Fine line between opera and porn

[Guest]

I just saw for the first time at the West Edge Opera in Oakland the opera Powder her Face by Thomas Adès. The opera features full nudity and staged sexual activity. The subject of the opera is the "Dirty Duchess", Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose sexual exploits were the stuff of scandal and gossip in Britain in 1963 during her divorce proceedings. The opera is explicit in its language and detail. The music wasn't exactly melodious to my ears (more screaming than singing in many places), but at least the piece held prurient interest. The baritone is played by handsome Hadleigh Adams.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UN8yaaqPMxg/VZaa1BFA2pI/AAAAAAAAboE/2JSewfVLFNA/s1600/Hadleigh%2BAdams%2Bshirtless_Bajazet.jpg

[Guest]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dim9p_dXrUw/VT624AMnOyI/AAAAAAAAacI/yUFGWMDSwMw/s1600/hadleigh%2Badams.jpg

 

http://www.artsjournal.com/condemned/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/drew.jpg

[Guest]

[Guest]

The tenor, Jonathan Blalock was very easy on the eyes as well....

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9M4c9Uvy3LI/UgrvpMupKeI/AAAAAAAAUlE/9cBb0MJRHsY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-13+at+7.45.06+PM.png

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1S32Je0rX5A/Usi-_iFYTqI/AAAAAAAAVvw/gbyDHEM6v6M/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-01-04+at+6.09.03+PM.png

[Guest]

If I were a smoker, I'd probably want a cigarette after watching their performances...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vbrMa5TSSdY/TBAVM-PqUBI/AAAAAAAAE7Y/n6YT5udxeP4/s1600/Wes_Mason_as_Reinaldo_Arenas_and_Jonathan_Blalock_as_Lazaro2.jpg

[Guest]

I don't have pictures of our performance, of course, but here are some photos of other performances of Powder Her Face.

http://static.deia.com/images/2016/05/05/opera-arriaga-powder-h12200285_11.jpg

 

http://www.elcorreo.com/multimedia/201605/06/media/powder-her-face/powder-her-face(53).jpg

[Guest]

http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/powder_her_face.jpg

 

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5283f47be4b05aa1b7656acc/5284099ee4b08fd77c764e24/528ac2d7e4b025d2cc410352/1434885945452/94.jpg

[Guest]

 

http://storage.journaldequebec.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/bd0cd2de-09c9-4374-a478-147e52dbef7b_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=1200x&version=1

[Guest]

No, I don't think this will ever be played by your local Middle School...

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/7223a4_89cd122745644b7ab1edc3e7cd02278b.jpg/v1/fill/w_834,h_556,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/7223a4_89cd122745644b7ab1edc3e7cd02278b.jpg

[Guest]

http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/544575581-germany-berlin-mitte-opera-sex-lies-and-tv-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=X7WJLa88Cweo9HktRLaNXjV9wfiZFqVRUaQdh%2FsFz0ZgPVS8cYBLzUwS2gAnzF46WRjxxHuy5o0gi81NrXnEfg%3D%3D

 

http://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2013/48/eeb50b76-4f64-4fc8-a2fc-addf6d6ba1ac.jpg

[Guest]

http://www.marc-lucascio.photo/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/photo-boudoir-chambre-d-hotel.jpg

 

http://static.deia.com/images/2016/01/07/arriaga_16080_1.jpg

[Guest]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g57KdKsU41w/U0eUxzrxCfI/AAAAAAAAGkk/oT6XyHjKyZg/s1600/5558.jpg

 

http://www.harrisonparrott.com/sites/default/files/styles/focus_795_x_568/public/ades_2_crop.jpg?itok=QftfSxBy

[Guest]

http://artfcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PowderHerFace01%C2%A9Pavel_Antonov.jpg

[Guest]

[Guest]

Well, if that kind of thing is your cup of tea, there are some upcoming performances in the coming week-ends:

http://www.westedgeopera.org/

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PRODUCTION IS FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY AND CONTAINS STRONG SEXUAL CONTENT

Mining the human drama of recent history is the fodder for some of the last half century's greatest works. Powder Her Face, Thomas Adès' portrait of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, retains its power to provoke and challenge two decades after its scandalous premiere. Elkhanah Pulitzer, who stunned audiences with last summer's Lulu returns to direct. Come hear the first Bay Area staging of this modern masterpiece. Please note this production is for mature audiences. This work is unabashedly sexual in nature, and our staging can be compared to an R-rated movie.

[+ WilliamM]

Elkhanah Pulitzer, who stunned audiences with last summer's Lulu returns to direct. Come hear the first Bay Area staging of this modern masterpiece. Please note this production is for mature audiences. This work is unabashedly sexual in nature, and our staging can be compared to an R-rated movie.

 

"Lulu" is performed by opera companies all over the world. I have seen the opera five or six times, including a production in Sydney. I wonder how

Pulitzer's "Lulu" was received. Thanks very much, Unicorn. :)

[Kenny]

I suppose that's one way to fill seats at the opera.

[liubit]

About 10 years ago, there was a production of Wagner's Tannhäuser in --of all places-- Calvinist and puritanical Geneva, where the opening orgiastic scene was VERY realistically performed. There was in particular a very well-hung naked Faun who had a huuuge and never-ending hardon (Viagra induced??), parading all over the stage. Big scandal, but the house was sold out every single night. Wagner has never been so popular

[TruHart1]

I've never heard any music from Powder Her Face except the snippet above, but have seen a full performance video from the MET and a local production of the same composer's (Thomas Adès) opera setting of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was not NSFW (or rated "R") in any way! I rather liked the music he composed for The Tempest but I realize that modern opera, even Adès neo-romantic opera compositions, are never going to be everyone's cup of tea. I certainly don't expect to see Powder Her Face at a major opera house in the near future either, though.

 

Reading up on the piece, I see it was premiered in London in 1995 at the relatively small Almeida Opera, which commissioned the work for performance at the Cheltenham Music Festival. The opera became notorious for its musical depiction of fellatio, which caused British radio station Classical FM to consider it unsuitable for transmission at the time. From Wikipedia:

"Describing the overall impact of the libretto and the theatricality of the entire production, Alex Ross [now music critic for New Yorker magazine] notes:

"Hensher [the librettist] seized the opportunity to create the first onstage blow job in opera history, but he also twisted the story into something more generalised and expressionistic: Margaret becomes a half-comic, half-tragic figure, a nitwit outlaw. There were clear parallels with Alban Berg’s epic of degradation,

Lulu

. The libretto reads like a nasty farce, but it takes on emotional breadth when the music is added. With a few incredibly seductive stretches of thirties-era popular melody, Adès shows the giddy world that the Duchess lost, and when her bright harmony lurches down to a terrifying B-flat minor he exposes the male cruelty that quickened her fall. Adès's harmonic tricks have a powerful theatrical impact: there’s a repeated sense of a beautiful mirage shattering into cold, alienated fragments"."

 

Now, I'm sure if I were geographically situated to catch a performance I'd probably make it a point to see a production, for the male nudity, if nothing else!!!

 

TruHart1

[marylander1940]

No, I don't think this will ever be played by your local Middle School...

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/7223a4_89cd122745644b7ab1edc3e7cd02278b.jpg/v1/fill/w_834,h_556,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/7223a4_89cd122745644b7ab1edc3e7cd02278b.jpg

 

JJ:

 

Will this picture be your new avatar?

 

 

(I quoted you so you get an alert and reply on here with your usual sarcasm)

[+ WilliamM]

"Lulu" is a major opera, able to withstand any new ideas by producers/directors. But, I hope they stay away from Britten's "Death in Venice, " based on the Thomas Mann novella.

 

The opera seems to be performed more in Europe than the U.S. I have only seen "Death in Venice" in this country and it was many years ago.

[whipped guy]

Well I have plans to see Rossini's Guillaume Tell in October at the MET. However, I don't expect there to be a gang rape scene during the ballet in Act Three which leads up to the infamous apple shooting scene as recently occurred during the production at the Royal Operal House, Covent Garden in London.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jun/30/william-tell-gang-rape-scene-royal-opera-house

 

Incidentally, in order to make the interpolation work the ballet was "performed" in a truncated form. Evidentially the Swiss inspired music of the original did not exactly describe a gang rape.

 

Here is a letter to the Guardian in response to the Above referenced article on the London production:

 

Edith Evans once said in an interview: “There is nothing that kills Shakespeare so much as a young director with ideas.” The violent rape scene in Covent Garden’s production of Rossini’s William Tell is the latest in a long history of directors using “ideas” to force audiences into a more meaningful engagement with opera (Booing and walkouts at Covent Garden, 1 July). I would probably have walked out myself, as I did in the 1980s from ENO’s grotesque Tristan. The basic problem with this sort of radical re-imagining of classical opera is that you can’t change the music or the singing to match the new concept. If you want Hamlet to seem like a violent cockney gang leader, you can at least get him to talk like that. But you can’t get classically trained opera singers to sound like anything but opera singers when they perform Rossini, any more than you can get the music itself to sound crudely horrifying. A modern composer might well write music that directly reflects the brutality of war, in which case the staging and singing could match it. But the most unfortunate result of these conflicts between 19th-century music and radical modern ideas of staging is not that the audience is shocked, but that great music is made to sound old-fashioned and ridiculous.

 

Still this stuff has been going on for eons. I recall that there was a nude Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck at the NYC Opera back in 1998. Also a blowjob was implied in the Jean Pierre Ponnelle production of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri. The production made the rounds to a number of opera houses throughout the world. I saw it at the MET. However, when the production was televised in the 1980's that tidbit of stage direction was eliminated!

[jjkrkwood]

I think the line was crossed, BUT I LIKE IT !

[+ WilliamM]

Well I have plans to see Rossini's Guillaume Tell in October at the MET. However, I don't expect there to be a gang rape scene during the ballet in Act Three which leads up to the infamous apple shooting scene as recently occurred during the production at the Royal Operal House, Covent Garden in London.

 

 

I saw a production of "The Flying Dutchman" in Munich that included a long spinning class, not exacrly rape though. I am thinking about seeing Tell or Tristan and Isolde.

[TruHart1]

Well I have plans to see Rossini's Guillaume Tell in October at the MET. However, I don't expect there to be a gang rape scene during the ballet in Act Three which leads up to the infamous apple shooting scene as recently occurred during the production at the Royal Operal House, Covent Garden in London....

 

Still this stuff has been going on for eons. I recall that there was a nude Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck at the NYC Opera back in 1998. Also a blowjob was implied in the Jean Piere Ponelle production of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri. The production made the rounds to a number of opera houses throughout the world. I saw it at the MET. However, when the production was televised in the 1980's that tidbit of stage direction was eliminated!

There was a wonderful production of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra with the great operatic singer/actress, Catherine Malfitano as Cleopatra, from Chicago Lyric back in the 90's which was telecast on PBS but cut the entire sailors' chorus because in this staging it depicted a drunken (semi-nude) all male orgy among the dancers and male chorus members. If you wanted to see it, you would have had to travel to Chicago and see a complete live performance. I always wondered if they filmed that scene but just decided not to broadcast it. I don't believe a DVD was ever released of that particular production, though.

 

TruHart1