Now Vienna Opera disfigures Mahler’s image
OrchestrasThis is the Vienna Opera poster for ‘the opera Mahler never wrote’.
The distortion of history is bad enough: Mahler made it very clear why he would never write an opera.
But don’t confuse Vienna with facts.
Or even with visual truths.
Their poster image of Mahler makes his nose longer and saws off part of his chin.
This is how Mahler really looked in his Vienna years. Who approved this wretched caricature?
Over the decades, there have been vastly worse caricatures of Mahler than what’s presented here. I’m not sure what it is you’re protesting so vehemently, Norman, as both “Das Klagende Lied” and “Kindertotenlieder” are made perfectly clear on the poster. In the description given by the Vienna State Opera (which I’m providing the link to), they make it pretty clear just exactly what it is they’re doing and why. In no way are they suggesting that they’re presenting an opera by Mahler. I really believe most adults can decide for themselves if this presentation is for them or not. It wouldn’t be for me, but it doesn’t leave me greatly offended either (as a lover of Mahler’s music). https://viennaoperatickets.com/recommended-special-events/von-der-liebe-tod/?p=63&l=2&id=2315
A painting that doesn’t look like a photo? The outrage! The shrill anti-Vienna rhetoric on this site is getting stale.
Gallen Kallela painted a portrait superb of Mahler you used for some articles Norman. They should have used it or some other works.
No opera, but the second movement of his eighth symphony could well be staged.
If you are unintelligent enough to not know or realise that “every act of painting is an act of reinterpretation” (Arnold Schoenberg, painter and composer), then you really should not be posting articles on a blog about the arts.
»Gustav Mahler«, Gemälde aus den Beständen der Wiener Staatsoper, Künstler*in & Jahr unbekannt, Foto- © Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn
as mentioned on the Wiener Staatsoper
looks like Egon Schiele art work….Gusterl was not a happy man and this seems fine to me
So-called conductor involved, spends alot of their time modelling ugly watches on social media. Those of us who love Mahler know that we can safely avoid this junk.
»Gustav Mahler«, Gemälde aus den Beständen der Wiener Staatsoper, Künstler*in & Jahr unbekannt
Perhaps it’s by Kokoschka?
Glad they didn’t commission Picasso
to do the cover !
Me thinks the partially sawed off chin and square jaw connotes a paean to cubism, an art form popularized in the early 20th century by Picasso no less, and a period of time in which Mahler would still have been alive. I view this slight distortion as a valentine to Mahler.
As a Mahler fanatic, I am incandescent with anger. Why do this? Didn’t they do enough harm to him when he was conductor?
Just imagine what an opera by Mahler would be like. As long as a late breakfast, with several tea breaks and funeral marches between each of the acts.
A composer who says he’ll never write an opera is a composer who hasn’t been asked to write an opera.