Romanticism vs. Modernism at the Royal Opera

http://angerburg.blogspot.com/

This clip from a mid-1990s British documentary about the Royal Opera House exemplifies the conflict between traditional, reverential opera productions, and the modernist approach.

It begins with a group of opera traditionalists protesting the house's staging of a modern opera, ''Gawain,'' that is marked by its dissonant style. Next we get a glimpse of a postmodern production of ''The Magic Flute'' (which proves to be an artistic and commercial failure).

Then, in the highlight of the clip, we see a glorious, traditional production of ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,'' conducted by Bernard Haitink, which is a bona fide triumph, and wildly popular.

The video concludes with a look at the opera house's plans to stage a ridiculous, revisionist version, bordering on self-parody, of Wagner's ''Ring.''

Note in particular the music director's concluding comment that opera is a ''battlefield between the musical and dramatic elements.'' But must it be so? Or rather, isn't the concept of *harmony* between the musical and dramatic elements (such as we see in the '' Die Meistersinger'' clip) aesthetically preferable, and more artistically fulfilling?

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Meistersinger
• Nürnberg
• Bernard
• Haitink
• Magic
• Flute
• Zauberflöte
• Ring
• Nibelungen
• Royal
• Opera

[beethovenian]

Oh Haitink, you are a good man.

[Whopsidoodle]

What I don't see in so many productions is respect for the work of art. If Phillip II is presented in a sewer during an air-raid, does the production create a better story than the one conceived by Schiller? Is it a service to conveying the meaning and value of Verdi's creation?

[ThomasHospitaller]

What is this ridiculous affair? Trust the Scots to bring in something 'quirky' that turns out to be barbaric drivel. Those 'modernists' were talking great nonsense on the street corner, and it seems a shame that classical music has degenerated so.

Observe the long-hair'd hippy youth with his Pol Pot glasses. Tyranny of the eclectic!

[japanesesweet]

naughty audience- clapping through the final chords at 6:56

[00000ppp]

GO HAITINK!!!!

[johnnyherb]

I agree with you Whopsidoodle. They just take the music and the 'story' and pour it into whatever aesthetic they see fit. It is appalling. Surely opera is doomed. The same handful of operas are squeezed for every last drop of whatever they originally had. The middle/upper classes flock to it (that is another argument) and thus it manages to keep going.

Well these are my immediate thoughts having watched this video anyway!

[charlesfrith]

Great Youtube

[irpwny]

Quirky? QUIRKY?? It looks like a crappy cubist painting