It's time that we, music lovers, establish the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Artists.

Watching the Stuttgart "Alcina" again, in advance of the production's
arrival in San Francisco, it strikes me that the singers, not the audience,
are made to suffer the brunt of it.

It's clear that the audience is distracted from the music, minute by
minute, but what about the singers - how do they perform this intricate,
difficult, demanding music while touching, kissing, feeling, wreathing,
wriggling, rolling on the floor, hitting, slashing, kicking the wall and
each other, licking the wall and each other, cleaning boots, throwing
boots, undressing, shooting, leaping, twirling, simulating (I think) sex,
and then repeat the five-minute segment described here with other music...
because there is no connection between music and action anyway.

This is Sellars on steroid, hysterically busy, unnecessary and cruel
to the singers - not a valid alternative to static direction, only
lazy EuroTrashers (dramaturgids) reverting to a tired, unimaginative,
teenage-hormonal formula.  It's terribly unfair to the singers:  the
audience can leave, the cast cannot.  If anything like this was done to
a dog or cat on the opera stage, there would be a storm of protest.  Who
will protect humans?

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]