Ed Zubrow <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>...to pick up on Walter's point about some operas being more rewarding
>*without* the staging.  This is kind of a radical notion since, by
>definition, opera is The melding of text, music and dramaturgy.

Its hardly radical, in so far as people have suggested dropping the
staging since at least Monteverdi's "Orfeo"!  Doubtless even then there
were plenty of antediluvian opera buffs, complaining that it was all
staged so much better in Caccini's day, before all these modern stage
machines and costumes!

Some would go further along this route - my own late father, for instance,
used to say that he much preferred opera without the singing.  Still
others (Sir John Gielgud whilst directing "Don Giovanni" at Covent Garden
comes to mind) have preferred it without the music at all!

However, this is a little different.  It seems a curious experience
to find that staging actually *lessens* the impact of these great and
essentially theatrical masterpieces.  Most audience members find precisely
the reverse, especially when it comes to the music theatre of the 20th
and 21st centuries.

>Still, for me, Tristan and Isolde is a perfect example of what Walter
>is talking about.  Whenever I watch it I am bored to tears; whenever
>I listen to it I am moved to tears.

It would be easy to say, with Prince Orlovsky, "chacun a son gout", and
leave it at that.  I'm concerned enough to try and unpick Ed's honest
reaction.

When he says that when watching he is "bored to tears", he presumably
means that he is distracted from the (for him) all-important music by
the paraphernalia of the staging.  Would he be equally bored if he closed
his eyes?  I doubt it.

Assuming not, then there are several other possible explanations.

(1) It may have been what Ed thought of as a bad production, but I don't
think so - bad productions don't bore one, quite the reverse.  They
infuriate, goad and increase the blood pressure.  We have had all too
many posts on this newsgroup which demonstrate that!

(2) Unlikely here, but lack of familiarity with theatre conventions,
or lack of the regular theatre-going habit, is another possibility.
As with anything else worthwhile, opera watching needs to be learnt and
regularly practised.  Would we expect instant ease and gratification
whilst listening to our first Bruckner symphony in the concert hall?
The more time we spend in the opera theatre, the more our sensual reactions
work together in harmony, the less distraction the visuals are apt to
cause ...  and the more they augment the experience rather than proving
a bore.

By the by, I don't think the visually super-aware younger generations
have anything like these problems processing sound and image simultaneously.
It may get harder as we get older, but my evidence to support that comes
mainly from great dramatists' tendency to fine down the theatricality
of their later works to a point where the physical theatre itself almost
ceases to be necessary to the drama (c.f.  "Parsifal", "The Tempest",
"When We Dead Awaken", late Beckett, Zemlinsky's "King Candaules")

(3) The problem may lie, as Sullivan for one always knew it would, in
the siren call of the gramophone.  The stage is an aid to concentration
more often than not, so what has gone wrong?  I suspect that the
availability of these Good Things on plush-sounding CDs, in the calm and
comfort of our own homes, has spoilt us for the theatrical experience.

We've become over-familiar with the music, for one thing, and comparatively
under-familiar with the drama.  Then, it's increasingly hard to enthuse
about the imperfect, communal experience - of which the audience is very
much a part, like it or not - when the passive, parlour armchair has so
many attractions.

What to do?  We've spent a lot of money on our seats, so I think we owe
it to ourselves (and the performers who are putting themselves out for
us) to try a little harder when it comes to the theatrical experience.
The fault lies in ourselves.

It's a shame to be sitting there thinking (as I confess I did listening
to Gabriele Schnaut's "Elektra" in London last night) "Birgit does that
phrase so much better in the Solti".  If instead we drop our defences,
allow ourselves to be drawn in, give a little attention as well as expect
it all to be done for us, then the experience available to us (even in
an imperfect production) will be far richer than we could ever get from
those seductive but moribund racks of CDs.

Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK
http://www.zarzuela.net
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site