EU opera house bans yellow and blue flags
NewsThe Belgian director Frank Van Laecke says he was forbidden to include small Ukrainian flags in his Faust production at the National Opera in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia.
He resigned, claiming censorship.
He told staff: ‘In the fourth act I wanted little yellow and blue flags behind the window in the set instead of the blue, white and red flags from my previous Faust production. But the general manager of your cultural temple has forbidden me to use these colors in my setting. And it goes further: I would “never set another foot in his opera house” if I talk with a journalist about his ban.’
Full story here.
I wonder why the headline refers to an ‘EU Opera House’ and not simply the Slovenian National Opera?
Storm in a teacup. The stage director should visit Russia for a taste of censorship instead of throwing tantrums online over national flags.
Opera managers shouldn’t let stage directors run wild. If the stage director feels the need of hitching his Faust production to the train of current events, his production wasn’t about Faust to begin with. Use the national French flag (better a cockade) in Andrea Chénier if you must, but spare us the nonsense in Faust, even if it features a few soldiers in the second and fourth act.
What you are asking for essentially,
are historically and geographically accurate productions.
How perfectly 20th century of you!
“historically and geographically accurate productions.”
No and no. Just a production respecting the libretto. Faust isn’t set in France. Geography isn’t important. Sticking to essentials is important. Essential is Gounod’s treatment of the Faust legend, not forcing a literal context on it, or riding coattails to promote your production.
A repulsive sentiment, to suggest that a small expression of solidarity with the victims of an unfolding and unparalleled barbarism should not be allowed to corrupt our refined sensibilities!
Is this an expression of solidarity or is it self-promotion using a popular symbol for the current events? Graphic arts are overflowing with photos colored in yellow and blue, posted on social media, all allegedly in solidarity with Ukraine, and all advertising the author. What Ukraine needs is useful solidarity, helping real people, not flags everywhere plus sad emojis on social media. The imagery flood isn’t serving Ukraine, is serving those who do it, practically begging for a notice in the media. There are artists who organize fundraising events, and there are self-serving artists who exchange French for Ukrainian flags or give the photoshop treatment to the first photo they can lay their hands on. If you can’t see the difference between the first and the second category, I can.
That’s the problem with this website, isn’t. I mean being published outside the US you run across these links that take you to a foreign language website. All the does is remind you how isolated we are in the US when it comes to known more that one language.
Whenever I travel to Europe, China, even Mexico I am embarrassed how well their citizens speak English as well as (at least) their native language, meanwhile our pampered, underworked and over-praised American students are fluent (barely) in American English only. To make it worse, when they’re abroad they expect everyone to speak English to them. We spend more on public education than any country on earth and we get dunderheads.
More and more, Americans look upon education as technical training for a job, not education for a life. It was not like that just a generation ago. And we wonder why arts and culture seem to be on the decline in the US.
Arts and culture do not put food on the table usually.
I agree they don’t even understand when they come to English speaking countries j
I don’t think you go far enough. When it comes to conceit the British are far ahead of everyone. We ‘expect’ non-British to speak English. And when they don’t, the old joke has it that we shout louder in a sort of truncated English, which also includes a lot of hand-waving.
De verdad
“Whenever I travel to Europe […] I am embarrassed how well their citizens speak English”
Don’t be.
Traveling Europe means not speaking the respective country’s native language most of the time. That’s true for all of us.
From all of Germany’s neighboring countries’ languages I only speak French… And I speak several languages. So of course we use English, too.
That doesn’t mean that I disagree with you general assesment, though. 😉
Learn how to use technology if you can’t read another language. The Google Chrome Browser will translate pages to English or any other language.
If you want to know who is Frank Van Laecke:
https://basiaconfuoco.com/2020/07/28/frank-van-laecke-the-wizzard-van-gent/
As Heiner Goebbels said, ‘Einfälle sind der Tod des Theaters’.
Goebbels had much good advice that could not be more appropriate for these troubled times.
Most of us are not politicians, world/u.n. leaders. We can only let those suffering from such bullying violence know that we are feeling for them with such small acts of solidarity as this. Shame on you General Manager.
Finally, this circus with Ukranian flag has been at least turmoiled.
Non of the wars, bloodshed revolutions instricated by the States have ever been granted such a mass marketing canpagn. Clownery. They put Ukrainian flags everywhere, sing their anthem and at the same time express how they are sorry for this “relatively” civilized nation. Hypocrits
V. Putin has every right to invade Ukraine & bomb bomb bomb each and every biological weapons lab. If you don’t like it, enlist. NATO provoked this mess. Ukraine’s paying a heavy price in blood. Imagine Russia installing bio weapon labs & military bases in Mexico or Canada! Exactly what the US has been doing in Europe since 1949.
Cool idea:
Don’t spread fake news!
Undersecretary V. Nuland confirmed it on national TV, sweetie, it’s not fake news. Unless you want to believe that the US, the only country that dropped an atomic bomb on another, used agent orange in Vietnam, unleashed 9/11 on its own people, used white phosphorus in Iraq, launched chemical attack in Syria in 2013 & blamed it on Assad is ALL OF A SUDDEN TOO ETHICAL to sponsor bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.
Cool idea:
Don’t spread fake news!
Malicious compliance. If they want him to never set foot inside the Opera House, that’s what they’ll get, but for his reasons, not there’s. This isn’t a fascist dictatorship, even in Slovenia. If they want that nonsense they should surrender their country, culture and lives to Putin.
I don’t see how anyone can even begin to understand the story of Faust, or to enjoy the music of Gounod if there is no Ukrainian flag on the stage.