Paris Opera issues violence warning
OperaTicketholders to La Vestale are receiving this emailed warning:
Chère spectatrice, cher spectateur,
Vous avez réservé des places pour l’opéra La Vestale de Gaspare Spontini à l’Opéra Bastille et nous vous en remercions.
Nous vous informons que certaines scènes présentant un caractère violent peuvent heurter la sensibilité d’un public non averti.
Merci de votre compréhension.
Dear viewer,
You have reserved tickets for the opera La Vestale by Gaspare Spontini at the Opéra Bastille and we thank you.
We inform you that certain scenes of a violent nature may offend the sensibilities of an unwary audience.
Thank you for your understanding.
Tickets are still available from 32 to 200 Euros.
Trigger warnings for opera — it was inevitable.
But “offend the sensibilities”etc.? I doubt French opera-goers are such delicate flowers as all that.
Finally, this explains all the riots in the streets and suburbs of Paris.
The wokesters save the day.
Hah! Newer Met productions offend the sensibilities ALL the time. Not violence or sexual content, just good old-fashioned bad taste and untheatricality.
Paris audiences should just take a page from New Yorkers and stop attending.
Good God. Even the French gave bought into this lunacy.
What would happen if they staged La Juive? Riots!?
I think one knows what would happen; most likely rioting cum cancellation.
Have. Bloody autocarrot.
Must be a first for poor, neglected Spontini. Well he’s in the limelight at last.
Next could be an animal rights alert: In the 1821 version of Spontini’s opera OLYMPIE, the tenor enters riding a live elephant.
Well, he would not have been riding a dead one. (Apols. to Groucho Marx).
What did they do if the elephant decided it was a good time to relieve himself?
Why do you assume the elephant is male? It could be female, or it maybe has yet to decide.
This reminds one of the story of the young actor who, after a dueling scene on horseback, must theatrically die and collapse, landing under his horse. The horse, not knowing any better, promptly defecates. The only mention of the actor in tomorrow’s paper: “As for him, I agree with the horse.”
After having seen Lydia Steier’s Salome last month in the same city I can imagine this warning is completely justified and should be heeded. I enjoy challenging art but the depravity of that production cast a pall on the glory of Strauss and Lise Davidsen. In any case, Steier is effective but yes, be wary.
Can you enlighten us? What did they do? Surely hard to make Salome more visceral than it already is?
I saw Salome in Paris last month as well. I think the original poster is referring to the gang rape of Salome during the Dance of Seven Veils and being forced to watch Davidsen sing for 20 minutes with bloodstained legs and groin. It was truly horrifying and sucked all of the humor out of Salome’s confrontation with Herod. But I’m in the minority – I liked being challenged and having a different reaction to an opera I’ve seen so many times.
In addition to the long gang rape of Salome there was also the continuous raping and murdering of (nude) trafficked slaves served at gunpoint to debauched partygoers. The opera is keyed up so that your mind and memory are made to feel as sick as the staging.
this was just such a bad production typical for the German heading the Opera
They mostly produce for the media – it was another appalling and stupid production only hailed by some low lives
Needs more specificity. Who is perpetrating what kind of violence against whom or what?
Yes, a graphic description of the violence please.
Lydia Steier’s Salome is replete with stupid and unjustified violence. Beware.
Incroyable.
Soon we will start rating opera productions like the movies: G, PG-13, R, NC-17 and XXX
Fine idea. Why on earth not? It should be the same parental guidance for films and theater surely? Hardly a woke position. Opera needs to address age groups not indulge in carte blanche demographic trigger warnings.
BBC Radio 3 found it necessary to warn listeners that they might find language offensive in the discussing of a concert by the BBC NOW on the 6th of June. It turned out that the word was “negro” and the work was the Negro Folk Symphony by the black American composer, William Levi Dawson. Dawson was of the generation that saw the word “negro” as a mark of pride in their heritage. Now the word has to be avoided. Go figure.
At least the BBC have restored the word ‘Negro’ to this work. Not so long ago, they just referred to it as his ‘Folk Symphony’. They broadcast it a few days ago and it was good to hear it; I have the old Stokowski recording and I hadn’t heard it in ages – a really fine work! What a bunch of idiots are the BBC’s enforcement of political correctness officers.
In the 19th century visitors of the Ring would need psychiatric help after a performance. This greatly contributed to Wagner’s popularity. Those were the times.
I get tired of all these ‘anti-woke’ comments.
One in four women has been subjected to sexual violence. That means that roughly one in eight members of an audience, in a darkened room, with no option to exit, might well experience trauma. Anyone who’s dealt with someone left with PTSD after a rape or sexual assault know just how profoundly distressing this is.
Television programs and films have carried these kind of warnings for decades.
If you still think this is ‘woke nonsense’, then you really do need to give your heads a wobble.
I think you make a fair point. Is there rape or sexual assault in La Vestale as written? Not as I understand it. The people putting stuff on stage requiring trigger warnings ought to be asking themselves what they have done — and why — to require them.
People likely to choose a Spontini opera are not musically ignorant. They are musically interested in something they might not otherwise have a chance to see and hear. They do not have to be seduced in by superfluous sex and violence.
Steier’s recent production of Salome involved a gang rape and the continuous rape of slaves throughout. I don’t remember that being either in Strauss’ opera or Wilde’s play.
if only The Rite of Spring came with warnings, Paris could’ve avoided a lot of unnecessary rioting
and they say Parisians are rude, they are sensitive delicate souls
Scenes of a violent nature in Opera? I’m shocked, shocked.
Has it ever occurred to any of you that are throwing that SD favourite “woke” around that it may be being posted to create some buzz and publicity for an infrequently performed work?
After that atrocious Don Quichotte, can you blame the public for becoming violent?