There was hefty dissent at the Staatsoper last night for Calixto Bieito’s post-colonial new production of Aida, with contemporary child workers substituting for Egyptian slaves.
Children under the age of 14 are not permitted to watch this performance.
Image: Hedwig Prammer/BerlinSO
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The Staatsoper’s website states that the production is “recommended” for those 14 or over. “Altersempfehlung: ab 14 Jahren” – this is NOT a ban on those under 14!
To add: all opera houses in Berlin, systematically, have age recommendations on their productions. They do not necessarily signal offensive/gory/explicit content, rather just ‘what might you enjoy with your kids’.
Elektra has a 16-years old recommendation; Don Carlo has a 14-year old recommendation rating (and having seen that production, it contains full nudity in the autodafé). Idomeneo (a McVicar production, presumably not too gory/explicit)? 12 years old.
The Barber of Seville at the Deutsche Oper? 12 years old. La Traviata? 13. Lohengrin? 15, presumably due to length.
A big scandal this is not.
Last thing I need at an opera is a fidgety teenager next to me playing on his cell phone and sexting his/her/their nonbinary significant other.
No one under 21!
That’s even worse. B’s trash should not be “recommended” for anyone under 140.
What’s with the fur?
Bieito’s oversized merkin.
It is not correct that under 14 are not permitted to attend the performance. The website states: Age recommendation: 14 years and older.
Provided that the production is worthwhile despite or because of the controversy, I would personally make it dependent on the personal development of the child to take him or her along at a younger age. It certainly requires good preparation and follow-up. If the production is bad, I would not go there even with an older child.
I think it is important, especially for children, that they are not deterred from the great institution that is opera by bad productions.
Why are opera company managers still allowed to spend public money on stage directors who pervert operas instead of faithfully staging them, and why are once-standard theatre flats that enable scenes to change when they should during the course of an evening no longer used? Because each production must be filmed, and must not look like the next one, and cameras want hard surfaces on which to focus, viewable from various angles and detailed enough to cope with a zoom-in. Because hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent since the 1970s rebuilding the stages of famous theatres to house hydraulics and heavy equipment and ignore their fly-towers. Because dozens of new career paths have been laid and are now vested in this film-maker usurping of theatre. Because the singers filmed and taped in the perverted productions have no power over the opera-house managers. And because the “culture” ministers who employ these men are too ignorant to grasp the wishes and needs of the one-distance, one-angle, seated theatre audience, even those under the age of 14.
Define „faithful staging“.
Are you also opposed to electricity being used for lighting? Back to the days of candles as footlights, eh?
I ask this without a hint of sarcasm and honestly looking for someone to defiende their point of view- what is so great about a Bieito production? Why is he being engaged year after year by the worlds great opera houses, even though audiences seem to detest his work?
Because he is a great director who consistently gives new insights into the work, and who admirably and respectfully directs his actors. His Lady Mcbeth in Antwerp still is one the greatest theatrical experiences I ever had, his Parsifal in Stuttgart still is one of the most thought-provoking Parsifals I’ve seen. I could go on.
Why? His Lady Mcbeth laid bare all the cruelty that Shostakovich put into it and that is present in so much of Russian literature. His Parsifal unmasked the ideal of Redemption itself in a community that has been reduced to “each for his own”.
I understand that he’s controversial, I am not saying that everyone should appreciate his approach. But he’s an eminently serious and honest artist who has proven his worth.
@Clem: Thankfully, satire is not dead.
Don’t much like the sound of that production. Doesn’t sound suitable for anyone old enough to question “re-imagining” and “post-colonial” interpretations of life.
Nothing to do with age recommendations, but how come that fraud Bieito is still getting contracts at leading houses? We had the misfortune to host his abysmal Turandot a few years back. Initially he refused to stage the posthumously-added finale, calling it ‘fascist music’. The infantile twat was put firmly in his place by our theatre director who informed the talentless little upstart that if he didn’t stage the end he wouldn’t be paid. After probably two minutes’ brainstorming, his Charles Manson-acolyte-type assistants told us that Calixto had found something ‘so so schön’. We waited with bated breath. Turandot and Calaf just stood next to each other, downstage centre, and sang. Park ‘n’ bark at its worst. At least Puccini delivered.
Lovely comment Tony!
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
We won’t be seeing you at Aida then?
Not in my lifetime…
They should better ban SHITTY directors like Calixto recycling his pseudo-intellectual crap productions which nobody likes
Brilliant, to-the-point comment. I have a hunch that if tax payers’ money stopped flooding into certain opera houses, and ticket prices went up to cover actual costs, your wish might come true.
The Ride of the Wokists!
Was children under 14 “banned” for ROH when Damrau and Castronovo had mock sex on stage for Lucia di Lammermoor? Or the front nudity + rape scene in Rigoletto? Or the back nudity + a head cut-off in Salome? It‘s not like ROH‘s productions, or actually most of opera, are that “family friendly”.
I really don’t understand why historical operas and dramas have to be “reimagined”; they are period pieces. The music appears to be left intact, fortunately. -Although I haven’t seen more than a handful of operas since I stopped working as a cellist in the opera pit, about 35 years ago, and I mercifully don’t have to manage an opera house!
@Kurt: It’s not so much that they’re period pieces, it’s more that their messages are immortal and don’t need ‘re-imagining’ to get their point across.
In many ways it’s that much stronger to see what we recognise as a contemporary scenario performed in the spirit of the period in which the work was created; we understand that certain struggles and situations are indisputably human and timeless. To understand that our problems were being confronted 150+ years ago, for example, is, in a sense, almost comforting.
So wait, was Va Pensiero re-arranged for children’s choir?
This production doesn’t look like it should be recommended for anyone below 100.
You fail to mention that Netrebko’s thugish husband “sings” Radames in these Berlin Staatsoper performances.
More than enough child workers in DRC “artisan mining” to supply Cobalt for our “Planet saving” EVs
Sorry, I am curious who substitutes for the actual Ethiopianan slaves in this Aida?