Così fan tutte - Mozart
May. 18th, 2014 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
motodraconisPhotos from the ENO facebook page...
Dwarves! Sword swallowers! Bearded ladies! Stuff! Can't fail to be good right? Right?
Saw Cosi at the ENO last week.
A brightly coloured, imaginative staging,
in places quite visually beautiful.
Grud...I HATED IT!
It's supposed to be a comedy? I think? Sort of?
I didn't find it fucking funny. This isn't really ENO's fault (or is it?) The story is loathsome. I could barely bring myself to clap at the end, and was desperate to get the fuck out of the coli to start battering out my initial reaction onto facebook...
Cosi fan tutte at the ENO. Fantastic production, great singing, good music, vile story. Sitting through an entire Philip Glass opera makes me want to smash out my own brains, but I didn't think I could find an opera as loathsome as this.* I spent the entire time grinding my teeth. Right down to the ludicrous resolution it felt like a fucking musical Mills and Boon. Added to which, three (count 'em!) THREE mobile phones going off and the couple right behind me making so much noise rustling bags and noisily and laboriously unwrapping sweets I had to restrain myself from asking if they were deliberately trying to make a racket; meant I hated every blasted minute. I'm regretting not buying one of the durian fruits I saw on my way to the Coli to stash under my seat.
Dammit - I should have bought one of these buggering things, it might have distracted me from the horror.
OK... so a brief synopsis of the plot. Two blokes in love with two women. An older bloke tells them they are morons as all women are despicable, heartless deceivers and betrayers. They make a bet to test the women's fidelity. The lovers pretend to go off to war, disguise themselves and begin to pester the women relentlessly. This is the Mills and Boon - or Twilight bit... wherein making yourself a stalkery, demanding pain in the arse is somehow considered deeply romantic. How could anyone resist a suitor who, in spite of being repeatedly told to F OFF continues to bug for sex. They don't get very far at first, until they come up with the genius idea to threaten suicide unless the womengive them sex sucumb to their charms. "If you don't give me what I want - I'll kill myself!"
Yeah, I know this is a classic trope of declaration of undying love, but it is also a way of controlling people, in a way that is mentally abusive. Most reasonable people don't like to be considered the reason for another person's death, so it's a nasty but undoubtedly effective way of getting people to do what you want. It leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.
Of course. Of course! The women start to fall in love with their new suitors, hinting that like Lois Lane, they are a bit dim-witted as well as fickle, and just changing your shirt and pants is enough to fool them entirely. One girl is a little harder to seduce, but no worries! Another threat of suicide is trotted out and she is smitten. What The Fuck.
I was really grinding my teeth by now... and while the girls sing of being heartless, the boys each have a whaily-whine about how devastated they are to be so casually forgotten.
The poor dears! Because going to all this trouble to trick the women you love is not at all suspect and a bit creepy. Perhaps, my problem is that I study body language. The boys act as if they don't care for their swapped women, being utterly committed to their original loves, and I don't believe you can make a person fall in love with you when your true feelings are a lack of care or even (as the opera progresses) disgust. Your true feelings would leak out in your body language. The object of your feigned desire might not be a body language expert, but he or she will feel uncomfortable, perhaps not knowing quite why, no matter what smiles and gifts you proffer. You'd have to be very, very thick and insensitive to fall for it. Yeah yeah, you don't go to the opera for believable plots, but this was a bit too much for me.
Now, there has been comment before on the misogyny of this opera, the relentless "all women are like that" (Cosi fan tutti) All, untrustworthy, deceitful, uncaring, and frankly... a bit stupid. People have hit back... goddamn whining feminists! Just listen to the music... chill out! It's just trivial fluff! Whenever I get this reply to complaints about sexism, I try and explain the offence in terms that everyone (or at least, most people you'd hope,) can understand. People can and do brush off casual sexism as trivial every day, so try and think of it from this angle.
Imagine I told you I'd spent about 3 hours sitting through a performance where black people were painted as deceitful, inconstant, treacherous and not especially bright. And no, not some black people, or all people are like this, regardless of colour. ALL black people, all of them, It's in their natures... they can't help themselves. "All are like that." Then imagine that I had this theme shoved in my face for 3 hours.
And so I sit thought this performance, grinding my teeth, in the hope that the final scene might twist back and redeem this whole nightmare, but no! It actually gets worse! When the "despicable darkies" are found out, they beg forgiveness, and pledge themselves to a lifetime of slavery in the power of people who clearly hold them in utter contempt. **
WHAT THE FUCK!!! No, no, no! No amount of pretty music can rescue this for me. Do not tell me to lighten up. Do not tell me this is trivial fluff. It is offensive.
Bloody hell I hated this opera. What the fuck was Mozart thinking taking on this libretto? I've not been so gutted since seeing the Taming of the Shrew. (UGH!)
Bah, bah and bah!!!
* Though admittedly, I have never seen Princess Ida so there is still scope for the level of rage and annoyance to top even this.
** Other stagings have tried to end this opera differently, rescuing this is a tall order.
Dwarves! Sword swallowers! Bearded ladies! Stuff! Can't fail to be good right? Right?
Saw Cosi at the ENO last week.
A brightly coloured, imaginative staging,
in places quite visually beautiful.
Grud...I HATED IT!
It's supposed to be a comedy? I think? Sort of?
I didn't find it fucking funny. This isn't really ENO's fault (or is it?) The story is loathsome. I could barely bring myself to clap at the end, and was desperate to get the fuck out of the coli to start battering out my initial reaction onto facebook...
Cosi fan tutte at the ENO. Fantastic production, great singing, good music, vile story. Sitting through an entire Philip Glass opera makes me want to smash out my own brains, but I didn't think I could find an opera as loathsome as this.* I spent the entire time grinding my teeth. Right down to the ludicrous resolution it felt like a fucking musical Mills and Boon. Added to which, three (count 'em!) THREE mobile phones going off and the couple right behind me making so much noise rustling bags and noisily and laboriously unwrapping sweets I had to restrain myself from asking if they were deliberately trying to make a racket; meant I hated every blasted minute. I'm regretting not buying one of the durian fruits I saw on my way to the Coli to stash under my seat.
Dammit - I should have bought one of these buggering things, it might have distracted me from the horror.
OK... so a brief synopsis of the plot. Two blokes in love with two women. An older bloke tells them they are morons as all women are despicable, heartless deceivers and betrayers. They make a bet to test the women's fidelity. The lovers pretend to go off to war, disguise themselves and begin to pester the women relentlessly. This is the Mills and Boon - or Twilight bit... wherein making yourself a stalkery, demanding pain in the arse is somehow considered deeply romantic. How could anyone resist a suitor who, in spite of being repeatedly told to F OFF continues to bug for sex. They don't get very far at first, until they come up with the genius idea to threaten suicide unless the women
Yeah, I know this is a classic trope of declaration of undying love, but it is also a way of controlling people, in a way that is mentally abusive. Most reasonable people don't like to be considered the reason for another person's death, so it's a nasty but undoubtedly effective way of getting people to do what you want. It leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.
Of course. Of course! The women start to fall in love with their new suitors, hinting that like Lois Lane, they are a bit dim-witted as well as fickle, and just changing your shirt and pants is enough to fool them entirely. One girl is a little harder to seduce, but no worries! Another threat of suicide is trotted out and she is smitten. What The Fuck.
I was really grinding my teeth by now... and while the girls sing of being heartless, the boys each have a whaily-whine about how devastated they are to be so casually forgotten.
The poor dears! Because going to all this trouble to trick the women you love is not at all suspect and a bit creepy. Perhaps, my problem is that I study body language. The boys act as if they don't care for their swapped women, being utterly committed to their original loves, and I don't believe you can make a person fall in love with you when your true feelings are a lack of care or even (as the opera progresses) disgust. Your true feelings would leak out in your body language. The object of your feigned desire might not be a body language expert, but he or she will feel uncomfortable, perhaps not knowing quite why, no matter what smiles and gifts you proffer. You'd have to be very, very thick and insensitive to fall for it. Yeah yeah, you don't go to the opera for believable plots, but this was a bit too much for me.
Now, there has been comment before on the misogyny of this opera, the relentless "all women are like that" (Cosi fan tutti) All, untrustworthy, deceitful, uncaring, and frankly... a bit stupid. People have hit back... goddamn whining feminists! Just listen to the music... chill out! It's just trivial fluff! Whenever I get this reply to complaints about sexism, I try and explain the offence in terms that everyone (or at least, most people you'd hope,) can understand. People can and do brush off casual sexism as trivial every day, so try and think of it from this angle.
Imagine I told you I'd spent about 3 hours sitting through a performance where black people were painted as deceitful, inconstant, treacherous and not especially bright. And no, not some black people, or all people are like this, regardless of colour. ALL black people, all of them, It's in their natures... they can't help themselves. "All are like that." Then imagine that I had this theme shoved in my face for 3 hours.
And so I sit thought this performance, grinding my teeth, in the hope that the final scene might twist back and redeem this whole nightmare, but no! It actually gets worse! When the "despicable darkies" are found out, they beg forgiveness, and pledge themselves to a lifetime of slavery in the power of people who clearly hold them in utter contempt. **
WHAT THE FUCK!!! No, no, no! No amount of pretty music can rescue this for me. Do not tell me to lighten up. Do not tell me this is trivial fluff. It is offensive.
Bloody hell I hated this opera. What the fuck was Mozart thinking taking on this libretto? I've not been so gutted since seeing the Taming of the Shrew. (UGH!)
Bah, bah and bah!!!
* Though admittedly, I have never seen Princess Ida so there is still scope for the level of rage and annoyance to top even this.
** Other stagings have tried to end this opera differently, rescuing this is a tall order.
