Where do you stand on modern performing arts? Particularly new/modernized/restaged versions of classic pieces, such as Faust and Swan Lake, which add new material or even completely re-envision the piece? (For example, Kudelka's Swan Lake envisions the kingdom as corrupt and violent--in a scene that is normally a cutesy celebration of the prince's birthday with nobles and peasants alike was reimagined by Kudelka to be the prince's knights groping and eventually raping a peasant girl.)
anachronisms and revisions in opera should be fucking banned
just follow the original idea the author had ffs
Juan Murphy
I think that restaged/modernized versions which deviate from the original are inevitable but companies really need to make sure that the promotional material lets people know they aren't seeing the classic version. To use the Kudelka example again, at least in the recent stagings the NBC has done, they don't tell people that this version contains gang rape and darker thematic elements (the court scene with the princesses is transformed into the princesses showing off for the prince into a creepy almost auction-like scene where they're inspected like meat) and isn't an ordinary Swan Lake. If you want to play with Swan Lake or another classic piece, have fun, but make sure you promote that.
I also think that restaging/altering these classic pieces only truly works if you go full hog. Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty is an example of this. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but when he decided to make his own version of Sleeping Beauty, he really did it.
Ayden Stewart
It's all fine as long as they don't cast a bunch of niggers.
This what you get for letting Marxists and other degenerates and social termites touch the great treasures of the spirit.
Charles Jones
>Where do you stand on... new/modernized/restaged versions of classic pieces...? They're great. It allows the current generation of artists to concentrate on reviving old material after their own interpretation. It's how we get great new works (like pic related) or new ideas about how works should be presented (like Regietheater).
>anachronisms and revisions in opera should be fucking banned Opera was chocked full of anachronisms since the form began, pretty much. Learn to love them or gtfo. >just follow the original idea the author had ffs Literally who is the author of the opera? Is it the writer of the source material, the librettist, the composer, the music director, the choir director the conductor, the choreographer, the set designer, or the costume designer? All of these people have unique creative input into the overall shape and crafting of an opera.
Staging of operas are going to be different every time for all sorts of reasons. There's no reason to ask people to be un-creative about it.
I think that complaint is legitimate in ballet for sure. When people hear [Insert Petipa ballet], they expect some kind of vanilla reconstruction, not gang rape.
Luis Brown
I'm kind of lukewarm on this opera myself, but I love the fact that someone made an opera adaptation of Aniara. The choice of orchestration and instrumentation (especially the tape portions) are incredibly appropriate for the narrative.
I also always get overexcited when I see sci-fi in settings like poetry or opera.
Okay, but consider something like the works of Gilbert and Sullivan where Gilbert was the stage director and even costumer for many of the works and there was an established performing tradition and precedent set to them.
To give me my personal opinion, I'm fine with both traditional and non-traditional options, and would prefer a world where both can co-exist naturally without one taking over the other. Because the traditional style (in G&S at least) got to be stifling to the perception and creativity of the works since there was a copyright actually enforcing it for awhile. But now we see an opposite perception where somehow a style of presentation is "outdated" because there's no onstage indecency or bloody fetuses dancing around not present in the libretto.
Jacob Williams
>bloody fetuses dancing around lol, I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about.
I agree with you that modern and traditional (whatever that means) productions should be able to coexist. I'm going to be honest and say I don't really understand the tendency towards hard R-rated productions of 18th (or whatever) century operas, either. But it's just a modern trend and it might change drastically within our lifetimes, whereas traditional stagings will probably always exist.
Andrew Butler
Yeah. Though I don't understand the justification that it would make it more accessible to the audience to update the stagings to be almost totally at odds with the libretto.
Tyler Wilson
>I'm going to be honest and say I don't really understand the tendency towards hard R-rated productions of 18th (or whatever) century operas, either.
Shock value, in my opinion. "Oh, you think operas are these silly quaint little things? No way!! It's as cool and hip as R-rated movies! We'll show you with gore and nudity!" Pic is Lucia di Lammermoor so not really related.
Elijah White
>Opera was chocked full of anachronisms since the form began, pretty much. Learn to love them or gtfo. Yeah there is an opera called Xerxes by Handel. I, lover of history, thought it was a historical opera about the Persian king. It turns out it was just a generic love story whose main character could be anyone at any time or place! The same goes for the opera Julius Cesar by the same composer, another generic love story. I assume all his operas are like this?
Christian Wood
Opera, and all theater really, is supposed to be sexy. But sexiness doesn't always commute over time that well. Maybe the stagers are just trying to communicate the sexiness to a high-brow audience used to going to the movies to watch 3 hour long softcore lesbian porn epics or watching people be beaten to death with fire extinguishers in a gay BDSM club.
Brandon Phillips
>Can't tell if this question is serious or not Yeah, pretty much. Generally the operas about Greek myths actually tell the stories of Greek myths. But most Greek myths are also just generic love stories.
Asher Smith
What're some good historical plays?
Jordan Cook
Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch about English Kings. They're pretty good.
Jaxson Hernandez
Saw a play rendition of Cinderella relatively recently. They added in some weird love interest character for one of Cinderella's step sisters who was a bumbling nerdy revolutionary with vague socialist values. Very odd.
Michael Cook
The recent Rodgers and Hammerstein version which was on Broadway and is now touring? I think it ends this month and then goes non-union...
It's an odd choice for Cinderella. But I guess they wanted to add something more substantial than the book used in the TV film or the older versions with Julie Andrews and Leslie Ann Warren. I remember reading that the show was quite different in previews, and a lot of plot was cut out. I can't imagine what else they could have stuffed into the show.
Jack Sullivan
I love new interpretations of operas. There is a great DVD of Schoenberg 's "Moses and Aron" on the Euroarts label. Conductor Michael Border Director Willy Decker
Sure, it doesn't guarantee success. But when it works, it is life changing.
Josiah Lewis
Fuck off, conservitard.
I love aesthetic innovation.
Yeah and I AM a Marxian Socialist. Bleah!!
Joseph Ramirez
Bump
Jace Murphy
> innovation That implies these things are linear
Jaxson Moore
bup
Wyatt Richardson
Do your own art don't shit on others. >Implying Marxist don't do these just to subvert and corrupt society >Implying whenever they seise power they don't immediately stop with the subvert... I mean "innovation", and revert back to the most conservative aesthetics possible
Easton Hill
>muh cultural marxism Please stop using this tired meme.
Most artists, even those who attempt to reject the influence of past art, have a great deal of reverence for those who came before them. I think that the best example of this is Pierre Boulez who had that whole "Schoenberg is Dead" ideology, including wanting to get rid of opera all together, but at the same time he was a GOAT conductor who created the definitive recording of Debussy's Pelleas et Mellisande.
(As an aside, the set for Boulez's Pelleas et Melisande is absolutely awesome and is pretty much a "/argument" RE:modernized versions of operas)
Anyway, not all reverence for artwork needs to be in the form of ultra-conservative, carefully reconstructed versions of the original. They can also be re-imaginings or revisions of the artwork that try to express the same idea in a different light.
Anthony Allen
>the set for Boulez's Pelleas et Melisande Ok, it has just come to my attention that Boulez did Pelleas about 6 gorillion times.
I'm talking about the one he did that had 4 moving panels instead of curtains.
Dominic Price
>new musical based on Don Bluth's Anastasia opened in previews tonight
What a time to be alive
Michael James
But it can't be made the only way, and there is no way it can be considered as more "innovative" or superior because there's no metric to measure that.
Gabriel Rivera
Innovative means to "feature new methods." It doesn't mean "better" or "along a predefined path of progress." Stop being dense and thinking you can argue something when there's nothing there to argue.
Christian Roberts
bumpo
Noah Gonzalez
bump
Bentley Allen
Anyone do ballet here? I just started a few weeks ago. Does anyone have some tips or know some good videos for practicing outside of class? I hate it since I only have class Monday and Wednesday so I'm afraid I'll forget everything during the rest of the week.
William Phillips
My Country has an extremely rich theater tradition and arguably we have one of the most active scenes in Europe. However we're also poor as shit meaning period costumes are rare. I think that as long as the costumes are the modernized counter parts of the originals, it's not really a problem. Pic related: Othello.
Brody Gutierrez
Off yourself.
Juan Mitchell
In my country we have 2 main theatres, the Mestno Gledališče Ljubljana which specializes in "modernized" versions and the Narodno Gledališče - Drama which is strictly classical. It works pretty well desu.
Asher Brooks
Which nation do you hail from? I have a bunch of recommendations, but it all depends on what languages you speak.
Jonathan Lee
Hey have any of you Anglos heard of "Aus dem bürgerlichen Heldenleben (From the Heroic Life of the Bourgeois)" by Carl Sternheim? It's an amazing collection of plays that are both funny and extremely insightful. I was extremely surprised when I learned he's practically unheard of outside the continent.
Daniel Lewis
I saw a scene from one of his plays during an event that I had to go to to make up for a missed German class.
Didn't understand a word of it. Didn't even understand who the characters were or what was going on.
Basically it's about the rise and fall of a bourgeois dynasty. the first play is about the old Maske who is a crafty bureaucrat who manages to lift his family to an upper-middle class standard. He manges to do this because his wife let her underwear fall in front of the local count. At first Maske is sure he's gonna lose his job and status, but manages to turn the odds into his favour. He's also confronted with a liberal traveling academic and a free spirited artist, both expose his ignorance about science, art and philosophy. The second part is about his son, the second Maske. The young Maske is a true Nietzschean Übermensch, climbing farther up the societal ladder than his father ever has. He's even engaged to the daughter of a blue blooded aristocrat. The only 2 problems in his life are his 2 parents that he tries to send of to Belgium and forget (he even writes the old Maske a check which covers all the expenses he caused them as a child to get rid of them) and the prostitute he hopelessly fell in love with. Shenanigans ensue and the old Maske manges to ensure a good future for his son and a quiet retirement for him and his wife. The last part, titled "1913" is the crescendo of the saga. Now young Maske is already old and dying and controls most of Germany's arms industry. His 2 children are all spoiled brats. His son is a feminized would-be artist whose nihilism and delicate sensibilities make him totally useless. The other is his daughter, who is slightly more competent, but her pampered lifestyle proves to be fatal to her character as she isn't as crafts as old Maske and neither as ambitious as young Maske. In the end the company falls into the hands of the vicious manager. The last act/play is way more serious and dramatic then the first 2 and provides an insightful critique of capitalism and the mindless drive of the bourgeoisie towards more and more money and power. 17/10 best play I've seen.
