Saturday, 6 October 2007
Don't go away
No, don't go away. The performance will continue. It may take a little time, but then things do these days. Be assured that the words will continue to flow, about Das Rheingold.
A review of a review
The days since Das Rheingold have passed, and still there is nothing on the blog about it, despite a pageful of notes in a notebook. There's a lot to say about Rheingold, about the gods and the humans, about the initial violation - the theft of the gold from the Rhinemaidens, about the moral decay of the gods, about greed, about betrayal, and, for that matter, about the world up there, about the world here, and about the world down there.
The programme which accompanied the production at the ROH cost £15, a tidy sum for those who had paid just £25 for a ticket to all four operas. So the free cast-lists are the tangible mementoes. A mistake, I feel, as it is in the programme, the £15 one, where we can - or could - expect to find a discussion about the meaning of the operas and about the presentation of the operas.
Instead, I have been left with a review in The Times. There were close to 500 words in the review, along with a star-rating, four out of five. The rating told me that the reviewer thought highly of Das Rheingold. And what about the 500 words, you ask. Well, the first paragraph accounted for 76 words without saying anything about the production. The following 120 words were about John Tomlinson's performance. Those two paragraphs accounted for 40% of the review. The reviewer's opinion of the conductor's and the orchestra's performance accounted for another 120 words. The same number was given to the staging. Thus, along with a couple of sentences about the reviewer's overall opinion, the review.
Five hundred words and the stars. Well, there's not much that can be done with 500 words, so we can't expect much. Richard Morrison did what he was asked to. The reader learns straightaway, from the four starts,that he approved of the production. A reading may then provide one or two observations on the production which catch the eye. 'Think of the gods as dismayed 19th century aristocrats, ...' is one such observation.
However, I should have bought the programme. What the reviewer wrote about the orchestra is beyond me. I can repeat what he said, but I cannot understand it (nor do I become equipped to recognise the feature if it occurs again when I am in the theatre). It is the programme which would have contained the discussions, the reflections, that would have made sense to me.
And still I have not put anything on the blog about my experience of Das Rheingold. Instead, I have cleared my thoughts about a related matter. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am closer to a beginning.
Don
The programme which accompanied the production at the ROH cost £15, a tidy sum for those who had paid just £25 for a ticket to all four operas. So the free cast-lists are the tangible mementoes. A mistake, I feel, as it is in the programme, the £15 one, where we can - or could - expect to find a discussion about the meaning of the operas and about the presentation of the operas.
Instead, I have been left with a review in The Times. There were close to 500 words in the review, along with a star-rating, four out of five. The rating told me that the reviewer thought highly of Das Rheingold. And what about the 500 words, you ask. Well, the first paragraph accounted for 76 words without saying anything about the production. The following 120 words were about John Tomlinson's performance. Those two paragraphs accounted for 40% of the review. The reviewer's opinion of the conductor's and the orchestra's performance accounted for another 120 words. The same number was given to the staging. Thus, along with a couple of sentences about the reviewer's overall opinion, the review.
Five hundred words and the stars. Well, there's not much that can be done with 500 words, so we can't expect much. Richard Morrison did what he was asked to. The reader learns straightaway, from the four starts,that he approved of the production. A reading may then provide one or two observations on the production which catch the eye. 'Think of the gods as dismayed 19th century aristocrats, ...' is one such observation.
However, I should have bought the programme. What the reviewer wrote about the orchestra is beyond me. I can repeat what he said, but I cannot understand it (nor do I become equipped to recognise the feature if it occurs again when I am in the theatre). It is the programme which would have contained the discussions, the reflections, that would have made sense to me.
And still I have not put anything on the blog about my experience of Das Rheingold. Instead, I have cleared my thoughts about a related matter. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am closer to a beginning.
Don
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