The incredible, shark jumping Madame Butterfly!
From the world of television, an expression was fed into our pop culture, and now has become much more over reaching. "Jumping the Shark."
During the last season of the show "Happy Days" when the ratings were flagging after Richie left, they concocted a plot line, that involved Fonzie, the epitome of cool, using his motorcycle to jump a shark tank. It did not work, the series soon ended.
This was a case of shark jumping if there ever was one.
Butterfly, not being a favorite of mine, I have sort of limited my exposure to, but I can always appreciate the classic Puccini moments, what a shame there were not any in this performance!
Upon doing a bit of research, I discovered Wilson was trying to achieve a representation of Japanese "No Drama," assisted by Suzushi Hanayagi, one of Japan's leading classical dancers. According to his web site, he sought to avoid the traditional sets and costumes, focusing on the movements of the singers. "I have conceived a decor of extreme simplicity, because the music is rich and moving enough. It is a way to rediscover the Japanese atmosphere of the libretto in the simplicity, the frugality of means. One could play the opera in a kitschy setting, and I am sure Puccini had that in mind. But I just want to offer a space in which the music can unfold. It is a kind of music that provokes in me an emotion that is almost unbearable."
Well, he succeeded, there was indeed no drama involved, and I agree, it was unbearable. He should have chosen the Kabuki style instead, it would seem far more appropriate.
The sets were far too deep, but oh so very zen, swallowing the voices of the singers. The conductor, well, he did not pay any more attention to the sensitivities of the singers, than they paid attention to each other, drowning them out regularly. So much for letting the music and singers take precedence. I think playing over the fortissimo in "Un Bel Di" is a crime against humanity. I am planning on filing a complaint with the Hague.
The staging was not completely true to Wilson's vision. The beginning deviated. "There is a chair on which Madame Butterfly is waiting. Further away, there is a bridge, stones that form a path, and in the distance, the sky." Instead, we got Sharpless and Pinkerton in bathrobes, with a goofy little Goro.
I was pretty sure the singers were combining their performance with demented Tai Chi. I felt the unnatural movements required, were very hard on the singers, and affected the tension level in their shoulders making it more difficult to sing. The positioning of Kate Pinkerton, for no less than 20 minutes in the "garden" doing her impression of "Winged Victory" this time with arms, gave me cramps in my shoulders, just watching her.
I guess I am just not smart or artsy fartsy enough to understand this style, in which the movements act as a prison for the singers, controlling there every attempt to act competently, or really at all. I
got the general impression here, that no one really cared about anyone else in the cast, since they avoided even the slightest glance at each other. There was no indication of Butterfly's great obsessive love for Pinkerton, since she hardly noticed he was there. Overall it painted a picture, not of a woman in love scorned, and victimized by her culture and prejudice, but rather, of a lunatic, holding on to something she had no idea was returned, or if she even wanted it to begin with.
I was under the impression, that overblown drama, love, passion, vengeance, suicide, and death were the reason we went to see the opera in the first place. This might as well have been a concert version, or, I could have just stayed home and listened to the recording. At least I could have heard the singers, and I would have been spared the extensive, badly performed, Martha Graham on crack dance interlude of the exceedingly overage Trouble, he had to have been close to 30, OK12, but no toddler. In his dance, he was bending, while often time losing his balance, to pick up things off the ground and put them in his mouth. I found myself wondering if they were poison berries, and hoping he would share them with me to end both of our misery. In one dramatic climax of this dance marathon from hell, he paused at the top of the stage rake, center stage, and performed the worst looking arabesque I have ever seen. The Stooges possessed more grace and refinement. I will never be sure why he laid face down on the ground and pretended to swim for ten minutes while the grown ups were singing. His mother actually managed to touch him a few times when he was on stage, but never looked at him, so why she cared if he was taken away was beyond my comprehension. I would be stunned if anyone noticed he was gone, with the exception of myself,
and after seeing him "dance" I would have been grateful. Hell, I would have payed for his transportation.
It is my opinion that often, when people who work in opera day in and day out, begin to get bored with the pieces, they seek out wilder and wilder adaptations. Much like a heroin addict shooting up progressively more and more, until he is found dead in the park with a needle in his arm. Or like a pornography addict, who needs more and more extreme imagery to be satiated. Someone needs to call the coroner, to come take this away, and don't be sharing that needle. I would hate to think this is contagious.
Butterfly's death scene, since there were no props, had me wondering if she were dying of embarrassment, at being seen in this vehicle, and don't think her weird fluttering movements escaped my notice. I am pretty damn sure they were trying to make her look like a dying butterfly, and by that time, I was ready to pin her to the card myself.
I found this quote from Wilson telling... "I like to work in the Opera Bastille because it has a very diverse audience: young people, tourists, the high society. That is very different from the Munich Opera or the Metropolitan Opera, where the audience is more uniform. France does a lot to make culture accessible to everyone, and it is a privileged place for artists, which one cannot say about many countries, certainly not the United States."
In this case, God Bless America.
During the last season of the show "Happy Days" when the ratings were flagging after Richie left, they concocted a plot line, that involved Fonzie, the epitome of cool, using his motorcycle to jump a shark tank. It did not work, the series soon ended.
This was a case of shark jumping if there ever was one.
Butterfly, not being a favorite of mine, I have sort of limited my exposure to, but I can always appreciate the classic Puccini moments, what a shame there were not any in this performance!
Upon doing a bit of research, I discovered Wilson was trying to achieve a representation of Japanese "No Drama," assisted by Suzushi Hanayagi, one of Japan's leading classical dancers. According to his web site, he sought to avoid the traditional sets and costumes, focusing on the movements of the singers. "I have conceived a decor of extreme simplicity, because the music is rich and moving enough. It is a way to rediscover the Japanese atmosphere of the libretto in the simplicity, the frugality of means. One could play the opera in a kitschy setting, and I am sure Puccini had that in mind. But I just want to offer a space in which the music can unfold. It is a kind of music that provokes in me an emotion that is almost unbearable."
Well, he succeeded, there was indeed no drama involved, and I agree, it was unbearable. He should have chosen the Kabuki style instead, it would seem far more appropriate.
The sets were far too deep, but oh so very zen, swallowing the voices of the singers. The conductor, well, he did not pay any more attention to the sensitivities of the singers, than they paid attention to each other, drowning them out regularly. So much for letting the music and singers take precedence. I think playing over the fortissimo in "Un Bel Di" is a crime against humanity. I am planning on filing a complaint with the Hague.
The staging was not completely true to Wilson's vision. The beginning deviated. "There is a chair on which Madame Butterfly is waiting. Further away, there is a bridge, stones that form a path, and in the distance, the sky." Instead, we got Sharpless and Pinkerton in bathrobes, with a goofy little Goro.
I was pretty sure the singers were combining their performance with demented Tai Chi. I felt the unnatural movements required, were very hard on the singers, and affected the tension level in their shoulders making it more difficult to sing. The positioning of Kate Pinkerton, for no less than 20 minutes in the "garden" doing her impression of "Winged Victory" this time with arms, gave me cramps in my shoulders, just watching her.
I guess I am just not smart or artsy fartsy enough to understand this style, in which the movements act as a prison for the singers, controlling there every attempt to act competently, or really at all. I
got the general impression here, that no one really cared about anyone else in the cast, since they avoided even the slightest glance at each other. There was no indication of Butterfly's great obsessive love for Pinkerton, since she hardly noticed he was there. Overall it painted a picture, not of a woman in love scorned, and victimized by her culture and prejudice, but rather, of a lunatic, holding on to something she had no idea was returned, or if she even wanted it to begin with.
I was under the impression, that overblown drama, love, passion, vengeance, suicide, and death were the reason we went to see the opera in the first place. This might as well have been a concert version, or, I could have just stayed home and listened to the recording. At least I could have heard the singers, and I would have been spared the extensive, badly performed, Martha Graham on crack dance interlude of the exceedingly overage Trouble, he had to have been close to 30, OK12, but no toddler. In his dance, he was bending, while often time losing his balance, to pick up things off the ground and put them in his mouth. I found myself wondering if they were poison berries, and hoping he would share them with me to end both of our misery. In one dramatic climax of this dance marathon from hell, he paused at the top of the stage rake, center stage, and performed the worst looking arabesque I have ever seen. The Stooges possessed more grace and refinement. I will never be sure why he laid face down on the ground and pretended to swim for ten minutes while the grown ups were singing. His mother actually managed to touch him a few times when he was on stage, but never looked at him, so why she cared if he was taken away was beyond my comprehension. I would be stunned if anyone noticed he was gone, with the exception of myself,
and after seeing him "dance" I would have been grateful. Hell, I would have payed for his transportation.
It is my opinion that often, when people who work in opera day in and day out, begin to get bored with the pieces, they seek out wilder and wilder adaptations. Much like a heroin addict shooting up progressively more and more, until he is found dead in the park with a needle in his arm. Or like a pornography addict, who needs more and more extreme imagery to be satiated. Someone needs to call the coroner, to come take this away, and don't be sharing that needle. I would hate to think this is contagious.
Butterfly's death scene, since there were no props, had me wondering if she were dying of embarrassment, at being seen in this vehicle, and don't think her weird fluttering movements escaped my notice. I am pretty damn sure they were trying to make her look like a dying butterfly, and by that time, I was ready to pin her to the card myself.
I found this quote from Wilson telling... "I like to work in the Opera Bastille because it has a very diverse audience: young people, tourists, the high society. That is very different from the Munich Opera or the Metropolitan Opera, where the audience is more uniform. France does a lot to make culture accessible to everyone, and it is a privileged place for artists, which one cannot say about many countries, certainly not the United States."
In this case, God Bless America.
posted by Dawn at 1:39 PM
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