Sunday, June 13, 2010
See Before Judging
Uh, if you think the SFO Ring is Eurotrash, try following the parterre.com Name-the-Regie-Opera series more closely. One-word summations - well, I'm more interested in detailed examinations of why a production works or doesn't. Hard to judge that without seeing the production in person, too. I had no idea how I would feel about the Freyer Ring before I saw the Goetterdaemmerung.
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15 comments:
It was nice to see my boy Schreker's Die Gezeichneten was one of the quizzes, the Graham Vick production from Palermo. Kinda different from the LAO production, wouldn't you agree? :-)
Haha, yeah.
As you know, I am not a fan of Zambello's approach to this work, but I'm even less impressed with blogs that don't allow comments, especially when the writer is blatantly ignorant of which he or she is writing about and has no first-hand knowledge of a production or concert. Zambello's production may have been better if it was Regie or Eurotrash, which it most certainly is not.
Equally tiresome is all the carping about Freyer's Ring from people who haven't seen a single part it.
No comments, the royal "we" and a willingness to condemn productions he has never seen are ACD's stock in trade. ;-)
I actually enjoy the use of the royal "we" but grew weary of the pontificating and rarely visit S&F anymore.
However, it does appear that he (or she) is right in this case about Zambello's production being Eurotrash and in fact it appears Zambello has indulged in a bit of artistic plagarism.
I wouldn't watch this clip at work and you will undoubtedly find it a sexist and crass way to sell washing machines, but it looks like Zambello's concept for the Valkyries was aham, borrowed from here:
http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf
Warning- does contain nudity, and quite a bit of it.
By the way, I did see that clip for the first time on S&F last summer and suggested at the time we incorporate this theme into the "American Ring." Do you think I can sue SFO for taking my suggestion without recompense?
http://abeastinajungle.blogspot.com/2009/07/scrap-ring-right-now.html
You do realize that this production of Walkuere played at Washington National Opera a couple of years before that commercial was made, right?
NSFW has a different meaning depending on where you work. And also my office mate is an opera fan.
I do not think the use of the term Eurotrash adds a thing to discussing the production at hand. Specific criticisms and comments are way more interesting and useful.
Yes, we were aware of that but we are unaware of the creation date of the advert.
Re "Eurotrash" I agree, and would go one step further and suggest the term really means nothing at this point. Its deliberate usage is like reading the words "liberal media" or "liberal elite," knowing the author is just parroting ideas received from elsewhere.
The ad made the rounds about 18 months ago and probably dates from 2008 or early 2009. WNO had the Walkuere production in 2007, and the designs would have been done at least a year before that. Tim Page's review is here, and he thinks "Apocalypse Now" was the source of the imagery.
In response to my post on Sounds & Fury titled, "SFO's New Die Walküre",
John Marcher wrote: As you know, I am not a fan of Zambello's approach to this work, but I'm even less impressed with blogs that don't allow comments, especially when the writer is blatantly ignorant of which he or she is writing about and has no first-hand knowledge of a production or concert. Zambello's production may have been better if it was Regie or Eurotrash, which it most certainly is not.
To which Lisa Hirsch responded: No comments, the royal "we" and a willingness to condemn productions he has never seen are ACD's stock in trade. ;-)
As should have been manifestly clear to you after all these years, Lisa, the "we" I use on S&F is NOT the royal "we", but the editorial "we". I trust you're not unfamiliar with the use of that perfectly respectable latter form (of course you're not). And as to the lack of a comments section on S&F's posts, John, S&F is for the expression of my thoughts and opinions, NOT the thoughts and opinions of others. If you want to express your opinion of anything written on S&F, and want to do so publicly, start your own blog. It costs nothing, and can be set up in less time than it takes to write a comment on someone else's blog.
John Marcher wrote: I actually enjoy the use of the royal "we" but grew weary of the pontificating and rarely visit S&F anymore. [...] Re "Eurotrash" I agree, and would go one step further and suggest the term really means nothing at this point. Its deliberate usage is like reading the words "liberal media" or "liberal elite," knowing the author is just parroting ideas received from elsewhere.
Had you not "gr[own] weary" of visiting S&F, John, you would have known that as recently as 20 April of this year, I made very specific exactly what I mean when I use the terms "Regietheater" and "Eurotrash Regietheater " (or, for the latter, simply "Eurotrash" for short).
Here. I'll repeat it for you verbatim (the full post can be read here).
"Here on S&F over the six-some years of its existence (and for some two years prior to that on a predecessor blog), our objections to Regietheater have been something of an idée fixe, most especially as it concerns the staging of Wagner's music-dramas. In our various sorties, we haven't always made clear enough that our objections are lodged not against Regietheater per se, but against Eurotrash Regietheater, which is to say, deconstructionist Regietheater — Regietheater that instead of working to realize in the most dramatically, aesthetically, and theatrically vivid and compelling way possible the Konzept of the creator of the opera, works instead to realize the opera director's own Konzept of the work to hand, or, infinitely worse and more corrupt, an opera director's own Konzept that is, at bottom, a commentary on the work to hand. These are the very definition of what it means to be Eurotrash."
ACD
Shrug. The editorial "we" makes sense if you're Bill Keller or Andrew Rosenthal. On a group blog, speaking for a group, it makes sense. For a solo blogger, not so much.
The business about comments? The vast majority of culture bloggers have comments enabled and welcome comments. Discussions are easier to have with fewer links and back & forth from site to site.
As far as your lecture to John goes, you must have missed my Walkuere media roundup and the link in the sidebar to A Beast in a Jungle, where he's been blogging for some time.
An "editorial we" makes sense when one is speaking on behalf of an organization composed of more than than one person, otherwise it's just pretentious.
The business about comments?
The real reason ACDC doesn't have comments, of course, is that he knows 95% or more of them would be negative.
The "we" thing reminds me of athletes/entertainers who speak in the third person, i.e. "Henry Holland finds it amusing that anyone gives a damn what ACDC thinks".
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