Christopher Webber replied to me:

>>I really don't understand this. I'd be so happy if anyone could try to
>>help me out. Why is it possible to fill out the notes with meaning without
>>significantly altering them, whereas a drama needs to be put in a place
>>far away from the original?
>
>I wonder why this business of 'original settings' is becoming such a
>sticking point for Jan?

Because text fidelity is one of the most crucial things for a musician.
Why do we need new critical editions if the performer just says "oh,
this doesn't work anyways, let's do how I envision it".  Aside from that,
my question remains unanswered.  How do you reason for the significant
difference in the treatment of musical text and libretto?  "Because it
was always done like that" is a very poor argument indeed.  We can very
safely assume that most works had their first performances in very poor
quality, technically speaking.  Does that mean we should perform a
Beethoven symphony with no less than twenty mistakes of various
instrumentalists to make it "authentic"?

>Presumably this is usually with the composer's at least tacit agreement:
>Nicholas Maw bowed to Trevor Nunn's theatrical expertise in altering
>many stage directions (and some of the music) in "Sophie's Choice" for
>the first production, because they couldn't work here and now at Covent
>Garden in 2002. However, they're still there in the text for future
>reference.

But what's the point of leaving it in the score when their not practical
to perform?  Whatfor is a reference needed when it doesn't matter?

>The first production of Judith Weir's "Blond Eckbert" set one scene,
>clearly delineated in the libretto as a mediaeval German wood (as per
>Tieck's novella), under an American motorway flyover. Whether or not
>this added to the impact of the scene, the mere fact of such dislocation
>did no violence whatsoever to the spirit of the piece, nor did any
>audience members to the best of my knowledge find it either confusing
>or silly.

Because noone except for the relatives of the producer was there?

>A production of mine even set in it 19th c.  revolutionary Cuba, without
>violence either to Handel's drama or his music; at all events, fox furs
>and yashmaks were not a practical option for us!

Oh no, you didn't violate the music of the "drama" (what is that?) just
only violated the text.  Minor delict indeed.  Isn't it paranoid that
the second flute please plays the articulation as written by the composer
and the director can do whatever he wants?

>he [Wagner]
>didn't set his Bayreuth "Lohengrin" in a realistic Mediaeval Brabant
>water meadow any more than he set "The Ring" in the land of the sagas.

Oh.  I understand.  Of course he set in in a concentration camp located
on Mars in 2254.  How could I have forgotten that. My deepest apologies.

>As the Matter of Germany was infinitely more important to him than the
>matter of either the Low Countries or Iceland, as a designer he set both
>of them in his own, fantastic 19th c. vision of Teutonic myth, to which
>'real' mediaeval or dark age places or people were subsidiary.

The Ring saga is by no means Icelandic.  The text Wagner used comes
from scriptures found it abbeys in southern Germany and Austria.  It was
written down there somewhen around 1000.  It always took place in the
then-German Empire.  Setting Wagner's Ring on Iceland would be a violation
not only of Wagner but also of the ancient epos.  And of course it
wouldn't be shocking and thus wouldn't satisfy the producer's ego.

>His canny grandfather, one imagines, realised that if it couldn't be
>done well, it was better off kept in the audience's imagination than
>staged as written. Please Note: he didn't change his text, but he did
>recognise that theatre is a pragmatic, demanding art form which has to
>respond to the here and now.

Agreed.  But I fail to see why a modern opera is able of producing about
every set except for what the composer intended.  Of course it isn't
possible to have the Rhinemaides swim in a river. But yes, it is possible
to suggest that they do precisely that.

>The whole point is that the libretto - just like the score - doesn't get
>burned in the production process. It's still there afterwards as a fixed
>reference point.

Thank God.

>It's the positive duty of every production to re-examine
>both score and text according to the theatrical manners of its own time:
>and it's in the nature of theatre, as several contributors have argued,
>that the libretto will require more thorough re-examination than the
>score

Why?

Jan