Fidelio - Beethoven.
Oct. 4th, 2013 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
motodraconisWhen you think of Beethoven, you don't generally think of opera, and Fidelio was Beethoven's one and only opera. The set looked dramatic and strange, worth a punt surely...
From the very beginning, once the overture began, I was impressed by the quality of the music. No mean feat as I generally don't care for music without a human voice. But here, at last! After a rash of musical oddities I felt I might have found something I would enjoy. Short lived - bloody hell that overture went on, and on, and on... I want singing dammit!
The set was modernistic and strange, with the cast clambering over it in a manner reminiscent of caged lab rats, which probably was the point. The whole thing reminded me of Vincenzo Natali's disturbing and outright horrible (albeit excellent) film Cube. Again, that was probably the point.
Fidelio/Leonore had a cold, and her part was sung by an understudy. I don't know if this was one of the reasons, but I found the solo-sung songs in the first act somewhat unmemorable. On the other hand, the chorus of prisoners at the end of the first act was fantastic, and very moving - and the first time I've ever loved a chorus more than any other part of an opera. I generally don't care much for chorus songs, (they tend to seem more like filler) but maybe it's Beethoven, with a skill in weaving voices. I was surprised.
With much clanging and clanking, the set pivoted, becoming even more like a lab-rat maze. Here though, things got more patchy for me. I was impressed on a fundamental level by having a feisty heroine for once, she physically attacks the villain of the piece and then tosses acid into his face in order to rescue the male lead (for a change.)
But then... the pacing went all weird. They've just been given an opportunity to escape, and for some unknown reason spend ages laboriously changing clothes during what should be the touching reunion song. Then they sit around like lemons while a string quartet is lowered from the ceiling. I am confused. The opera appears to have ground to a halt. Has it finished? Should we be leaving now? But no! It restarts again, (confusingly) and a weird fop arrives to the rescue.
And then... (is this something I shouldn't say - a spoiler - or is this unique to this production?) The fop shoots the hero in the head, who appears to die, and then er...inexplicably gets up again unhurt and everyone carries on as if nothing unusual has happened.
WHAT THE FUCK!
I still have no idea what the fuck was going on with that. WHHHHHYYYY?
I think this is an opera I could grow to like, and would want to see again (a different production) the set was funky and rather cool, but the string quartet - while very nice, and lovely music, was quite pointless, as if the ending wasn't garbled enough already. Too much music - not enough singing! Too many notes!
Photos by Roy Tan for WestendTheatre.com
From the very beginning, once the overture began, I was impressed by the quality of the music. No mean feat as I generally don't care for music without a human voice. But here, at last! After a rash of musical oddities I felt I might have found something I would enjoy. Short lived - bloody hell that overture went on, and on, and on... I want singing dammit!
The set was modernistic and strange, with the cast clambering over it in a manner reminiscent of caged lab rats, which probably was the point. The whole thing reminded me of Vincenzo Natali's disturbing and outright horrible (albeit excellent) film Cube. Again, that was probably the point.
Fidelio/Leonore had a cold, and her part was sung by an understudy. I don't know if this was one of the reasons, but I found the solo-sung songs in the first act somewhat unmemorable. On the other hand, the chorus of prisoners at the end of the first act was fantastic, and very moving - and the first time I've ever loved a chorus more than any other part of an opera. I generally don't care much for chorus songs, (they tend to seem more like filler) but maybe it's Beethoven, with a skill in weaving voices. I was surprised.
With much clanging and clanking, the set pivoted, becoming even more like a lab-rat maze. Here though, things got more patchy for me. I was impressed on a fundamental level by having a feisty heroine for once, she physically attacks the villain of the piece and then tosses acid into his face in order to rescue the male lead (for a change.)
But then... the pacing went all weird. They've just been given an opportunity to escape, and for some unknown reason spend ages laboriously changing clothes during what should be the touching reunion song. Then they sit around like lemons while a string quartet is lowered from the ceiling. I am confused. The opera appears to have ground to a halt. Has it finished? Should we be leaving now? But no! It restarts again, (confusingly) and a weird fop arrives to the rescue.
And then... (is this something I shouldn't say - a spoiler - or is this unique to this production?) The fop shoots the hero in the head, who appears to die, and then er...inexplicably gets up again unhurt and everyone carries on as if nothing unusual has happened.
WHAT THE FUCK!
I still have no idea what the fuck was going on with that. WHHHHHYYYY?
I think this is an opera I could grow to like, and would want to see again (a different production) the set was funky and rather cool, but the string quartet - while very nice, and lovely music, was quite pointless, as if the ending wasn't garbled enough already. Too much music - not enough singing! Too many notes!
Photos by Roy Tan for WestendTheatre.com
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 06:06 pm (UTC)I'm in total agreement about the slo-mo clothes changing and weird fop business.
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Date: 2013-10-04 06:31 pm (UTC)What was with the shooting? Surely that doesn't normally happen?
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Date: 2013-10-04 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 08:19 pm (UTC)