Ignorance has no limits at English National Opera
OperaThe company has made a virtue of hiring executives who have no experience in the art form.
This text comes from its online Beginners Guide to Opera:
Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was one of the most highly acclaimed composers of the 20th century. He was a leading representative of the German school of Romantic composers who set new standards for orchestration and tone colour in opera. But, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, with his father Johann Strauss being a prominent composer in Vienna. It was his father’s orchestra that gave him his first big break, composing two waltzes for them to play at the age of just six.
More nonsense here.
UPDATE: ENO has shut down the Beginners Guide site and is taking no calls.
Lord Harewood will be turning in his grave…
I bet that was written by ChatGPT.
Even drunk, ChatGPT does better thank that.
I’m not sure about that ChatGPT told me Paul McCartney was a female vocalist
Exactly, there is a distinct AI flavour to the style.
ChatGPT generally doesn’t do factual errors. It uses info that is already out there….plus it has the online info of parental names and composers’ back catalogues at its disposal.
Unfortunately these gaffes are commonly seen in human presumptions and assumptions putting two and two together to make six, and sheer laziness. The Britten Zefirelli gaffe is actually so bonkers as to be unbelievable though…..sounds like the writer was drunk or high on some illegal substance!
Incredible. I just had to check it wasn’t April 1st yet..
Slightly off the point here, but I just noted the similarity between AI and A1 (as in April 1st). I was told you check anything published before noon on April Fool’s Day. We’re now in an environment where we have to be on our guard 24/7 in case AI is involved.
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
And his third cousin was Levi Strauss who made denim trousers.
Ha, ha, ha, love your humour!!
… and they had adopted Claude Levi-Strauss, who was so deeply moved by his relative’s operas, notably ‘Salome’ and ‘Elektra’, that he subsequently became an anthropologist, mythologist, and incest researcher.
Not to forget Franz Josef Strauss, famous German politician and Bavarian prime minister. An incredibly talented and diverse family.
Haha a personality the Brits urgently would urgently need as it’s going down the rain all over
From the French side of the family!!!
In North America, we might say it was all in the jeans.
Lol!
The emigrant branch of the family yielded his nth cousin, Lewis Strauss, who became Destroyer of Oppenheimers.
Well, more fortuitous things exist in music.
We all know Andrew Lloyd Webber is the grandson of Carl Maria von Weber.
Claude Michel Schonberg, composer of Les Miserables, is the grandson of Arnold Schoenberg, and frequently states him and his book on harmony has musical inspiration.
And who can forget the legendary John Williams whose successful dual career as an Oscar winning film composer and a classical guitarist has defied what’s possible in music!
And grandson of Ralph John-Williams who composed the London Symphony by Haydn.
When I was just getting started at conservatory I wondered precisely HOW John Williams had time to practice guitar whilst writing all those scores. Suppose I’ll never know…
And don’t forget John Williams was alo a highly successful principal oboe of several English orchestras in his spare time!
…and a fine choral director, based at the Chapel of the Tower of London
. . . and of course he filled his Sundays by directing the music at the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London for over 20 years.
Actually, Claude-Michel Schonberg IS a relative of Arnold Schoenberg, but the link is distant.
And don’t forget the young(ish) American composer, Adam Schoenberg, who teaches not far from Arnold’s UCLA, at Occidental College.
WOW. Unbelievable yet unsurprising. Sign of the times. More graffiti on the wall.
‘Outside of opera, Britten’s other famous works include orchestral music, chamber music, choral works and songs. He also wrote music for films such as the score for Franco Zeffirelli’s, Romeo and Juliet.’ Unbelievable…the Rota estate should sue!
Those were actually written by his wife, Vera Britten.
Or his son, Leon Brittain.
And don’t forget the family dog, Great Britten.
Don’t you mean Petra?
Nothing seems to fall far from the tree of dumbing down ignorance
few ideas but confused…
And, of course, also the composer Oscar Strauss.
Just one big happy family.
But perhaps all the attacks on the ENO’s budget and future have given the organisation a case of Post-Traumatic Strauss Syndrome.
Of course Oscar was Straus with only one S.
You’re showing your own ignorance above as the Viennese operetta composer Oscar Straus (1870-1954) spelled his surname with only one ‘s’ at the end.
There’s no way he could be confused with those other Strausses!
Lighten up, Six and Bob. Most of the comments about this ENO error have been made in a spirit of humor, as (ever so obviously) was mine.
Oscar Straus(s) lost the 2nd “S” in a poker game in Basingstoke Station waiting room.
Thank goodness they’re being shutdown.
They are not being shut down, thankfully
Delete your account.
I KNEW his Dad was Johann!
3/4 is 3/4 after all!
Perhaps written by one of the twelve development officers employed instead of the musicians who posts are being deleted. What is happening at ENO is a disgrace. Anyway, who knew that Britten wrote the music for Zefferelli’s film ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Not Britten. Not Zeffirelli. Not Nino Rota.
I think that’s news even to Benjamin Britten himself. Or indeed Franco Zefferelli.
Please don’t do down Development officers. Someone has to raise the money it costs to put on opera! By all means criticise rubbish like “DEI Officers”, but without Development staff the arts would not exist.
My favourite oops is under Benjamin Britten
“ He also wrote music for films such as the score for Franco Zeffirelli’s, Romeo and Juliet. “
That gaffe is so bad that I’m wondering if the site has been hacked by a prankster. No doubt ENO management are hoping that it is….
At the very least, do they have access to Wikipedia?
They most likely DO have access to Wikipedia – trouble is, they probably can’t read!!
But they can copy and paste. And have done so in several of the bios.
*here’s
See, it’s easy to make school-person (!!) errors!
The arts of looking up and checking are lost. The fact has been discredited, and we know where that got its loudest endorsement.
Where do you think they got all their info?
And I used to believe that Wikipedia was full of inaccuracies. ENO’s latest is beyond dumb. Could also have been written by Bing Co-Pilot…. Oh – I see the Strauss entry has disappeared and Britten’s been edited.
I thought Richard Strauss Jr. wrote the famous waltzes.
Also the operetta “Der Lachendkavalier” …
This writer shoulg go work for the Met.
I actually can’t understand how any human being with a degree of consciousness marginally above a sack of beans could publish that misinformation without even bothering to check facts which are available right in front of your nose.
True, except it wasn’t written by a human.
Giuseppe Verdi didn’t fall far from the opera composer tree, either. He was the artistic heir of his great-great-great grandad, Monte.
Let us not forget Edouard Ibert, the forgotten, half-English brother of the more famous Jacques. To his friends and admirerers, he was affectionately known as Ted.
Who can forget the day he had his picnic??
A bit of an aside, did you know that Claudio Monteverdi must have had a double career as an all in wrestler or boxer. I discovered this sitting next to 3 Italian sailors at a prom of the Vespers. They sat it out until the internal.
Later in the day, they’re trying to fix it, without much success: “But, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, with his father Franz Strauss being a prominent composer in Vienna.”
Factual mistakes aside, the writing is wretchedly bad. ChatGPT wouldn’t make elementary grammatical errors.
What would you like to bet that, after having seen “Oppenheimer”, some of the innocents on the ENO staff pronounce it “Straws”?
Speaking of recent biopics, I was depressed to hear (on BBC Radio 4) two professional commentators, when discussing “Maestro”, mispronounce the conductor’s name as “Bernstean”.
Interestingly enough, the generally accepted American pronunciation is Bern”steen”. It derives mainly from Yiddish, where (I am led to believe) “stein” is usually pronounced “stain” (or shtain), and is easily inflected as steen.
Leonard Bernstein himself personally, by all accounts, preferred the pure German pronunciation “stein” as in Bernstine (Bernstein translated means “Amberstone”).
Incidentally, in spoken Swiss German the “ei” (as in Stein or Wein) is often reversed to “ie” , eg. Weisswein (vicevine) sounds Wiesswien (veeceveen).
Mel Brooks made wonderful fun of the pronunciation of Frankenstein in his film “Young Frankenstein”.
On the other hand, the fine American film composer, Elmer Bernstein (“Sweet Smell of Success”, “The Magnificent Seven”, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, etc.) pronounced his last syllable “steen”.
Then of course, there’s the Berensteen Bear books for children. Quite apart from the influence of Yiddish, there may have been a desire to appear less German after March 1933. So far as I know, it’s very much an American thing
The pronunciation can vary from person to person but the pronunciation Leonard “Bernsteen” is not a correct any more than Carl “Bernstine” would be.
You say beagle and I say bay gull
Jeffrey says Biegel…..
Lenny himself preferred “BernSTINE” and that’s good enough for me. He got angry one time when someone called him “Bernsteen” and immediately corrected him.
Other ‘Bernsteins’ may prefer their name pronounced differently but that’s their business.
We had a similarly unenlightened publicity person who stated that the opera Tannhauser took place on the planet Venus.
I think Tannhäuser was on Venus, at least before the curtain rose.
As a student I watched a production at Opera North where this carried on after the curtain rose, too….
Given the reference to Johann Strauss writing waltzes for his son Richard to perform aged six with his orchestra, on reflection I suspect a rather witty and disgruntled employee was having lots of fun! And the boss assumed it be true
Wow. What a wild photograph of Richard Strauss. Did he kill the photographer afterwards?
Yet no mention of the recently-lost PDQ Bach….
Methinks AI had a part to play in this….
Anyhow, hear’s to their muscians and stage crew on opening night of Jenufa.
That’s because RS was born on May 35th.
They seem to have forgotten that Mahler’s grandson, Joe, plays loosehead prop for Harlequins and England.
And Richard’s grandson (Johann II’s great-grandson) Andrew Strauss had a distinguished cricket career opening the batting for his adopted country, England .
Joe changed the spelling of his surname to try to avoid confusion.
If you believe all this, I have a Joseph Strauss-designed bridge to sell you!
Now we can understand Elektra as an act of rebellion by Richard against his father, Johann Jr.
Surely, it’s the Philomena Cunk effect . . .
I suppose SOMEONE had to hire Liz Truss’ speech writer . . .
I think it was Katie Britt’s speechwriter (or maybe Ms. Britt herself).
Liz Strauss, surely?
This is not the company I knew. My dear lamented mentor, Colin Graham, would have raised the roof. John McMurray and he are probably rolling their eyes up there in the clouds – not to mention Dr Miller. John Copley is still with us but would just shrug in disgust at such a thing. I’m heartbroken.
two years or so ago, the WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA said COSÌ FAN TUTTE was Mozart’s only opera!
Maybe the writer from Washington National Opera is now working at ENO….??!
Wow that primer is written at a fifth-grade level. Incidentally, Strauss pére has been corrected to Franz. However, Philip Glass’s name is still misspelled with two ‘l’s next to his picture and Bernstein is described merely as “a” conductor of the NY Phil from ’58-’69.
Third grade, I think. Not just that (I know many third graders who are meticulous about research and facts) but a third grader who forgot to do the homework so is just making things up in the hope of getting at least a C minus for writing some sentences instead of an F for handing in blank paper!
The website currently says Franz Strauss
The linked article has now been changed …”Franz Strauss, the prominent composer”
This is metairony.
Another lie as Franz Strauss (as many fans of Richard Strauss will know) was a prominent horn player and a professor at the Munich Conservatory (called the Royal Music School in those days) and not a “prominent composer” which seems to suggest that this person either doesn’t know what a composer does or more likely, is still lazily leaving untruths unedited!
It’s like calling Maxim Vengerov a “prominent composer” and leaving out the part about him being one of the world’s best violinists today and a visiting professor at Royal Academy of Music and other conservatoires. He might take up composing later in addition to his short foray into conducting, but I think Vengerov would state that he’s not a composer at the moment, and neither was Franz Strauss.
“Johann Strauss” appears to have been corrected to “Franz” (must checkout *his* waltzes sometime) but the Britten howler is still there …
How appalling.
Written by a marketing assistant with no musical education, and not checked by anybody more senior. Though is there anyone more senior with a musical education there now?
As one commentator below says, Lord Harewood would be turning in his grave. And I can just hear the outbursts from some of the wonderful mentors I had at the ENO such as Jonathan Miller and Antony Besch.
Thank you one & all around the world for making me laugh uncontrollably at all your comments!
He must have been proud of his son, opening the batting for Middlesex and England.
Incredible
On W.S.Gilbert:
“Tragedy struck Gilbert in 1897 when his wife, Lucy, passed away. The loss significantly affected him, causing his withdrawal from public life…”
In fact she outlived him by 25 years, dying in 1936.
Arnold Bax wrote the Brandenburg gate.
Didn’t he?
I like this paragraph:
“Glass had a number of influences across the years which helped to shape his style of composing. He studied at the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School, where he worked as an assistant to Ravi Shankar. This led to an interest in Indian music. He was among the first western composers to incorporate Asian influences into his compositions, which have generally been in the classical style.”
Evidently he just took a random job assisting Ravi Shankar and then discovered that he was actually interested in Indian music.
“Among the first composer to include Asian influences”
(pipe down Debussy!)
Quite. As for “… his compositions, which have generally been in the classical style.” Utterly meaningless.
Pipe down Rameau as well! (1735).
Which ignoramus is being hired/allowed to write all this drivel? The first comment rubbishing Jenufa (in confused language which seemed to suggest the writer did not know what the words diverse and complex meant) and condemning Magic Flute and Barber of Seville as being “simple” was bad enough. Now just plain laziness and lies.
Reminds me of the time an Elliott Carter piece was played where a dumb reviewer cried nepotism because Elliott was clearly the son of a former US President
Definitely not an apple tree, then! 🙂
Joking apart ….. it is absolutely APPALLING that the splendidly professional chorus and orchestra have been treated so badly by this company , while inadequate semi-literate admin staff are able to get away with such unacceptable “work”!
I say “ treated badly by this company “ as I momentarily forget that the chorus and orchestra ARE THE COMPANY! My heart goes out to them all as they continue to be so miss managed.
THIS, a thousand thousand times.
Obviously it must be Grimgerda Strauss, the composer’s foster daughter, responsible for the Miss Management.
A RosenKavalier disregard.
The link is no longer available. I’ve laughed at many of the comments here, but how sad that the company which nursed my love of opera can get this so horribly wrong.
Not forgetting his great great nephew Andrew who opened the batting for England.
Well, that didn’t last long: the whole beginner’s guide has been removed, with no explanation.
I think someone thought they could save money by getting an AI bot to write the biographies.
If it was a real human being who wrote this stuff he/she must be feeling very fragile, but surely it’s the responsibility of the person who put him/her in that position who should be feeling very vulnerable. Any chance of an explanation or apology from ENO? I hope this stupid incident does not damage the enormous amount of goodwill for the company built up over the last months.
Sorry, what goodwill?
Our hearts are always with the musicians, they bear no responsibility for anything that ENO has been going through for the past year and a half. But there is no love whatsoever for the decision-making forces at the Coliseum.
This is yet another case of egotistical, unqualified, ignorant and reckless management (in all quarters) allowing an often superb company to be brought to its knees.
Bring in a new chief executive, fire the entire board, and wrestle the future of the company away from Arts Council England by any means necessary.
I would like to hear those waltzes the bio refers to.
Reads as if written by a 12 year old, quite apart from the risible errors.
“ENO has shut down”
I was so hopeful but my hopes were dashed by the next line. The future-less, very part-time fully-funded opera group has to be put out of its misery. It’s had more chances than English national tory prime ministers yet, just like tory prime ministers, somehow keeps breathing its last.
This reminds me of the time, a bit over 20 years ago, when the AP ran a review (the text of which was just fine) of a Wagner opera at the Met with the headline “Voigt Stars As Tannhauser.”
I suspect the reviewer (whose main job at AP was covering some other topic entirely) never saw the headline. Certainly not before it went out over the wires.
Maybe the reviewer was thinking of actor Jon Voight… sheesh
Googling suggests that NL seems to be unique in reporting this. I can find no other regerence to this.
I was thinking that the “author” should have asked an ENO colleague or two to review his material and then had the depressing thought that perhaps he did!
This sort of nonsense is what gives ENO a bad name. Lord Harewood must be spinning in his grave.
No wonder they have to move – it’s so badly run and most shows only praised by the woke media as half empty house – Magic Flute the other day without hydraulics and generally not magic at all – shame on ENO
Was “Costa Diva” the founder of the chain of coffee shops???
Surely sir, “Cast a Diver” is the lost aria from “The Wreckers”…
The ENO website said “ Costa Diva”.
This beggars belief. And one of our great national opera companies. I just hope whichever prat wrote this gets their just desserts. Who ARE these people and why are they being paid? Doubtless one member of the small armies of ignorant pen-pushing HR-type admin idiots who now inhabit most institutions. No wonder ENO is in this mess. It’s risible and humiliating.
The running time is 124 minutes.
Running was invented by Sir Thomas Running in 1724 when he tried to walk twice.
Was he the running teacher for Iphigenia, when she was in Brooklyn? At this late date, only Running knows.
The Running nose for talent, once admired, has been lost and must now be treated as a cold case.
It takes chutzpah to write stuff like that. The whole apple tree fell.
I just found this on the ENO website, about the forthcoming semi-staged performances of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle:
“The ENO will be performing this production in Hungarian, the original language, with English surtitles displayed above the stage.”
Could this be a green shoot of recovery? ENO’s dogmatic insistence on performing everything in English began to look anachronistic once surtitles had become ubiquitous in theatres decades ago. Nowadays most young people watch TV with the subtitles switched on.
Moreover, with greater international mobility, there is less incentive for young singers to learn roles in English when ENO is the only company asking for that, surely?
And I for one dislike hearing Italian or German or French operas in English.
Not opera but My Fair Lady, sung in Romanian with English surtitles!
Just cannot see how it would work.
“Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.” — H. K. Mencken
(Pardon the slip-of-the-finger — H. L., not H. K.)
Wagner wanted his operas to be understood so had no problem with them being sung in different languages.
A quick check of archive.org shows that this page had been active on the ENO site since 2022; more shocking that it wasn’t caught until now.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220515000000*/https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/explore-more/beginners-guide-to-20th-century-composers/