Conductor waves white flag at Vienna Opera
OperaSo vociferous were the boos last night for Kirill Serebrennikov’s new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo that, before Elisabeth’s 4th-act aria Tu che le vanita’, conductor Philippe Jordan speared a white cloth with his baton and waved it to the audience in a gesture of surrender.
Observers says nothing like it had ever been seen before. The barracking of the production began with the first sight of the austere set and rose in volume through the performance.
Asmik Grigorian and Eve-Maud Hubeaux stood out as Elisabeth and Eboli. Roberto Tagliavini sang King Philip.
This production is scheduled to be shown on Arte.tv and ORF III on September 29.
I look forward to the stream on Arte on 29th I’ve seen pictures it dosnt look awful by some of today’s standards
Disrupting a performance is most anti-social conduct. There’s plenty of opportunity to express one’s feelings at the end of the performance.
The white flag was an interesting innovation. Did it have any effect?
Disrupting a performance in Europe means staff/conductor/main person didn’t pay ransom / bribe money. If paid, they’ll always give standing ovations.
Poor conduct! they work so hard, to get to this point.
Serebrennikov makes tremendous movies. ‘Tchaikovsky’s Wife’ was magnificent (apart from the very end). Funny how all the conservative prehistoric snowflakes always complain about the visuals of new opera productions…almost as if they go to the opera not to listen to music with their ears, but to look with their eyes ! It’s like people who complain when movie adaptions of books change things compared to the source material. Personally, I couldn’t care less wether an opera production uses sets and costumes form the 18th century or not. What matters most to me is the sonic result, the music
Of course the music matters most. However we don’t like distractions or stupidity, or productions that counter what the music and words are actually saying. Opera is meant to encompass everything. If the sets and direction are bad, one might as well go to a considerably cheaper concert.
Once, in the early 2000s, I attended a performance (opening night) of Boris Godunov in Stuttgart. It was the 1869 version, where Boris dies at the end. The orchestral postlude was completely distorted by the noisy tearing of posters on stage.
“almost as if they go to the opera not to listen to music with their ears, but to look with their eyes”
Then do a concert version!
It’s called Gesamtkunstwerk.
Fortunately, no one who has actually ever written one agrees with you. (And don’t give me that “Kinder, schaff Neues!” blarney, neither.)
Opera is the first total art before cinema and perhaps now gaming/VR: everything matters, to say the staging is irrelevant is ludicrous, an opera has a libretto, a score and staging, if one thing doesn’t work the opera doesn’t work, I agree with you that there are many retrograde opera aficionados whose greatest dream is to preserve opera in aspic, but staging matters, opera isn’t a purely musical spectacle, to push this idea does a great disservice to the operatic art.
He already did this at tne Paris opera during the Trojans some years ago.
Well, no, it was Tcherniakov. The production was vociferously booed. Jordan was also conducting, and also waved a white cloth as a gesture of surrender tu the ire of the public.
A conductor waving a white flag could so easily send the wrong signals to an audience already voicing their displeasure:
1. you are right, the production is sh*t (particularly if it’s some regie-theatre bs);
2. sorry, my conducting is not good tonight (unlikely with Jordan as he is competent, even if he is a bit lacking in the personality department);
3. yes, the singing is off… (having not heard the performances, I cannot comment but on paper the cast seems decent);
4. a combination of the above
Which is it to be?
Under any circumstances, a brave move by Jordan. Karajan would never have contemplated it.
Alternative 1
Karajan never had to deal with such nonsense on stage.
STFU: we heard you, we are working here?
Some pictures of what was shown on stage:
https://kalender.wiener-staatsoper.at/en/calendar/detail/don-carlo/2024-09-26/
Visually it looks great. Mix of the costumes and contemporary clothes is very intriguing. Another question is does it have sense and how does it correspond with the story. If it does, great – a fresh new reading and interesting viewpoint, to open some different perspective. But if not…
Anyway, looking forward to see it.
I can only agree with the public. Heck, I am disappointed nobody brought rotten tomatos and eggs to the show. Disaster-artists like Kirill is exactly what is wrong with opera today.
Many people say that ” oh, opera is an elitist form of art”. With productions by directors like Kirill – I absolutely agree. He often inserts his own political views, sob stories from his own life and in 99% of cases completely distorts the story of the opera. I would say only 1-3% of the audience would care about deeply thinking about the symbolism, think about meanings of his directory “choices”.
The unnecessary complexity and distortion which requires niche knowledge of art, opera, music, politics and Kirill’s miserable little biography is what makes his productions, as people would say, “elitist”.
I recently went to a show in Vienna and many people in the audience were big part tourists and just regular Viennese people, in fact I’d like to point out the diversity of the people – an orthodox priest was sitting by my left side and a group of asian tourists to the right. This is the real audience, not some snobbish operatic experts who sit in the audience with a notebook decyphering Kirill’s interpretations. People come to see a show, not a pretentious showcase of political beliefs. Many people in the audience are first time opera goers. I doubt that after seeing a Serebrennikov production they would want to come back. Why? Because they simply would not understand what the show is about!!!
Proof? Old (Zeffirelli, Otto Schenk & co) and newer good or decent productions are always sold out.
As to why he seems to be a welcome guest at the Staatsoper despite the mediocre directing and disasterous critics – he is on the roster of Lewin/ARSIS Management which seem to be in some kind of cooperation with the management of the Staatsoper. If you are bored, just look up how many of their artists (singers, conductors) are guests at the Staatsoper. And, well, probably he is just an affordable director and some people seem to know him.
Thanks for reading.
Sorry, no conspiracy. The Lewin agency simply has the best and available artists for this opera. There were many cases in the past when CAMI, ASKONAS HOLT, IMG, Harrison Parrott, Hurok etc had a similar balance of a cast.
This is why sometimes concert opera is preferable to staged regietheater horror show especially in Europe where the arts are not funded by the public, so public opinions be damned.
To comment to several posters. An excellent example is Fischer’s concert version of the Ring cycle (4 consecutive nights) in Budapest in the Palace of the Arts. The minimal symbolical staging does not interfere with the musical experience. It is available on DVD.
Some operas can be transported to a different period (Fidelio). For others, the moral conflict does not make sense in a different era (such as “Ballo” set in today’s Washington, DC). It is hard to imagine that Don Carlo would work among a hodgepodge of props.
It should be every producer/designer/costumer in the opera business to faithfully execute the intent of the composer and librettist. It’s not their work to turn into fantasyland. If they want to do that stuff, commission a new work where the composer and the producer/designer/costumer work with the composer like John Adams and Peter Sellars have done successfully for decades.
The final decision for a new staging is made by the artistic and management team
All arts are reinterpreted. Theatre, cinema, literature. The lot.
Opera shouldn’t be any different, you can well consider a new staging a different piece of art of you so wish, but not even to conductor is doing what you are implying, they also interpret the music in accordance to their understanding, tastes, insight and even innovation, but being precisely written it is more difficult that such deviations are considered sins (many would disagree I’m sure, but artistic is actually a thing).
Opera directors and companies are perfectly entitled to offer new innovative stagings, if anything simply because staging technology has moved on our because many operas mens themselves to new historical situations.
Or simply because a director, as an artist, wants to.
Not really. The score is the score, the conductor leads the orchestra, singers and chorus to the music, which has tempi markings which are supposed to be followed. The staging should follow the intentions of the creators of the work. Generally reinterpretations are dog meat.
What happened after the white flag? Did the audience settle down or not? Did the performance continue?
Yes, show continued! Singing and playing were wonderful, production was ridiculous !
I feel that we live in a time when everything which could uplift, heal, produce positive creativity will be chased out by ego…
Just saw Figaro in Wien last week and was shocked at the modern dress. So disappointing. As a Chicago Lyric opera patron, I’m accustomed to the experience of full period appropriate dress and staging, otherwise, could just go to see a concert. Hope the message resonates enough to return to traditional opera as I do not wish to see the Wien austere version again.
I’m going to see it in Vienna next week. Never seen/heard the opera before, so I probably won’t be shocked/appalled by anything.
First you should tell us: have you seen other operas? Do you love classical music and opera? Do you go to see a show or wish to dive deeply into classical music on a higher level of awarness.
Enjoy the beautiful music.
The music critic of Der Standard, whose judgement I trust, seemed to like it a lot. He wrote: Die Verbindung von heutigen und historischen Figuren ergibt eine ganz eigentümliche szenische Polyphonie.
He found it difficult to understand the very negative reaction and also noted that there were those cheering and applauding.
The audience applauded the singing, not the production !
Serebrennikov is gay as well as an outspoken critic of Putin; Russia has
long engaged in a vendetta against him. I would not be surprised if some of
the booing was orchestrated. (Based on the photographs of the set, I have
seen far worse productions from Vienna).
I am so happy that the paying public is finally rebelling against the Regie drek that is being foisted on them. Opera, unfortunately ,has become a vehicle for the director to express his/her political
views and air out psychological and
psychiatric problems at the cost of perverting great art. Call me “A prehistoric snowflake”, but I want to hear beautiful music, well sung and fabulously played, done with period appropriate sets and costumes. No apology offered for this retrograde opinion.
Count me in as a “prehistoric snowflake”… I am grateful for the productions of Otto Schenk and Zeffirelli.
I’m not surprised. As a victim of Putin’s bloodthirsty and corrupt dictatorship, Serebrennikov has my sympathy. As a director… well, I wish he were rather a plumber.
He did a perfectly hideous and absurd Lohengrin in Paris (where Ortrud and Telramund were nice psychatrists trying to help a deranged Elsa). He is a kind of new Tcherniakov : his productions tell a story that’s completely different from the libretto.
Don’t be fooled by the nice costumes : the story takes place in an institute for the history of costume, with some critic of the consumer society (yawn), and Posa as eco-activist (yawn). The characters, in modern costumes, have doubles (yawn) in historical costumes (the nice ones on the picture). I didn’t see it, but read the critics in German.
Well, one more on the list of Regisseurs to avoid : Tcherniakov, Stone, Lydia Steier (what a fool!).
Interestingly, some of the most annoying ones are now so busy that they don’t have time anymore to have stupid ideas. The last I saw from Walikowski and Bieito was just bland and somewhat ugly. There’s always hope
A clear sign modern stagings has gone too far in disturbing the music? Or just an incident??
Very embarrasing.
I saw it on the Arte network. The staging did not make any sense, it did not add any deeper meaning, but it successfully distracted the unfortunate viewer from most of the moral conflicts and the music. In addition to my wasted hours my heart is bleeding for the singers. Maybe it is time for the star soprano to call the shots again… I feel sorry for an operagoer for whom this is a first / early experience.
Just seen the 4th performance. No boos tonight but same sh1t production. I swopped my ticket at the interval with someone who had an „audio only“ seat and so had a much better time from then on.
This director‘s Parsifal in the same house had a certain misrerabilist rigour but this show was just silly: nothing to do with Schiller, never mind Verdi. The directorial stage business seemed calculated to make it impossible to concentrate on the score or the singing, and the concept ignored the necessity of a totalitarian society to make the plot work (call me butch but life in fashion research is just not life and death dangerous, although someone from Putin’s Russia may feel differently).
I’ve only watched this on Arte but having seen it, i wish i could see it in Vienna. No, i don’t understand the set but i found it all aesthetically pleasing enough not to detract from the singing, which i really did think was wonderful. In fact, i had never heard/watched all of Don Carlo but i enjoyed this staging enough to know that Don Carlo is now one of my favourites.
Actually i don’t really get why opera should always be in period costume. Kudos to those pushing the limits, keeping people talking about it.