Tarzan with genius soundtrack Les Pêcheurs de Perles rare film

Georges Bizet Les Pêcheurs de Perles - a rare film version made for French TV in 1960.  Pearlfishers is notoriously difficult to stage because it's fantasy so exotic that it's hard to capture in believable visual images. Although it's supposedly set in Ceylon, the music (and indeed the plot) bears no resemblance to anything but French grand opera, so it needs to be taken with an imaginative  sense of unreality. Is it ideal, then, for film, which isn't constrained by the physical limits of staging?   Then, perhaps, we could enjoy the faux orientalisme done with the excess the music suggests.

Perhaps that's why Airs de France, a division of RFT (Radio Lyrique) attempted this Les Pêcheurs de Perles. It was filmed like a movie, so the cameras reach angles that couldn't be done in normal opera. There are luscious effects - real palm trees and greenery, realistic-looking mountain boulders for the cast to scramble on. A temple that looks ike a glorious  hybrid of Angkor Wat, South India and 19th century French architecture. Much more naked flesh on the natives than in the photo above, from an early stage production. The  overall effect is Hollywood extravaganza. Think Tarzan movies, with a better than average soundtrack. 

Unfortunately the technology wasn't as advanced as the concept. The cameras don't really cope with movement, which rather spoils the best moments, since the crowd scenes are well choreographed.  The principals stand around like they were made of wood, though their performances, while good, aren't really special enough to electrify proceedings. Lots of shots are out of focus and black and white film doesn't help. This is an opera that begs to be filmed in Technicolor, with  special effects! (remember the scene in the ENO Pearl Fishers where figures were seen "swimming"  suspended in the air spotlit in glorious greens and blues  That was the sort of magic Pearl Fishers can inspire.  Sadly, this film doesn't quite live up to its potential. When the village is torched  the flames are clearly faked, with sparks of diagonal light flashing with the leaden regularity of a malfunctioning bar heater.

Cast  : Léna Pastor - Leila, Michel Cadiou - Nadir, André Jonquères - Zurga, Charles Daguerressar - Nourabad., Chorus & Orchestra of the RTF Radio Lyrique conducted by Georges Derveaux

Opera HD - myths and facts

Audiences for opera broadcasts in the cinema are old. That's news? The survey has gone viral. But here's where genuine local knowledge comes in. The survey  was done by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Excellent music and drama students but not necessarily sophisticated pollsters. It was commissioned by English Touring Opera. ETO is a wonderful, innovative company but its business is touring, reaching places outside London, where people might not otherwise experience live opera at all. The ETO is unique, and serves an important public purpose.  But one can understand why they'd be interested in the impact of HD, when anyone can watch the Met, ROH, Salzburg and Munich. Personally I think ETO has a special place !

The story, however, has gone international, raising a lot of questions that don't have much to do with the survey at all. Some have even blamed the  Met's problems on HD. So it's a good time to separate fact from fabrication.  Opera has been filmed almost as early as the technology has been available. In the 1970's Rolf Liebermann at Hamburg pioneered the idea of opera created for film, which resulted in works of genius like Wozzeck and Die Freischütz which combined musical astuteness with visual imagination. Opera films were often broadcast on TV, some even written for TV, like Britten's Owen Wingrave. So why should HD be any different?

Watching live streams is fun, but fundamentally not all that different from watching a DVD. The art itself does not change. Directing an opera is completely different from directing a film: the skills are not usually compatible.  An opera director works through character and motivations: a film director chooses angles which best bring out the intention behind the production. In a good production live, there's often so much to take in at once that it's often easier to watch something through the eyes of a film director. Real opera devotees often catch both the live and filmed broadcast, because the slight shift of perspective adds to knowledge and thus to enjoyment.

Millions of people can watch filmed opera in cinemas and online, who might never otherwise be able to attend in person. What's so wrong with that? People get old and immobile but they should not be written off as human beings. Millions grew up with audio recordings and DVDs. Of course their experience counts, every bit as much as those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Being in a house is exciting, even when you attend many times a week, but the primary aim is opera as music and as art, not the frills, the popcorn or fancy new stilettos. As I've said many times before, there are numerous different audiences, each with different interests. So there's a case for tolerance and inclusivity.

Filming opera is expensive, so it's not a universal panacea, however tempting it might seem. Some smaller houses have been burned. However,the reality is that the potential market for opera is infinitely bigger than house capacity. The Royal Opera House enjoys 95% occupancy, so there's little room for growth in those terms.  Film is an essential part of the business model. In 2013, 675,000 people watched 415 performances in house. Since 2012, over three million have watched a much smaller number of operas in cinemas and online. Go figure. Glyndebourne is a much smaller house - usually packed out - but it's so good that it can do deals with newspapers to broadcast online.  Statistically it just doesn't add up that film bleeds live. Online audiences may not rush out for live tickets, but so what? They are paying attention.

The game changes all over again with digital broadcasting. On 20 May the ROH broadcast La Traviata live on its own youtube channel.  In cost terms, this is more effective than sharing profits with a cinema chain. In Europe, there are online channels that broadcast recent productions as well as old. Siemens pioneered digital screening technology and paid for 3 years of screenings from  Bayreuth.  How do companies make money? Some charge, which is fair enough. If we care for the arts we should be mature enough to realize you can't expect good things for free. But the returns are simply the amount raised by subscription.  The size of the online market shows that the demand for opera is greater than seat sales alone.  There's a huge potential audience out there who are interested enough to care and to learn. Much better such audiences than the kind of boors who think they "know" opera because they can shell out for pricey tickets. Gimmicks like fast food eateries don't help sales,. The South Bank shows how artistic purpose is lost when artistic vision is compromised.  Online and HD grow the audience through education.  When  the Berliner Philharmoniker began its digital concert hall, it became the world's "home" orchestra,. Competition can be good or bad, but raising standards is good for everyone.

LOTS more on film and opera on this site, please explore

Kaspar Holten Juan

At last, I've seen the film Juan by Kaspar Holten.  Please see my post from April 2011 for links to clips, and read  the first major review which was in Opera Today in July 2011.  This isn't another staging of Don Giovanni, not by any means. Juan is a wholly original concept, taking its cue from the heart of the opera. As film noir on its own terms as cinema, it's extremely impressive.

Juan begins in an opera house. Grand settings, and a performance on stage so gloriously late baroque that it would cost too much to mount in full today. Juan (Christopher Maltman) is in the audience. Elvira (Elizabeth Furtral) is in a box. Eye contact. Suddenly for both, the crowd disappears. Assignation and clearly consensual groping. The gilt and pomp of the opera house aren't reality. The camera pans on elegant marble staircases: luxurious, but hard and cold. Much is hinted at, but not disclosed. When the Commander pulls a gun in this modern setting, you wonder, what sort of man carries weapons into his daughter's rooms?  The railway station imagery above is evocative. Anna is "between trains" looking for connections she may never make.We're not watching a remake of Don Giovanni, but a study of the lost souls in this plot, desperately searching for things they can't articulate. This isn't sordid for sordid's sake. The mean streets, the empty places, all expressions of this terrain of spiritual anomie.

Juan is a pschological study of the characters. Enough of Mozart's music is there so anyone familiar with the opera will be listening on two levels, following the dramatic logic in the film while carrying the opera like a shadow. The effect is deliberately unsettling. "Real" people don't sing, but these characters do, albeit in English, which further distances us from the real Mozart. Humour, too - one of the guests at Zerlina's party is Placido Domingo, in street clothes! Then, when Elvira, Ottavio and Anna gatecrash, the camera switches to the film crew, gesticulating. Flames burn the curtains. Are these special effects? Or does Maltman look genuinely in danger as he runs along the rafters in the ceiling?

One of the strongest points in this film is the way tension builds up to breaking point. Sirens of police cars and anbulances, piercing any semblance of safety. Sudden, stealthy glances. People are stalking each other, trapped in difficult games. In the final act, Juan and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) are assaulted by Nature itself, as rain pours down on them. No shelter: no conventional ending with Don Giovanni safely despatched to hell. No final triumphant ensemble.  Instead, the film ends with a wonderful shot of a terrazzo, paved in an intricate pattern of black and white, like a gigantic maze. Anonymous figures in raincoats huddle under umbrellas, walking randomly, without purpose.


Photo : Elvira (Elizabeth Futral), Juan (Christopher Maltman) and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) - credit Steffen Aarfing(courtesy juanfilm.dk)

Glyndebourne Ravel Double Bill streaming broadcast

Ravel Double Bill streamed direct from Glyndebourne ! L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges. The live broadcast was extremely well filmed, so it's definitely recommended.

On demand viewing from Tuesday 21st August. Make time to watrch L'enfant et les sortilèges. above all. It's an extremely difficult opera to stage because it's full of ideas (How do you stage "Mathematics" for example?). That's why it's usually heard in the concert hall. This production is fantastic in every sense, absolutely true to music and meaning. If you can only spare an hour watch this L'enfant. It sets the benchmark. It's that good.

As always, repeat viewings bring out more detail.  L'heure espagnole, directed by Laurent Pelly but to designs by Caroline Ginet and Florence Evrard looks a bit dated as it was first created nearly 10 years ago. However seen together with L'enfant et les sortilèges it works rather well. The clutter in this set reflects the clutter chez Concepción and Torquemada. Piles of unsorted debris, threatening to suffocate the inhabitants. You don't need to be a shrink to think OCD, a behavioural response to anxiety. Torquemada uses inanimate objects to avoid having to deal with the messy emotions of living people. His obsession is both escape and control. Concepción fancies Ramiro because he carries heavy clocks, instead of getting himself stuck in one. Sharp acting and singing raised this performance above the ordinary. 

Thus the connection between L'heure espagnole and  L'enfant et les sortilèges , both operas exploring issues of fantasy and regulation. The Child in  L'enfant et les sortilèges smashes the Giant Clock but can't stop Time itself. He destroys his room in a tantrum, and the room fights back. Only when he learns that  the world is ordered for a reason (ie through Mathematics), does he begin to understand the value of balance. Kindness, not selfishness. When the Child learns empathy as an alternative to obsessive control. he can come back from his nightmare.

Laurent Pelly has said that there are enough ideas in this 45 minute piece to full a 3 or 4 hour opera. Watch this broadcast. I think he's right. Kazushi Ono's conducting is brilliant - incisive, idiomatic, sharp, every bit as intelligent as the staging.

Incidentally, it's good that Glyndebourne doesn't fill the interval with facetious chatter like the Met does.  What is wrong with audiences that need mindless babble? Attention deficit disorder? At Glyndebourne, audiences are treated like adults, who can fill time on their own. Simply muse on the shots of the garden, the patterns of clouds and light. And go get a drink and relax, as they do at Glyndebourne.

Charpentier David et Jonathas LIVE

Broadcast of Marc-Antoine Charpentier David et Jonathas on arte tv on Friday 13th HERE. Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie, which makes it a major event. Pascal Charbonneau, Ana Quintans head the cast. It's a completely new production directed by Andreas Homoki who's taking over at Opern Zurich later this year (so you need to know). This is the baroque event of the year (so you should not miss).

It clashes with the First Night of the Proms, but is by far the classier event. Indeed, it's the main draw at this year's Edinburgh Festival, which features an ambitious baroque programme. I was sorely tempted to splash out and travel, but decided to reduce carbon emissions when I heard that Arte was sponsoring Aix.

What is the future of classical music? Is the way ahead dumbing down, even to the extent of dumbing down music itself? Maybe. But David et Jonathas is fairly rare and hardly hoi polloi. Instead of dumbing down, Aix and Arte raise the bar, in the faith that audiences will rise to the challenge. Another reason to thank the gods for a good education system and public funded arts management. This David et Jonathas is likley to beome the benchmark and recoup its costs on DVD over the years.

Mozart Superstar Nozze Aix broadcast

Hit the Target with Mozart Le nozze di Figaro streamed on Arte tv on 12th July here. This is live from Aix-en-Provence, where hip things happen. Excellent cast : Patricia Petibon, Paul Szot, Malin Byström, Kyle Ketelsen. Conductor is Jérémie Rohrer and film director Andy Sommer, whose work is very good.

If you login an hour earlier you can also catch a documentary Mozart Superstar made for French TV. "Plus fort qu'Elvis, Madonna et Michael Jackson réunis, la plus grande pop star de l'histoire s'appelle Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."

The photo shows a paper target used in a darts game popular in the 18th century. It depicts Mozart saying farewell to his cousin in Augsburg. Strange subject for target practice! But not so different from modern celebrity merchandisng. Mozart Rockstar, alright!

Puccini Suor Angelica on TV

Nuns with illegitimate children committing suicide? Suor Angelica, the second opera in Puccini's Il trittico  was broadcast on BBC TV4 tonight, and wl be rebroadcast at 330 am. For me it was by far the most moving of the triptych because it dealt with complex human feelings, not more conventional emotional situations. On stage, you could hear how well Ermonela Jaho characterized the part with her voice. On film you can see the fine detail in her acting as she expresses Suor Angelica's tortured emotions. Jaho speaks of how much she puts into the role, and it shows. Such sincerity and committment! She's truly a star. Anna Larsson as the Princess is excellent too.

A plot like this could invite a maudlin, pseudo-religious setting, but here it's more matter of fact. Suor Angelica, like the Virgin Mary, lives for her son whom she loses. She kills herself to be with the kid in heaven, til she realizes, oops, suicide is mortal sin. That's a sign, I think, of how uncalculating and instinctive she is. Maybe that's why the Virgin Mary shows her grace, becuase Suor Angelica is a good person at heart.

Convent/Christian life is fundamentally unnatural because it demands the suppression of earthly desires, however innocent. To 19th century Catholic Italians, what Puccini is implying was blasphemy. Can the Virgin Mary overturn the laws of God? Assuming that there is a god at all, and that religious life isn't just another scam like the one the Princess is planning. It's a wonder that the Church didn't turn on composer and librettist.  Please read what I wrote about the prima last September (ReNUNciation : Puccini Il trittico) All three operas have been filmed and are now available on DVD. Highly recommended.

Janáček - The Cunning Little Vixen on film

The Glyndebourne production of Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen can be seen in cinemas and on the Guardian website on Sunday 10th. Janáček was inspired by cartoon illustrations, but the opera is by no means a cartoon opera. It's gloriously happy, but happiness does not preclude irony, or even much darker thoughts. The Vixen is captured and mistreated. She fights back and tears the Cock to pieces. She's red of tooth and claw, and "Red" in the political sense, too, because she tells the hen protelariat to revolt. In nature, animals are free, not institutionalized like hens in a coop.  There's nothing cute or infantilized about Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen.

Perhaps it's best not to know the opera when watching the Melly Still production, so it can be enjoyed on its own terms. But those who care about the opera, and about the composer, might want to delve a bit more deeply. Nobody needs to know an opera to enjoy it, but making judgements involves a bit more. Hearing the opera in Czech is essential, because Janáček's entire idiom derives from the Czech language, and its unusual stresses and sibilants. In English the music is castrated, and translations often try to be funny and soften the impact. Read the libretto carefully and hear how the edgy, angular music works against sentimentality. When the Fox courts the Vixen, he fancies her because she's a "Modern Woman, my ideal". He hopes she smokes! Definitely advanced for the era. "Foxy" in the modern sense, not a fox from nature. We know she won't survive because foxes don't and the trap is laid before our eyes. Then, when the Vixen dies, she's dead. The music rises again, triumphantly, when the Forester dies, because he's free now of stifling convention, at one at last with some greater cycle of nature. Whoever sings the Forester doesn't need a luxuriously Romantic voice: much better a singer with character and wit, because the Forester is a gruff, unfussy man. A lot like Janáček himself. Read John Tyrell's biography. It's long but genuinely erudite and perceptive, the essential Janáček tool.  

The Cunning Little Vixen is hard to stage because the characters are animals and act as animals do, but speak for humanity. In theory, dressing them as animnals is no big deal since it's plainly obvious that they are singing, and animals don't sing. By far more important is to understand what they are singing about. Each animal has a purpose. The Vixen grabs "Uncle" Badger's lair (itself an oblique allusion to several things). The Dog is sexually frustrated and denatured, just like the Schoolmaster and possibly the Priest. Sharp characterization above all, I think, so the fundamental grittiness of this plot and its music don't get lost behind the charm. Good filming probably helps too, because it narrows focus onto the personality of the characters, and cuts away irrelevant busyness.

Highly recommnded is the DVD of the Opéra Bastille, Paris production from 2008, directed by Don Kent. (get it here). Read Jim Sohre's review in Opera Today.  The animals are costumed as simply as possible, so they look like animals but not in a gimmicky way.The chickens in this production are dressed in colours like white hens, fluffed up and fussied. In the Paris production, the hens are surreal, because they are "un"natural. Watch how sharp their movements are, and how savagely the Vixen kills the Cock (even though we see no blood). The farmyard's a bit like a prison yard, which is how it feels for the Vixen. The passage of time and seasons is harmonized by a railway track which moves from the Forester's home out into woods and meadows.  One of the most memorable images of this production are the vistas of sunflowers, as perky and unreal as in a cartoon, but suggesting wide, open spaces, sunshine and endless horizons. Later, winter comes and the set turns white. The fox cubs prance about but look vulnerable against the stark horizon, a reminder of how easily they can be killed. Singing and orchestral playing good, too. So the more we listen and watch, the better we understand how the opera works. (Please see my many other posts on Janáček and on The Cunning Little Vixen)

photos© Opéra national de Paris/ Christian Leiber

ENO chief claims opera screenings don't work?

"ENO Chief claims opera screenings don't attract new audiences" screams a headline. ENO Artistic Director John Berry is quoted as saying "It is of no interest to me....“My time is consumed with making sure the performance is absolutely as good as it can be, and getting that right on the stage, that is hard enough, and that is my focus, on live work." 

Berry is responding to a claim by Sky Arts that its partnership with ENO between 2003 and 2009 had not generated one production for broadcast, and that "organisations like ENO are often fearful that to screen their work on TV would “cannibalise” their audience."  Let's look closer into the story.  ENO's heritage is theatre. It's strange that a stage magazine doesn't comprehend this.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a story about how the MET HD broadcasts are making mega-millions for that house. Read my analysis of that here.  (also many, many other posts on film and music). But why should that mean everyone else has to do as the Met does? There's no market sense in a flood of broadcasts for the sake of broadcast, even if film maximizes audiences and brings in money. Not every opera house is the same. The Met and the ENO don't compare. It's the Royal Opera House and the Opéra de Paris that are the Met's real competition. And things can be done differently from the Met, whose house style is expensive but downmarket..

What the ENO does best is adventurous, quirky and risk-taking : once it was the "powerhouse". The ENO doesn't have the budget for top rank European singers, so it focuses on stagecraft. Sometimes, that's been a disaster, with directors who don't understand music, but in principle, what the ENO does well is live theatre. There's no reason why it can't do film, but that's not a top priority.

The rationale on which the ENO was founded was that it would bring opera "to the people" in their own language. While Lord Harewood was around, that was sancrosanct. Maybe the English language gives the ENO a unique selling point, but nowadays when most people know core repertoire in Italian, German or French, it's more of a handicap. You won't get top singers bothering to learn a part all over again for less pay than they'd get in a big house. Even John Tomlinson has said he has to catch himself to sing in English instead of following his musical instincts. Though it's good for up and coming English singers, it does mean we get stuck sometimes with "lesser luminaries" whose main achievement is that they speak English.

But what is relevant about the ENO's heritage is the idea that opera should be direct and immediate, appealing to ordinary audiences who don't compare it to La Scala, Vienna or whatever, but enjoy themselves regardless. The ENO's natural allies are houses like Amsterdam, Theatre an der Wien, Aix, Lyon, possibly Frankfurt and Berlin, even Helsinki. Good productions, whatever their language, speak to people.

And most damning of all, filming opera isn't the same as watching opera, or even directing. It involves a whole new set oif technical skills which stage directors don't know because that's not their job. A good film director not only needs to know how to make a good film but also to understand bthe production he's working with and the music behind the opera. Absolutely, this isn't a skill that just anyone can pick up. It also doesn't come cheap. A house would need a whole new set of technicians and processing staff. Even if they don't do it in house it will cost big money to outsource. And even if they find good partners, that doesn't  mean good quality control or even "opera focus". Furthermore, cinema audiences by their very nature aren't as interested in art so much as in entertainment.  We could end up with the tail wagging the dog. That's fine for Megabucks Met, whose values may suit the hinterland but it's a dangerous gamble for smaller, more innovative houses.

Last year Sky Arts and the ENO did a joint venture around Mike Figgis's production of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. There were lots of reasons why that wasn't a success. As a film buff, I enjoyed it as an experimental hybrid of film and theatre, with the opera encased within. But most people aren't film buffs and want to see opera as opera as opera, not as experiment. Good opera, yes, but opera that just happens to be translated on film, nothing more esoteric.

Is Film changing Opera?

Is film changing opera? No doubt that Jeremiahs moaned when operas began to be heard on the radio and Heavens Above! on recordings when technology was so limited that sound was distorted and only a few minutes could be made at any time. Jeremiahs would be well advised to complain about even newer technologies, like MP3's, which also shrink the live experience. It's not film that will change opera, but the way film is used.

There's an article in the New York Times which is worth reading although it's quite flawed. It's irrelevant, for example, whether Satyagraha drew tiny audiences in Wichita, Kansas, because it was a film. Quite likely Wichita audiences don't do Philip Glass anyhow, so it's  a bad analogy. And that Satyagraha staging was designed as a theatre experience. It was so successful as theatre that even those who'd steer clear of Glass went and enjoyed. (Read more about it here and here). It was brilliant because it was created by people with theatre, circus and puppetry skills, opening out whole new territory for opera staging.  La Fura dels Baus, for example, create equally innovative stagings that open out whole new possibilties of expression. Their Le Grand Macabre (more here) interpreted Ligeti's meaning better than his music alone..So kaput to the theory that operas are now designed for film. Not the good ones, anyway.

Peter Gelb is right, though that might pain some to accept. The simple fact is that good directors create productions based on what the opera and the music tells them. Sure, they are aware that some aspects will film better than others but their primary job is to express what's in the opera. It's the film director who decides what happens in the film. Filming opera is a whole new art, which requires not only a good knowledge of music but also sensitivity to what the stage director, singers and conductor are doing with the opera. Some directors, like Brian Large, are so good that they can make stinkers of productions look good. He's effective because it's his job to focus on how things translate through the camera. It's never enough to simply "film" without proper direction. And he was around long before HD.

Theatre is not reality. Movies condition us to think they're facsimiles of life, but they aren't reality either. Maybe one day, someone will figure out how to make operas "real" but that might mean creating new operas entirely.  Operas are often most effective when they're deliberately "art". One of the finest theatrre experiences I've ever had was Glyndebourne's Purcell The Fairy Queen. It was absolutely true to baroque convention, which made a virtue of extravagant unreality. At the end, rose petals fluttered down from the ceiling, connecting audience with players on stage (read more here)  Get to Glyndebourne this summer to experience it live, because the DVD is almost unwatchable. It's filmed so literally that it might as well have been done by a mobile phone. Millions are spent of producing an opera. So why stint when it comes to filming it for the millions who will never get to see it live? Especially as DVD/HD is where the money is coming in from.

Film is never going to be the same as live, but then neither is recording. So what if voices are better balanced on broadcast than live? Sometimes the finest voices aren't big. It's much better that audiences learn to listen to quality than sheer volume, however much that impresses non-musical audiences. We listen to studio recordings, so why should filmed opera be any different? Sensitive listeners also hear the nuances in good singing more than most people realize. In the past, opera houses were not gigantic barns like the Met, so, arguably, the big voices and styles favoured in houses like that aren't necessarily the best for good music. That's why a Lieder background is good for understanding  opera, but not necessarily the other way round. You hear the close-ups as well as see them. The medium is not the message. The audience should be engaging with an opera as opera, not just "watching the movie".

That's the real danger of filmed opera : audience expectations. Two years ago, Johann Botha sang an inspired Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House (review here) but did many in the audience appreciate his  singing? "Elisabeth should have chosen Wolfram!" some said, completely ignoring the opera. Elisabeth loved Tannhäuser because he wasn't a plaster saint, but had lived. Too well, perhaps, but that's exactly what Wagner meant. Better an unattractive singer any day than a media-created pretty boy hero who looks good  but can't actually sing. Publicity departments can create overnight sensations out of last choice singers because audiences judge by appearance, not by art. Good directors - and good audiences - can work around interesting singers. Ben Heppner may be on the old side for Tristan, but he can create the part showing why the character is world-weary. Even Siegfried doesn't have to be a babe. Think of the Tristans and Tannhäusers of the past. That's Melchior squeezing into a girdle. Don't even think about Wagner's singers, who'd be booed off stage today. Are modern audiences so gullible that they forsake art for image?

In any case it's not Met HD that's changing opera. Opera movies have been with us a long, long time. Remember De Mille's 1915 Carmen, Ernst Lubitsch's 1919 Gypsy Blood and Charlie Chaplin's 1915 Burlesque on Carmen here.  Anyone who whines about Bizet's Carmen in 3D is a fool. The sky is not going to fall! (more here). Opera movies go back a long way, and have always reached more general audiences. There's even a 1905 film of Chinese opera (silent and in fragments). Think of the wild mix of Carmen and The Flying Dutchman starring Ava Gardner stark naked. (read more here) These of course aren't films of opera (some are silent) but filmed opera isn't new. Someone once told me "Europeans know nothing about opera", which reflects the extreme parochialism in some circles. The mere mention of Germans sends some people into a rage. But look out for the Hamburg State Opera series of filmed operas made for German TV in 1967-1970. I've written about their Weber's Der Freischütz (here) but their film of Alban Berg Wozzeck is infinitely better, filmed on location in a fortress in the North German marshes. (Read about it here). Now that is how opera can be filmed, true to the music, true to film. Then there are the two Verdi blockbusters, filmed in real time on location, the 1976 Tosca in Rome, and the RAI Rigoletto in Mantua (more here)  with Placido Domingo.  Realistically, it isn't going to happen too often because of cost. But filmed opera is the way forward, and it's a subject that needs to thoroughly addressed, and not just in terms of the Met and its market. 

 

Der Freischütz - archaeology of filmed opera

So much more to filming opera than point and shoot! Back in the 1960's Hamburg Opera linked up with German TV to film 13 operas. Film is the next frontier in opera, now that technology reaches a whole new market for audiences who'd never be able to attend live. If a good production is filmed badly it ruins the whole experience. Think of the disastrously badly filmed Glyndebourne The Fairy Queen, almost impossible to watch. Film is a whole new discipline. Film directors need to know music as well as film, and need to understand how a production expresses an opera. So, to the archaeology of filmed opera, back in the 1960's when television was creative cutting edge. People watched TV then so there was money in opera TV and broadcasters put their best people on the job. 

One of the Hamburg Opera/NDR opera films was Weber's Der Freischütz.  This production, directed by Gyula Trebitsch, and filmed by Joachim Hess, was unabashedly "period", leather trousers and feathered hats, bodices and aprons. For gents and ladies in that order, not the other way round.  Even now central Europeans join hunting clubs and forage in the forest. In 1968, the world of this Der Freischütz.was living memory, not archaic kitsch. Traditional setting, but by no means dumbed down or brainless. It's not costumes that make a good production but the ideas behind them. 

The film opens with a shot of a print of a 19th century theatre curtain. Cut out figures move across the screen as the credits roll. The Overture is a transition from artifice to "reality" and quite magical in its own way. The villagers are partying but this isn't twee prettiness. The Thirty Years War was traumatic. Millions died. Survival depended on luck. That's why Max is susceptible to Kaspar's magic, and why Agathe's so frightened of omens. Max knows that any moment, his luck may turn, so he's preapared to gamble with the devil.  That this is a hunting community isn't decor, either. These people have no qualms about killing to live. A generation of war also means that peasants who once might have been farmers now know how to use guns. The opera gets underway with the chorus "Victoria!Victoria!". The peasants are cheering Killian, a peasant who presumably learned to shoot in war, while Max was just a forester. No wonder Max is bothered. Significantly, the opera ends when Ottakar and the Hermit, symbols of authority, decide that traditions must change.  Reason  must rule, not superstition. Audiences in Weber's time would have understood that this was more than pastoral fantasy. They lived in an era when feudal was finally giving way.

So don't mistake the peasant costumes for placid or peaceful. Der Freischütz is not glossy, serene or bucolic. That's why Weber writes such vigour into his music. Peasant life was tough, so peasant dancers were as fit as athletes. Their dances are energetic, even stolid, as the music makes clear. Weber's describing a crude life force that comes from living - not necesarily in harmony - with nature. Carlos Kleiber's recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden in 1973 captures the true spirit so well that you can't say you know the opera til you've heard Kleiber

In the film, the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra is conducted by Leopold Ludwig, who is pretty good at atmospheric drama. Since the Wolf's Glen scene is so vividly filmed, there's a good match between music and visuals. These films were based on regular stage productions, so reflect what Hamburg Opera was doing in 1968, so performances are varied, pretty much like in any functioning opera house.  Standards were high, though, because in Germany they take opera, and Der Freischütz seriously. Voices from the past, like Gottlob Frick (Kaspar), Tom Krause, Ernst Kozub.  Watch for Franz Grundheber, later a great Wozzeck for Abbado, in the tiny role of Kilian, which he makes big.  Above all, watch for and listenn to Edith Mathis, then aged 30, as Ännchen. Arlene Saunders sings beautifully but Mathis lights up the screen completely and steals the show. You can almost hear what Saunders is thinking. Mathis always sounded gorgeously fresh and youthful, even when she reached her 60's. Here she exudes sweetness laced with pert intelligence. Agathe panics, but Ännchen is the voice of strong common sense. This film has a cult following because it preserves Mathis  at the start of her career. Hear why below:

Welcome, Massenet Werther!

Noël, Noël, Noël sing the children, even tho' it's July. Welcome return for Massenet Werther from ONP Bastille Paris streaming again on medici.tv HERE. This is the fabled performance from early 2010 which won a Diapason d'or when it went onto DVD. Jonas Kaufmann, Sophie Koch, Ludovic Tézier and Anne Catherine Gillet! Just look a that cast and listen to that divine singing! Kaufmann fans will get lots more of their man as Werther than as Cavaradossi. He's ideally suited to the troubled romantic Werther, and there's plenty of room for him to develop the role in all its nuances.  What's more, Sophie Koch sings Charlotte with such depth that she's emotionally real. And what perfect, sensitive timbre in all the parts. It's so beautiful, I've been listening again and again, just to soak up this singing and playing (Michel Plasson).

The production and the film are by Benoît Jacquot, which is significant as he's primarily a film director.  Don't let that panic you. Unlike most theatre people he's musically literate and sensitive to the inner drama of this almost action-free opera, where most things take place in the protagonists' heads. That's the beauty of this production, which minimizes props to the max so everything's concentrated on the singers. Psychologically true, too, for Werther lives in a world of his own where reality doesn't much intrude. Wide, open vistas on stage, bare but for rustling leaves, or oppressively huge windows that dwarf the singers. Jacquot also directed the film, so he develops the basic concept even further. Often the singers are shown, alone, on the platform with orchestra in view, as if they were in recital. Sometimes we see the back of the props! This Werther is about the singing, and because it concentrates on performance, not trappings, the music speaks all the more deeply. Fundamentalists will moan that it's not "decorative" as they imagine Werther should be (see the original poster here, Eugene Grasset 1893). But think about the plot, and listen to the music. It's not about chintz !
LOTS more on Massenet on this site, like Le jongleur de Notre Dame, Massenet mélodies with Véronique Gens, Cendrillon, Manon and Le portrait de Manon.

Adriana Lecouvreur at the movies

The fabulous Royal Opera House Adriana Lecouvreur is on at the movies !  Click here for details of cinemas near you (international).  It was the best thing on last year and is, I think, a keeper. Read more about the production HERE and HERE.

Britten Turn of the Screw Glyndebourne broadcast analysis

One hardly needs fake country house in a real country house like Glyndebourne. Jonathan Kent's production of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, broadcast from Glyndebourne, teases out the sinister levels in this cryptic opera, where the drama lies in the psyches of the protagonists, not in the furnishings. 

Note how quiet Britten's music is, accentuating the disquiet in the narrative. Jakub Hrůša turned 30 only this July, but he's the Chief Conductor of the Prague Philharmonia and has guested everwhere. He conducted an excellent Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne this summer, and conducts Glyndebourne Touring. He completely has the measure of Britten's quirky, discordant style. "Sharp, fixed, strange", as the Governess describes Peter Quint. And so Hrůša's precision brings out the danger in Britten's score. Tight drumbeats mark the beginning of the secret battle, as the children act out Tom, Tom, the Piper's son. Nursery rhymes with a sinister twist. The interludes are particularly expressive, evoking hard glass surfaces, dizzying heights and the ungiving, rock-like hardness at the core of the plot. No chintz here. Hrůša won't please everyone, but that's exactly why his conducting is so good. He's absolutely right  for the tightly coiled anxiety that makes this opera so powerful.  Definitely a conductor to keep track of.  I'm going to buy his CDs.  (photo: Petra Klačková)

Miah Persson is a fantastic Governess. Listen to where she sings Alone, tranquil, serene, her voice soaring ecstatically on the word "alone". Persson's voice is naturally luscious and sensual, hinting at the sexual repression at the root of the character. (Henry James, who wrote the original novel had a brother who was a psychologist when the discipline still equated hysteria with the womb). The Governess sees a shadow, identified only as "he", a detail so subtle it's often missed. Persson sings with such tenderness, you know she 's thinking of the uncle. Hence her distress when she doesn't know who "he" is.

I've rarely heard an In my Labyrinth which combines demure with demented as well as Persson sings it. She keeps the maniacally tight beat, yet with a wild edge, suggesting she'll snap. Her English is so perfect, that you might not know she's not a native speaker, but this only underlines the basic fact that the Governess isn't Establishment. She's most definitely not "among her kind" as the text keeps repeating. That's why she's in awe of the uncle, the house and all it stands for. She wears the uniform of 50's respectability but she hasn't the experience to deal with the madness or evil she finds. Miah Persson's portrayal makes you realize that the Governess is out of place even before she arrived. Effectively, she's trapped in an infernal machine. Kent shows her arriving in a railway carriage (the scenes outside not unlike those around Glyndebourne).

Class and status do matter in this opera. Mrs Grose, The Governess and even Peter Quint are pawns because real authority lies with the remote, sinister uncle. Mrs Grose (admirably played by Susan Bickley) shields behind bucolic subservience until she hears Flora's nightmares. But maybe she's still being manipulated. Miles dies, but what will Flora do in another place and time?  Flora acts up sweetly, but she's no more pure than Miles is. Many productions are fooled. Kent hints at the danger in Flora, by showing how she's very much Miles's partner in the kinky game where the pair ride each other flailing whips. Later, Flora shoves her doll up her jumper, in a truly horrific imitation of pregnancy. Joanna Songi sang the role in 2006 so vocally she's assured, but even better, she can now create a Flora who is sexually potent while playing at being a child. The connection between Songi's Flora, with her head in the sink, and Giselle Allen's Miss Jessel, who drowned, is clear.

Toby Spence's Peter Quint is excellent. It helps that he still looks like a cherub, though he's not as skeletal as Ian Bostridge, or vocally quite so intense. Oddly, he does resemble Thomas Parfitt, who sings Miles, and even more strangely, one of the musicians in the orchestra. The orange hair is in the libretto, hinting at Quint's demonic nature, so it reminds us that Quint's good looks aren't conventional. Spence is so convincing in the role that it's frightening when he hugs Parfitt at curtain call. Of course it's perfectly innocent, because Spence is kind hearted. Normally we'd beam. But after having experienced a performance as unnerving as this we recoil, despite common sense, which itself says something. We've lost our innocence too.

The set, too, is superlative. Kent and his designer, Paul Brown, take their cue from the music. Like the music, simplicity is all, clarity used in a way that confounds the impenetrable elusiveness of meaning. Throughout the libretto, images of windows, glass, vantage points and strange angles, like Quint in the tower. Glass can be both transparent and opaque. It's strong but when it shatters it's lethal. Study the scene where the Governess and Miss Jessel confront each other with a three panel mirror. Who reflects whom?

Paul Brown creates a set that, like the exploding box in Don Giovanni, moves quickly and doesn't impede dramatic action. It keeps twisting and changing, like the plot. Walls fall in and lean dangerously. A central panel looks like a giant window, blocking off interior from exterior, yet shifts as rapidly as perspective shifts in the opera. Only at the very end does the panel turn completely horizontal. Viewed sideways it's revealed as thin and fragile and seems to disappear. Kent and Brown describe it as a "membrane" between the Governess and "the others".

Even the sofas aren't comfortable. These ones travel of their own volition (propelled by an underfloor mechanism). Floor level objects spin in ellipses, panels above bend and twist shape, and mysterious, atmospheric lighting (Mark Henderson).  This is a staging that moves like Britten's music, every bit as elusive as meaning in this most unsettling of operas, where nothing is meant to be quite as it seems. This Turn of the Screw, from Glyndebourne is both classic and groundbreaking and needs to be experienced by anyone wanting to come to terms with ths striking originality of Britten's mind. Altogether, the 2011 production is cast so strongly it would be hard to beat, and Jakub Hrůša's conducting is exceptional. Extremely well directed for film, too, showing a wide rangle of angles - like the plot - and close-ups used for proper effect.

Both production shots copyright Alastair Miles, from Glyndebourne Opera. (Miah Persson as The Governess, Toby Spence and Giselle Allen as Peter Quint and Miss Jessel).

Kaspar Holten's Juan reviewed at last !

Kaspar Holten's film Juan has been shown in the US and in Europe, but not yet in London, though he's taking over as Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in September. So please read this thoughtful, well informed review from Barbara Miller who saw Juan in Seattle.
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I recently got the chance to see Juan, the Kaspar Holten film version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni,  at the Seattle International Film Festival.  It is indeed an English adaptation, presented here in the US with English subtitles, updated to a modern European city (filmed in Denmark and Hungary).  "Juan" lives in a loft, from which he carries on 'The Woman project', which is essentially his effort to seduce a zillion women, with his Russian sidekick "Lep" taking clandestine video and stills of the assignations (his famous Catalogue Aria is sung to Elvira with a Macintosh laptop in his hands, the folders of which contain the visual records of the seductions).  The film opens at a performance of "Don Giovanni", where Ottavio introduces Anna to his friend Juan, and the vibes between them lead her to part from her police chief father and fiancé Ottavio after the performance in order to meet Juan in a café.  We see a tryst at her house, which is interrupted by the return of the father, who goes after Juan with a gun, which goes off in the struggle, mortally wounding him.  The Anna-Ottavio duet is sung as they load the father into the ambulance and ride to the hospital.  This is the first of many instances in which characters' motivations, which are left ambiguous in the opera, are clearly spelt out (people like to argue about whether Anna has been seduced or raped--in our day people assume the former, given the nature of the Don Giovanni archetype, but the 19th century saw it differently).

Lovers of the opera will be disappointed at the many musical cuts.  In the first act, I counted the following omitted arias:  Masetto's  "Ho, capito", Elvira's  "Fuggi il traditor", Anna's "Or sai chi l'onore" (although the recit is left in, with flashbacks to a passionate lovemaking with Juan all the while she's telling this story of a rape to the police), Ottavio's "Dalla sua pace" (also "Il mio Tesoro" in the second act--he essentially sings the two ensembles in the first act and some recitative) .  In the second act there are more cuts--none of the scene between Leporello and Elvira, none of the ensemble in which the characters confront Leporello, nothing of the beating of Masetto (and Zerlina's  "Vedrai carino" is cut).  Interestingly, and somewhat annoyingly to me as a woman, it's always very clear that the three women are completely under Juan's spell: "La ci darem" takes place in a cab going back to Juan's loft, and continues in the loft as they take their clothes off and start to have sex, only interrupted by the fact that Elvira has gotten there first; Anna’s retelling of her meeting with Juan speaks to the masculine  fear of a woman crying rape after sex that he considered to be consensual; Elvira is as obsessed with him as she is in the opera, becoming a tragic rather than comic character as she drowns herself after singing about half of "Mi tradi".  On the other hand, both Ottavio and Masetto walk when they find out they've been deceived by the women.  Masetto is clearly sexually drawn to Zerlina while she sings "Batti batti, but he keeps turning away from her, and says "It's over" to her at the end of it; Ottavio takes Anna’s returned engagement ring and walks out between the recitative and aria sections of "Non mi dir".  It’s not pleasant to see the men portrayed as somehow stronger than the women when it comes to resisting the temptation to be drawn by sex into something that's going to hurt them.  I suppose the director’s argument would be that no human woman has the sexual power that the larger-than-life masculine force of Don Giovanni has.

The supernatural elements are essentially removed. Instead of a stone statue coming to life, there is a shadowy hooded figure that Juan keeps seeing at crucial points when he's behaving exceptionally badly (the killing of Anna's father, the party at his loft where the first act finale takes place, etc.).  There is a sequence where Juan and Lep encounter a street shrine with a photo of the dead police chief--Juan is seeing the shadow figure while he's making Lep invite the police chief's picture to dinner.  The final trio takes place in a hijacked car in a high speed chase by the police, with an encounter in Juan's mind between himself and this shadowy figure (who is singing the Commendatore's part)--the figure turning out to be Juan himself.  Needless to say, there's no final envoi with the characters coming out to say what will happen to them next (The two other couples have broken up, and Elvira's dead).

The overall rather grainy look of the movie includes many visual statements about what's going on.   The consensus of the people who saw the film with me is that it works well as a movie; captures the "Don Juan" archetype and its impact very well.  I would not say that it's a particularly good introduction to the opera, too many cuts, essentially the director using the opera to tell the story, rather than Mozart doing it through the music.  Recitatives are partly sung, partly spoken, and carry much more of the drama than they would in the opera.  Maltman acts well and sings well enough (One person heard some intonation problems, but  I felt he acquitted himself well, and he certainly looks the part. He is most naked singing “Fin ch’ha dal vino”  in the shower, although the sex scenes are quite explicit. There are many closeups of his frequently unshaven face.  Elizabeth Futral as Elvira did a nice job with the arias that were left to her (the opening one, which is interrupted by Don Giovanni, and the duet in which he convinces her to go to an assignation elsewhere.  In the opera she unknowingly has this tryst with Leporello, in the movie no one ever shows up, leading  her to sing the recitative and part of “Mi tradi” as she walks down into the river).  Mikhail Petrenko as "Lep" was fine, both acting and singing; in some ways I think his character was the most successful and amusing of the updates.  Maria Bengtsson as Anna acted well (as did everyone) but her performance of the fiendishly difficult "Non mi dir" didn't do the music justice, I think.  Peter Lodahl as Ottavio and Ludwig Bengtson Lindström as Masetto acted well but didn't really have enough to sing to judge.  Katijya Dragojevic  as Zerlina got more to sing than they did, and she did her music justice--it was also absolutely clear that Juan was not seducing a virgin here.

Adriana Lecouvreur on arte-TV

That wonderful Cilea Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera House last year is now avalable on arte+7 TV for days. Do not miss, it's gorgeous ! Gheorghiu, Kaufmann, Corbelli. HERE is the link.  Here are links to my review and to the one in Opera Today.

Kaspar Holten's Copenhagen Ring

Does Kaspar Bech Holten's Copenhagen Ring tell us anything of what he'll bring to the Royal Opera House when he takes over Elaine Padmore's role in 2012? Maybe, but maybe not. This famed Ring put Copenhagen on the opera map,  and was received with great acclaim. It's not a cop-out like the Schenk/Levine production which even the Met was forced to retire. Neither is it so innovative that it might disturb mainstream audiences. Musically it's pretty good, not over the top or staid. One of the worries about Holten's appointment is that he doesn't have widespread international experience, but if this is what he gets from a mainly Scandinavian cast, it's not unpromising. This Wotan is Johan Reuter's performance of a lifetime. Maybe there are less divas in Denmark, but Holten won't be the only one at the helm in London.

Because this Ring was closely connected to the 2005 opening of the new Copenhagen Opera House, the building features prominently in the production. It must have been fun for the audience! For those of us not familiar with the city, there are still enough in-jokes to keep us amused, like the Norns surfacing as audience members in the stalls, complete with programmes and opera glasses.  Cue for a Ring that's deliberately non-mythic, but instead focussed on domestic realism. Holten even casts a genuine giant for Fasolt (who sings and acts superbly). Real wood dove, too, and it flies.

The Gods and their pawns aren't divine but human - almost embarrassingly human sometimes. Erda is semi-comatose in bed. Wotan/The Wanderer kisses her dutifully but he's clearly scared. Is she his Elderly Mother who will tell him off?  The whole Ring saga is told as if it were Brünnhilde's memory, as she's seen rummaging through old books while the Rheingold theme is reprised in Götterdämmerung. Strictly speaking, it's not as if she didn't already know, but it affirms her resolve to return the Ring to whom it belongs.

Thus the story progresses from 1920's Flapper to post WW2 austerity to the Swinging 60's where rebel teenager Siegfried decorates his room with sitar, guitar and hippy wall hangings. The kitchen in which Mime cooks up his spells is Danish Modern chic - pine, red and white kitchenware. Generational change is a feature of the Ring, so in principle it's not inappropriate to think of the Ring in compressed 20th century terms.

Humour, too. Fafner sits in a wheelchair bossing Fasolt about. Capitalist pig! Alberich scrawls his crazy theories on a blackboard. Hagen wipes the board clean, leaving for last a double helix : is DNA destiny? Can Hagen really get his Dad off his back by stabbing him?  Siegfried leaves the forest for married life in a room full of pot plants, where the Wood Dove's confined in a tiny cage. Now wonder he wants to escape!  While all these vignettes have wider meaning, humour isn't Wagner's forte. It's almost impossible to imagine Brünnhilde fussing about with a watering can. She may no longer be a  Walküre but no way will she ever be a bimbo.

De-mythologizing has its place, since The Ring is very much a universal story of strong personalities caught up in a web of moral compromise. That's why some thoughtful commentators have suggested the Copenhagen Ring as a good introduction to the cycle, so newcomers get used to it as drama before they go on to the more complex metaphysics. Better this than the Met Ring which substitued costumes for ideas and froze Wagner interpretation where Cosima might have wanted. For me, the best balance on film is probably Audi's Amsterdam Ring. I've seen and loved Sawallisch/Lenhoff but it's not on DVD.

There are some excellent moments in the Copenhagen Ring. Wotan and Loge's journey into Nebelheim  for example, and Wotan's truly horrific temper tantrum as he tears Alberich's arm off to get the Ring (a bracelet here, easier to see on stage). Loge cringes in shock. Even better is the Rock under which Fasolt-made-monster stands guard. Thick, black tentacles reach underground to his lair.  The final Immolation comes complete with real flames. Hagen's arm burns as he lunges at the Ring. Live, this must have been quite an experience.

Much less interesting is the emphasis on old age. Everyone grows old here, even the Gods. Wotan changes from youthful Reuter to James Johnson's Wanderer (without explanation).There is also something unpleasant about depicting decrepitude where it isn't really relevant. Where age versus youth does matter is the Brünnhilde/Siegfried relationship. Iréne Theorin was in her 40's when this was made but looks 25 years older. Sings vigorously, though. As Siegfried, Stig Andersen's face is painted white and looks 50. Inexplicably, in this Ring Brünnhilde is hugely pregnant which makes her aged apppearance truly unnatural.  Brünnhilde pregnant?  In the publicity material she cradles an infant. That's so not Wagner it doesn't bear thinking about. So maybe we can expect something controversial from Holten after all.

Eyeful of Maltman

Trailer for Juan, the film version of Don Giovanni opening next week. Reasons for seeing it ? FULL REVIEW HERE - exclusive - first!

1 : It's directed by Kaspar Holten who's taking over at the Royal Opera House, London. I will be writing about Holten's Copenhagen Ring shortly)
2 : It seems pretty good. Read more HERE
3 : Christopher Maltman ! Ten years on from that famous Aldeburgh Rape of Lucretia he shows he's still firm of tone. The Return of Ulysses at the Young Vic borrowed a lot from other productions, including what happens after this photo !

ENO's new Lucrezia Borgia - Quadcast

A life as extreme as Lucrezia Borgia's begs dramatic treatment. Donizetti's opera Lucrezia Borgia starts a run at the ENO from 31st January, but on 23rd February there'll be something Completely Different - the "first live opera in 3D" (as opposed to the first non-live opera in 3D which was ROH's Carmen which is being screened for the first time on 5th March)

Please read my review of the ENO production HERE (It explains the film/opera hybrid more clearly). 

What makes the ENO fun is that it's visionary. This Lucrezia Borgia isn't an ordinary film of the opera but a Gesammstkunstwerk.. Because Lucrezia's life was so complicated and shrouded in mystery, it lends itself to cinematic ideas like flashbacks and parallel time frames. treatment. The photos come from a film of Lucrezia Borgia made in 1935 by Abel Gance, whose Napoleon (1927) is one of the most influential classics in cinema history.

Film director Mike Figgis has created 6 vignettes, filmed on location in Italy, and woven these into the production. His focus, though is on the opera itself. Please read this interview in the Financial Times, "Donizetti goes digital". Figgis says that his aim was to keep the opera intact, the vignettes forming frames to make it "even more like the sparkling jewel it is".

Figgis is famous for integrating the technology of film into his films themselves. "The Medium is the Message", as Marshall McLuhan said, where meaning expands from appreciating how images are created. No need to panic if you're technophobic. It's as simple as appreciating a sculpture knowing how it grows from the grain of the wood or the structure of marble.

The broadcast on 23rd February is also described as "The World's First Quadcast". The ENO has teamed up with Sky so the broadcast will be carried by Sky Arts 2 (HD), Sky 3D and live into selected cinemas in 3D around the UK. There'll be a deferred relay in 2D into selected cinemas internationally. The Quadcast element comes from the Sky Arts 1, broadcast directed by  Figgis, and will allow audiences a closer understanding of his concept as well as including interviews with people behind the scenes.

So ENO's Lucrezia Borgia might appeal to technophiles who might have fun at first with multimedia, and then become hooked on the music and drama.  But I don't think it should worry technophobes, either. The idea of blending stage and backstage isn't new in itself. Remember the outstanding Opera North film of Benjamin Britten Gloriana which turned the contortions of the script into a virtue and brought out the depths of Britten's vision?

Filming opera is undiscovered territory, whose language we're still learning. Decades ago, music was filmed with cameras rigidly fixed into position, musicians grimacing as uncomfortably as possible. But music isn't like that. Much better filmed music that captures its spirit and fascination. So, too, could well-filmed opera add elements that enhance and enrich the experience.
Lots more on this site about opera, film, and opera on film - please explore!

Opera at the Movies Bachtrack

Keeping up with opera screened in movie theatres is tricky - different cinema chains., different distributors, minimal publicity. Now here's help!

Check out the Bachtrack site (listed on the right of this page for easy reference. It's the best site for planning your schedule - everything in the same place, including things off the beaten track (Like Westminster Cathedral Dream of Gerontius).  I use it all the time.

They've got details of Royal Opera House and NY Met screenings plus also Opus Arte European opera, most of which is top notch. More soon, too. Like Berlin Deutsche Oper's new season which features some of the top stars, including Joyce DiDonato,Jospeh Calleja, Jonas Kaufmann and this year's hot property Vittorio Grigolo - although you'll have to look through the listings carefully as they often have different casts for different nights of the same production. As well as the established repertoire, they are making a point of producing some lesser known operas such as Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae and Cassandra and Respighi's Marie Victoire.

When you're using the main "find an opera" or "find a ballet" pages, look out for one or more yellow bubbles at the top of the listing results: these will tell you if there are any cinema or on-demand listings which match your search.

Opera on film is different to opera live or on audio recording.  Much depends on the musical intelligence of the film-maker. Some, like Brian Large, can turn trash to (almost) gold. Gone are the days when stand and shoot was enough - the camera has to follow the detail in a meaningful way. Long term there are implications for stageceraft because film opens possibilities not practicable in live performance. Certainly there are implications for the experience of opera, since audiences anywhere will get to see top quality shows. The end of one-city, one-house insularity.  When people are actually exposed to things they've only read about before, perhaps they'll have more progressive attitudes. Some of the hysteria about "Regie" might dissipate when people realize the word simply means "directed". In French and German it's just a word but to some English-only speakers it's red flags to bulls.