A Tale of Two Operas

So last time we were down in Glasgow we went to see Flight which is a very recent opera, composed in 1998 by Johnathan Dove, a commission for Glyndebourne apparently (that's what Mr Google tells me anyway) We don't normally go to recently-written operas because we have this almost unshakeable belief that they will be harsh, dissonant and generally not to our taste. So I'm not sure why we went to see Flight except perhaps because we were in Glasgow anyway and it was on, and I certainly bought rather cheaper seats than we would normally have because why pay a lot of money for something you will probably not enjoy, eh? 

As it happened we got our seats upgraded because one of the characters in the opera spends most of her time singing on a gantry and is only visible from the waist down in the seats we bought, so we probably ended up more or less where we would have normally been anyway. 

And if you ever get a chance to see it, grab it with both hands. It was wonderful. It's based on the true story of a refugee who lived in an airport - there was a film as well at one stage, with someone famous who I find tedious - Tom Hanks perhaps? or Kevin Kline? The music is very tuneful, the main part is written for a counter tenor, which is something you don't come across every day, and its a very moving and engaging piece about the horrors people endure to escape from even worse things, and how the comfortable people, who don't live with horror every day, treat them. The SO production was really good and got rave reviews, even the one during the bad weather where the orchestra couldn't make it and so had to be performed to a piano only accompaniment. Talk about the show must go on! An heroic effort by the pianist. 

Meanwhile in another part of the operatic universe Covent Garden was staging a 'provocative' production of Carmen by Australian enfant terrible Barrie Kosky. In an attempt to make the story 'universal' - why? there were apparently aspects of 19th century Paris, 1930s Buenos Aires and between-the-wars Berlin included in it.  This led to Captain Morales attempting a soft shoe shuffle to some of the soldier's music in Act 1. It didn't fit. The set was a large and perilously steep staircase which took up about 80% of the stage. It possibly seemed like an inspiration at first but it really wasn't. I've said before on this blog that I don't expect a facsimile of Seville when the curtain goes up on Carmen, but just a staircase seemed  reductionist in the extreme. In the bit we didn't see, Carmen was standing at the bottom of this with a cloak which folded over every step right the way up to the top. Must have been an absolute pig to arrange. We know this because there was some introductory waffle before the performance started, and there were several shots of this cloak which seems to me on the surface to be a Very Bad Idea Indeed.  but it may not have been, I can't obviously say because we'd left before it made its official appearance. Carmen made her first entrance on this staircase -  in a gorilla suit. Don't ask me why. I have absolutely no idea. She took the head off before she started singing but it as quite a long time before she got rid of the rest of it. A disturbing image.  As previously reported we made it through to the interval after which the OH declared it wasn't Carmen and he couldn't face any more of it and could we please go home. So we did. 

Here's the thing. I have no objection in principle to updating opera, or twiddling about with it or setting it in a time or a pace that were unknown to the original composer. If it ends up saying something new about the piece, or enhancing the audience's understanding or appreciation of character, plot, music, anything, why not? But, and it's big but, if all it does is display a few random ideas that have popped into the director's head and which he thinks show off his learning or imagination and serve no other purpose, then the question, contrariwise, is why? It can work. Johnathan Miller's Mafia Rigoletto did, for example, because it gave modern audiences a way in to the atmosphere and mores of the circle round the Duke in a way which saying 'Set in the court of the Duke of Mantua' doesn't. And that's good. But just because a director has an  idea, it doesn't mean its a good idea. And in addition to that there was an awful lot of previously unused or not generally performed music dragged up for use in this version. Stuff Bizet threw  away before the disastrous first performance.Stuff he threw away after it. Stuff he replaced with other stuff as time went on. I always think there's generally a good reason for discarded material having been discarded, and that's because its not very good. So bringing it back isn't necessarily the wisest of moves.  

I love Carmen. Sadly I've never seen a completely satisfying production of it, but I live in hope.