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DER ROSENKAVALIER from Glyndebourne, 8th June at 4:30pm UK Time [free]

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Neil McGowan
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« on: June 07, 2014, 06:12:53 pm »

The production which attracted all the controversy (about the physical appearance of the mezzo-soprano
playing Oktavian) will be available on a free-to-view relay from The Daily Telegraph (who pick up the Glyndebourne
live relays from the Guardian this year).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/glyndebourne/10880502/WATCH-Der-Rosenkavalier-live-from-Glyndebourne.html
(link goes live on Sunday 8th)



[The Telegraph itself is now a pay-to-view site - but you are allowed 10 page-views free. If not, registration costs 2 pounds per month. I can't imagine who'd want to look at the Telegraph more often than ten times, personally ;) ]

I would imagine the link to the relay will remain live for at least a week or so - but Glyndebourne eventually want to flog the commercial video, so they take them down pretty smartly afterwards.
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« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2014, 07:12:29 am »

Thanks Neil! - Can you tell us the story about the appearance of Oktavian?

What a long broadcast - at four and a half hours almost twice the St. Matthew Passion. And unlike the streams from the Guardian, which could be downloaded in one chunk, this one uses a new-fangled method of hundreds of separate chunks, each only two minutes in length, which are retrieved separately and displayed in sequence by the flash player. As far as I know there is no application yet that can download such a broadcast as a file. Therefore the only way was to use a screen capture programme, namely the excellent and mature Camtasia.

I had to do it in the morning when the Internet is least congested, so I rose early and started it, then dozed off again to the sound of sopranos from the computer room. When I woke up again there was silence, which did not bode well. Upon investigation, though, I found that the recording was still going, and a silent counter was being displayed during an interval of 30 minutes! In fact there are two such 30-minute silent intervals during the broadcast - a great waste of bits and bytes.

But in the end the recording was successful, and resulted in a file of more than four gigabytes. A great deal can now be edited out: those intervals, and the wittering and waffling and the ridiculous advertisements. The staging is modern, cheap (unlike the advertisements for Glyndebourne subscriptions!), amateurish and very stylized; not at all what the composer had in mind I would say. I did glimpse a troupe of dancing boys at one point, though, which may be worth a look.

It is well known that Schoenberg went mad in 1908, due to the dust-cloud from the Tunguska meteor. It is not so well known, perhaps, that Strauss suffered the same fate, that is, he too went mad in 1908. Elektra was his last avant-garde work; thereafter he concentrated on sopranos, sopranos, and more sopranos. (Did Freud have a name for that?)
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2014, 11:36:41 am »

It is well known that Schoenberg went mad in 1908, due to the dust-cloud from the Tunguska meteor. It is not so well known, perhaps, that Strauss suffered the same fate

I certainly find ROSENKAVALIER a backward step after ELEKTRA. Perhaps he had a crisis of confidence?  He seems to have retreated into the blissful world of gushing approval from the Upper Middle Classes (who would certainly not have liked much more ELEKTRA). This navel-gazing tendency continued on until ARABELLA, which I find too schmaltzy and self-referential to bear at all. 

I am sorry you didn't like Jones's staging?  I was rather convinced myself, as it freed the opera from its usual chocolate-box setting. Even so, the humour of the "Mariendel" episode was as leaden as ever...  this 'sausage' humour brings me out in a fit of dyspepsia, and I'm afraid I went off to do something else (I was watching "live", so I couldn't skip forwards).  The casting is simply excellent, and the singing in the final trio/duet sections could not be bettered, however.  Strauss's long lines have been the Waterloo of many a short-breathed soprano!

The best staging I've seen, however, remains Andreas Homoki's production at the Komische Oper in Berlin (sadly, they have a policy of not reviving anything, and throwing productions away "once seen" - Barrie Kosky says it's to encourage the Berlin audience "to actually turn up for a change, and not wait until next season").  The 'conceit' of Homoki's production was to stage the three acts in different centuries. In the C18th, Ochs's lurid behaviour isn't at all out of keeping. By the C19th his womanising is clearly out of place, and by the C20th it's clear that Oktavian's only hope of avoiding penury is a fortuitous marriage to the industrialist Von Faninal's daughter.

The big question, of course, is whether Marie-Therese really loves Oktavian - or if he's merely one of many lovers who amuse her empty days?  Jones seemed to imply the latter - she's unmoved by Oktavian's betrothal.  (I saw a relay of Bertmann's new production in Malmo recently, and he goes further - implying that the Countess has cynically used Oktavian, and then dumped him). Homoki, however, had her (silently) tearing her hair and clothing while watching the young couple unseen through a closet window. Frankly, I go with Homoki on that one - surely that's what those discordant flute chords stand for, over the top of the tonal duet...  they 'poison' the apparent sweetness?

I staged the last 40-45 minutes of the opera 7-8 years ago, as a Graduation piece for students of the Gnessin Opera Studio (they were being examined - not me!). By coincidence I reached the same conclusion as Homoki - although 3-4 years before I saw his production :)  I got into awful trouble for staging "the work a Nazi-supporting composer at the Gnessin Academy afterwards, however :(  Russia has finally calmed down about this, and ROSENKAV has finally had a Bolshoi premiere recently.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2014, 11:46:40 am »

And unlike the streams from the Guardian, which could be downloaded in one chunk, this one uses a new-fangled method of hundreds of separate chunks, each only two minutes in length, which are retrieved separately and displayed in sequence by the flash player. As far as I know there is no application yet that can download such a broadcast as a file. Therefore the only way was to use a screen capture programme, namely the excellent and mature Camtasia.


I wonder if that is a technical change related to the new style of broadcasts?  The Guardian broadcasts seemed to have been less 'professionally' filmed (only two cameras, and very little tight-focus close-up work) - clearly it was the 'raw material' for a video release that would come out after more editing later.  But the ROSENKAV broadcast was obviously 'the finished article' - as we could see from the closing titles, which credited the filming and editing to the ARTE and MEZZO channels. I wonder what Glyndebourne 'gain' from showing it for free via the Telegraph?  Although perhaps their income is more predicated on network sales to Arte and Mezzo, than on the enfeebled market for opera dvds? 

Although I keep hoping, I am sorry to say that the 1-2 broadcasts which the Paris Opera made a few years ago haven't been continued - maybe the business model doesn't work for them?  A great pity, of course - there is much I would like to see from there, but I can't justify the cost of international travel to enjoy it. Especially as my domestic situation obligates me to seeing other operas elsewhere ;)
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« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2014, 01:05:56 pm »

It is well known that Schoenberg went mad in 1908, due to the dust-cloud from the Tunguska meteor.
To whom?

It is not so well known, perhaps, that Strauss suffered the same fate, that is, he too went mad in 1908.
Again, to whom?

Elektra was his last avant-garde work; thereafter he concentrated on sopranos, sopranos, and more sopranos. (Did Freud have a name for that?)
Elektra was indeed something of an end-of-era work for Strauss; however, I submit that whatever it might have been that prompted his subsequent change of direction is by no means a simple question to answer. I am not inclined to think that it was a matter of his having decided (for whatever reason) to "retreat into the blissful world of gushing approval from the Upper Middle Classes", as Neil suggests, for all that he is right to point out that such folk "would certainly not have liked much more ELEKTRA"; it's not, after all, as though he overtly turned his back on Elektra and its immediate operatic predecessor Salome (still one of the most remarkable scores of the past 100+ years, to my mind). I suspect that, having at one time supported Schönberg, he might have becom afraid of where the Salome - Elektra route might have led him, having observed Schönberg's traversal of the path through the D minor String Quartet and the E major Chamber Symphony into Erwartung.

I'm accordingly less than certain that Strauss, from Der Rosenkavalier onwards (at least up to and including Arabella), was indulging a "navel-gazing tendency", although I'm reminded of my retort to the egregious Igor's exclamation that Arabella made him want to scream, namely that it makes me want to scream, too - for more. That said, Strauss's excellent biographer Norman del Mar expressed the opinion that Strauss between the two world wars tended at times to fall back on functioning on auto-pilot (not his exact words) and, with a few exceptions (perhaps most notably Die Frau ohne Schatten), he may indeed have a point - the 1940s saw Strauss finding where he wanted to go in ways that had seemed to be rather less obvious to him during the 20s and 30s. The self-referential aspect of Strauss to which Neil draws attention was already present as far back as Ein Heldenleben and reared itself again at times, right up to Vier Letzte Lieder, but I'm not sure that this is of itself necessarily any more of a bad thing than whaat some might see as the self-referentialism in Shostakovich's final symphony.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2014, 12:39:33 am »

I suspect that, having at one time supported Schönberg, he might have becom afraid of where the Salome - Elektra route might have led him,

Perhaps he had a crisis of confidence? 
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« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2014, 02:21:16 am »

available on a free-to-view relay from The Daily Telegraph

Subtitles are included>that's good.
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« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2014, 09:02:12 am »

I suspect that, having at one time supported Schönberg, he might have becom afraid of where the Salome - Elektra route might have led him,

Perhaps he had a crisis of confidence? 
Possibly - but I suspect that there could be other equally plausible reasons...
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