motodraconis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
motodraconis) wrote2013-10-05 08:29 am
motodraconis) wrote2013-10-05 08:29 am
The Wasp Factory - Frost/Pountney.
An opportunity to see Iain Banks' Cult Novel turned into an opera and staged at the Royal Opera House.
Don't get to go out much to the ROH, as it's reet posh and doesn't do a decent Friendshappy-meal Deal like the ENO, but I was tipped off on this by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
giggly_teapot and ninshubur (being classy types.) The famous classic The Wasp Factory? As an Opera? This had to be seen!
OK, embarrassingly, I have never read the book. Er...in fact I've never read any of Banks' work (yeah, yeah, I know - it's shameful.) But surely this would not matter. One could appreciate the opera for it's own sake. Happily, I found the singing quality rather good, and the diction relatively easy to make out. The piece began with 3 scantily clad women clambering out of a huge dish of dirt and singing exquisitely. There was the odd bone jarring prolonged electronic farting/feedback noise to add to the edgy feel I had already engendered in my back seat row by eating 2 cheese muffins before the start and coughing painfully in the opening moments (to the barely contained outrage of the couple sat next to me.)
There was much writhing in dirt. The music was fairly non-offensive. The story (or lack of) mildly confusing.
Punctuated by moments of electronic farting, the giant dish majestically raised itself vertical, dirt tricking to the floor, until the three filthy but none-the-less harmonious elfin girls were reduced to clinging like deranged spiderwomen from a neon-slashed wall.
Quality singing, great physicality of acting, imaginative set with some arresting imagery, head-jangling electronica blasts punctuating the darkness.
Really quite boring.
I mean. I was bored. With all that (literal) shit going on and I was bored! It was only about 75 minutes long and I still found myself checking my watch regularly and counting hopefully to the end. 40 minutes to go, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5, 1, phew. It was dull. Not that the music and singing wasn't quite good, but it was so very samey. 75 minutes of the le le le with no variety. I missed the counterpoint of male voice, a change in tempo. Same, same and no different, for 75 minutes and no interval. Twice someone started having a conversation and had to be angrily shushed by annoyed couple, who started swearing in frustration. The instant the piece ended they barged out without pausing to clap the cast.
It's not opera to my mind - it was a performance piece. Arty, not without some merit, but I wouldn't want to buy the music to listen to at home, it would be too dull.
Various reviews here, the Guardian rather liked it... Fascinating and disturbing.
FT considered it sophisticated drivel.
The Independent was most scathing...A mind-numbingly pretentious 75 minutes.
Photos by Ben Frost for the ROH
Three reviews in a week! Ah well, tis the season.
Don't get to go out much to the ROH, as it's reet posh and doesn't do a decent Friends
giggly_teapot and ninshubur (being classy types.) The famous classic The Wasp Factory? As an Opera? This had to be seen!OK, embarrassingly, I have never read the book. Er...in fact I've never read any of Banks' work (yeah, yeah, I know - it's shameful.) But surely this would not matter. One could appreciate the opera for it's own sake. Happily, I found the singing quality rather good, and the diction relatively easy to make out. The piece began with 3 scantily clad women clambering out of a huge dish of dirt and singing exquisitely. There was the odd bone jarring prolonged electronic farting/feedback noise to add to the edgy feel I had already engendered in my back seat row by eating 2 cheese muffins before the start and coughing painfully in the opening moments (to the barely contained outrage of the couple sat next to me.)
There was much writhing in dirt. The music was fairly non-offensive. The story (or lack of) mildly confusing.
Punctuated by moments of electronic farting, the giant dish majestically raised itself vertical, dirt tricking to the floor, until the three filthy but none-the-less harmonious elfin girls were reduced to clinging like deranged spiderwomen from a neon-slashed wall.
Quality singing, great physicality of acting, imaginative set with some arresting imagery, head-jangling electronica blasts punctuating the darkness.
Really quite boring.
I mean. I was bored. With all that (literal) shit going on and I was bored! It was only about 75 minutes long and I still found myself checking my watch regularly and counting hopefully to the end. 40 minutes to go, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5, 1, phew. It was dull. Not that the music and singing wasn't quite good, but it was so very samey. 75 minutes of the le le le with no variety. I missed the counterpoint of male voice, a change in tempo. Same, same and no different, for 75 minutes and no interval. Twice someone started having a conversation and had to be angrily shushed by annoyed couple, who started swearing in frustration. The instant the piece ended they barged out without pausing to clap the cast.
It's not opera to my mind - it was a performance piece. Arty, not without some merit, but I wouldn't want to buy the music to listen to at home, it would be too dull.
Various reviews here, the Guardian rather liked it... Fascinating and disturbing.
FT considered it sophisticated drivel.
The Independent was most scathing...A mind-numbingly pretentious 75 minutes.
Photos by Ben Frost for the ROH
Three reviews in a week! Ah well, tis the season.