tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post409790137513690521..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: Visceral theatre, bloodless operaDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-16559109445699169342013-03-29T13:29:11.388+00:002013-03-29T13:29:11.388+00:00Greetings, all, and apologies for mostly unadverti...Greetings, all, and apologies for mostly unadvertised silence - now reeling from the wonders of Palermo and the Madonie mountains.<br /><br />Bruce - I'm sure it's politic for Colin to let me know what you (both) think about WoS when you see it in Vienna...<br /><br />Sue - What a wonderful (musical) world where you and I can both experience what I'm sure will turn out to be a masterpiece in two different places a couple of weeks apart. Roll on the recording.<br /><br />Sophie - Well, I can't say we sweltered; mostly it was pleasant spring weather in Sicily, sun and brilliant blue skies, tho' with one day of humidity (sirocco they said) and one day of 'horrific winds and rain' - as the godson once said aged five - when we arrived in the mountains. Now we freeze back in Blighty. Glad all your fashion efforts and brushes with the Aussies went well.<br /><br />Buona Pasqua a tutti if I don't get round to writing here in the next couple of days.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-58238965336688099152013-03-29T00:59:35.440+00:002013-03-29T00:59:35.440+00:00GOSH!
is all I can say to the incomparable energy ...GOSH!<br />is all I can say to the incomparable energy of my favourite culture-vulture. You are amazing. Need to lie down under a fan. 37 degrees C here in my bedroom.<br />Big kiss from Djenne Toubabnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-46145530987475512772013-03-28T04:41:03.141+00:002013-03-28T04:41:03.141+00:00Tonight was my turn to see and hear Adams' The...Tonight was my turn to see and hear Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Your Arts Desk review captures my experience the best of any I've read. Astonishing, transcendent, one for the ages.Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-43116435745063631422013-03-24T15:34:55.840+00:002013-03-24T15:34:55.840+00:00Hi David - I'd best refrain from commenting on...Hi David - I'd best refrain from commenting on WOS due to (a) having totally failed to see it yet (though planning to do so Vienna or Munich this summer) and (b) working as I do for the publisher. Also (c) being a bit numb to opera, in general, said condition having "set in" about five years ago. Doctors despair and tell me there's nothing I can do except let it take its course. B.t.w. yes "nodge" is about as close as you can get using Anglo sounds and it is a very common word and name both, translating as "big". So he's "Mr Big" then.Bruce MacRaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13119752935302884140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-61916636984393049182013-03-21T01:50:34.264+00:002013-03-21T01:50:34.264+00:00Interesting--I was thinking heart, not head, but I...Interesting--I was thinking heart, not head, but I think you are likely right. I'm influenced here by his admiration for Radiohead, which I thought must be heart over head. Showing my trousers rolled, here, but Radiohead does nothing for me, heart or head. Nice to have a documentary on Adams. It looked as if it was very well done.Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-70128950753528104032013-03-20T08:32:27.620+00:002013-03-20T08:32:27.620+00:00Last night three of us watched the new Adams docum...Last night three of us watched the new Adams documentary screened on BBC 4 (someone made me a DVD, but I think it's on iPlayer for a while). It mostly lets him talk, and everything he says, especially about opera and not being afraid to be eclectic in a large-scale work, is a kind of manual for what Benjamin shouldn't have done.<br /><br />Everyone liked our John, though he comes over very seriously, when we know he can be playful in conversation as well as in his music. Sure, it was a beginner's guide, but with lots of lovely nature footage and photos by Debbie O'Grady, the soulmate. Made by a colleague on The Arts Desk, Mark Kidel.<br /><br />I mistrust AR on quite a few things, eloquently as he writes, and this is one of them. Head not heart?<br /><br />I was thinking that about Nagy too, of course. I like its slightly comical (to us) sound, 'Nodge': is that how David pronounces it?Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-4198184285969677862013-03-20T03:23:23.079+00:002013-03-20T03:23:23.079+00:00Given past exchanges we've had, particularly, ...Given past exchanges we've had, particularly, I was enormously struck by this in your colleague's review: "Fear pervaded this first attempt at a full-scale opera from Benjamin. Fear of realism. Fear of the audience. Fear of quotation. Fear of modern opera's ability to sustain interest." Makes me think a bit of Ades' The Tempest, in fact.The Edu-Mate & I were listening tonight to El NiƱo, and both struck repeatedly by its beauty. Adams is neither afraid nor ashamed of beauty, is he? And yet, time after time, he extends himself to create something truly new. Interesting, too, that Alex Ross had such a different reaction to Written on the Skin (I've now read his review, which glows). <br /><br />As for the rest of your jam-packed post, I am breathless just reading it. I don't know how you're able to take it all in and on top of that comment cogently on each thing you saw!<br /><br />A little side note: it seems Nagy must be a common Hungarian name. And a common name for talented folk, judging from reports your way and mine, eh?Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-19054694762959674582013-03-19T17:24:04.258+00:002013-03-19T17:24:04.258+00:00Good to hear from you, Piala, and again, I agree w...Good to hear from you, Piala, and again, I agree with every well-argued point. I, too, couldn't have cared less by the time of the heart-eating. And I, too, think that the best way to deal with horrific times is to show how humanity coped, even - for goodness' sake - with a bit of humour. Which neither Crimp nor Benjamin seem to possess. <br /><br />'You're a woman: speak up, but it's dangerous, and you will be killed': brilliant.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-7638152642709163272013-03-19T17:07:59.729+00:002013-03-19T17:07:59.729+00:00Hi David,
I totally agree about "Written on ...Hi David,<br /><br />I totally agree about "Written on Skin" - it was such a pointless empty experience for me, and had nothing to say. If anything, during it, when I was longing for it to end, all I could think of was how at least Chaucer had more humanity and understanding of people's aggressions and folly in a dictatorial age: with his gift of seeing how life survives with humour and wit - and so heroines escape, and (even if with great difficulty) do not die; and the men have lessons to learn which hit you to the very heart. Or, there was even that TV episode of Cadfael once I saw which came to mind, "The Rose Rent" where the woman (of similar class) takes on the men of the community vying to possess her - and her wealth - staves off the threat of violence, goes with the man of her own final (quiet)choice - and wins. So, for an audience with free and ample modern access to these stories (from the simple to the richly poetic - in fact I was even thinking how what if the poorest community in an African dictator state saw this? how would they respond? - they'd might ask, "where are all the other women who the wife would most certainly know?) what exactly are Crimp and Benjamin's claims then to be writing a modern opera? From a land of no rights, and where the predator holds sway (eg: as in the opera, with even babies on sticks) presented to a land of mixed complexities...in fact, by the time Agnes is eating the heart, I couldn't care less because her husband was so stock vilain to me, nothing now was unbelievable, as the dramatic buid-up had all been used up, and now had no power to turn. It had that yukky bourgeoise thing of a stage, pantomine-like bloodless "murder" too - where if you really want to show proper, real violence - then it's horrible, and the blood doesn't stop. So if you don't want to show it maybe come in after covered in a lot of blood? it can be really chilling and effective (ie, eg, Shakespeare!!) <br /><br />I agree with you, that I don't think such effort could have been put into a dry and dead-end story like this unless it had given to its makers a kind of enjoyment. So, HELP - if this is the kind of thing which is being supported today, I'm at a loss. The music was neat - but uninspiring - at a deep and fundamental level I felt both it and opera just failed. As a woman, I'd also like to know what to take away from it - bad dreams the night after, for a start - of the numb and disassociated kind; and it's certainly not feminist even in very the least - that is really upping the pretentious scale to the super-highway and beyond. What it said to me was, "You're a woman: speak up, but it's dangerous, and you will be killed". And maybe that's also fear of each of the makers'own feminine SELF? I thought. I'd argue a lot of composers might have confused a plea for modernism with somehow a new inner fear of the "feminine": or, blokes who just haven't thought outside the box,ever - when it's the artists who DO who have actually something interesting, modern, and modernist,to say. <br />Opera I know,, relies on high emotional drama, but finding out how to do it and be modern is the big big gauntlet. Even when Benjamin, interviewed, said how everything else had to go and he could only focus on this opera for two and a half years: it's like, well done luv, and WELCOME to the profession. Hard work inn'it? And how it takes a good few tries even after that to get it right.Pialanoreply@blogger.com