic as for domestic turkeys.
Perhaps, like turkeys, a farmer and some sort of syringe was involved.
Well, I tell you, by the time fat-boy got foully done in I was sitting
there crying with laughter. The only way it could have been any funnier
was if the leading roles were played by Kenneth Williams and Hattie
Jacques. Or possibly Elmer and Bugs.
And that's when I decided that all opera should be like this. I don't
care what the plot is: effite Viennese wankers banging on about beer and
hats; consumptive courtesans throwing themselves off parapets; gypsy
trollops or men pretending to be other womens' husbands and falling over
their long-lost brothers. Every opera should have at least one gigantic
woman in a spikey helmet singing something, anything, "Yes We Have No
Bananas" even, and being set on fire at the end.
It's the only thing that makes the genre bearable.
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Newsgroups: soc.motss
Nick Fitch <Nick.TAKET...@btopenworldANDTHIS.com> writes:
>I've always felt that the only proper audience reaction to the
>Brunhilde's Immolation showstopper is to slowly wave their pocket
>lighters in the air while swaying from side to side.
>
>Would it be too much to hope that this cutting edge production ended
>with flamethrowers and napalm? Fat ladies contain a lot of combustible
>material and she ought to have gone up quite nicely with a bit of help.
It's not over till the fat lady's singed?