Bathroom sex as American Psycho runs riot at Paris Opéra
mainThis is Brett Easton Ellis’s idea of how to draw a new audience to opera. It was commissioned by the Paris Opéra.
Must have cost half a Carmen.
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Borrowed interest — a marketing strategy that fails every time (because at odds with the product).
Also a waste of money.
True. Embarrassingly stupid.
They asked someone with no clue about opera, to make a promo video for opera. He took the money, and is sitting laughing at the fools at the Paris Opera now.
Vraiment merde.
In fairness, the same fools created an absolutely brilliant new brand identity for the company, whose symbol is both integrated in and detachable from the logotype. There is a gentle tie to the previous, longstanding identity. There is also a sumptuous left-right balance, a focal point, a mix of tapering, curving elements and square endings. The “de Paris” element is given slightly more prominence than “national,” correctly and in keeping with history as well as spoken usage. It is really wonderful. The graphic designer deserves great reward.
Nice, amusing…
They should better study more carefully how to sing Italian.
A very lousy baritone attempts to sing “Largo al factotum”with a pianist and a coach in an abandoned building but he is probably still on drugs and cannot. Then he has some sex with some funny friends. Then he attempts to steal a car but he is too stupid to succeed. He decides to go back to the vocal coach and somehow sings the aria, even if he doesn’t have the necessary high Gs and he has absolutely no clue about Italian pronounciation. In the end he probably decides that sex is the only field where he has something valuable to offer to the world. It seems more an ad for the joys of sex than for the joys of opera.
I agree on the reconstruction by Eddie Mars. Brett Easton Ellis took the money and gave Lissner the kind of stupid useless camp video he was asling for.
Exactamundo 🙂
As has been pointed out on SD by others – “the expedition to catch a fictitious ‘new public’ who won’t come anyhow, while alienating your loyal audience with tripe”.
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
[Lewis Carroll. Readers will remember that they took along a Banker and a Barrister when Hunting the Snark. Neither was the slightest use.]
Ridicolous advertisements such as this are a symptom of the incompetence of opera general directors who don’t understand the products they are trying to sell and who is going to buy them and why. They act as if they were adopting modern market strategies but everyone knows it’s a farce: they depend entirely on state funds. Such dullness and stupidity, which fails to appeal to any target, would never survive in a real market economy.
Actually this isn’t an ad. It is a film curated by the Paris opera for their online plateform called 3e Scene. And it is mainly funded by a luxury brand, not by the state.
I am really glad to hear the purpose of this operation is not to “draw new audience” to opera as stated by Mr Lebrecht but just to make a stupid short film on its own. And I am happy to know it was not state-funded. I am still confused on why Paris Opéra is involved.
The Paris Opera is involved because the Paris Opera created the 3eme Scene (Third Stage); It’s a Paris Opera project.
I believe it was the brainchild of Benjamin Millepied while he was director of the PO Ballet. The idea is that the First and Second Stages are the Garnier and the Bastille.
So you know this film didn’t cost much to make at all.
It is part of the 3eme Scene, which is a digital plateforme launched by the Paris a Opera, a wonderful way to give artists, directors and such a good way to make interesting little films, express themselves. But above all, it is a great way to bring attention on the opera for a broader audience, and to keep it alive. Because once all the white heads will be gone, there won’t be many left in opera houses. That is why this initiative is really modern and healthy for the opera economy. It is not about throwing money at people like Bret Easton Ellis for them to have fun. It is about bringing people to be interested in opera so it can survive.
I hope Brett Easton Ellis had fun with the money and I hope he got a lot of it! If you are trying to convince people to visit Rome by showing images of spaceships you’re just a moron. Maybe the spaceships are really cool. But why should I want to visit Rome? And this particular spaceship is not cool. It’s dull and unbelievably stupid.
Following your lead Simon, I came across this video that is also a 3eme Scene production: https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/3e-scene/je-me-souviens
It is much more in the line of a promotional effort. In a conventional sense. But of course it would not create the stir of the BEE “Figaro”.
Given the balance of the varied 3eme Scene offerings, maybe the Paris Opera is not that far off course.
The short documentary by this Ms Dalle is about opera, at least, and shows perfectly a certain way to speak about opera which I think is very wrong. “Opera” is a place, a sacred temple (“the first time I stepped inside the Opéra Bastille…”), divos and divas (Nureyev, some director or conductor), a social happening (Mortier shouting to the audience)… These things do exist and can be fascinating for some (or slightly irritating for others like myself) but this is not opera. Never is opera treated for what it is: a form of theatre, a way to tell a story through music. Theaters cannot bring themselves to simply advertise their shows as exciting and entertaining in themselves. Maybe because they are conscious that most of the shows they do are really boring. It’s silly to expect that audience will continue to come to opera to feel part of a socioeconomic or cultural elite. That’s the past. Opera can survive only if it’s something worth paying for.
+ 1
Once the white heads are gone, they will be replaced by…more white heads. Classical music appeals to older people and that’s OK, too.
I’m not sure how this promotes opera – and the sexual assault at the end there is absolutely horrific.
Confusing American Psycho and (the shower scene from) Pschycho.