The Abduction of Opera (Can the Met stand against the trashy productions of trendy nihilists?)

City Journal ^ | 7/30/2007 | Heather MacDonald

[mojito]

Mozart’s lighthearted opera The Abduction from the Seraglio does not call for a prostitute’s nipples to be sliced off and presented to the lead soprano. Nor does it include masturbation, urination as foreplay, or forced oral sex. Europe’s new breed of opera directors, however, know better than Mozart what an opera should contain. So not only does the Abduction at Berlin’s Komische Oper feature the aforementioned activities; it also replaces Mozart’s graceful ending with a Quentin Tarantino–esque bloodbath and the promise of future perversion.

Welcome to Regietheater (German for “director’s theater”), the style of opera direction now prevalent in Europe. Regietheater embodies the belief that a director’s interpretation of an opera is as important as what the composer intended, if not more so. By an odd coincidence, many cutting-edge directors working in Europe today just happen to discover the identical lode of sex, violence, and opportunity for hackneyed political “critique” in operas ranging from the early Baroque era to that of late Romanticism.

Until now, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has stood resolutely against Regietheater decadence. In fact, its greatest gift to the world at the present moment is to mount productions—whether sleekly abstract or richly realistic—that allow the beauty of some of the most powerful music ever written to shine forth.

The question now is whether that musical gift will continue.

[Greg F]

I’ve always thought that going to the Opera made as much sense as taking out the garbage in a tuxedo.
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Awwwww. I love Mozart. Funny thing though. We do usually have a drink on the Waste Management Mezzanine at the S. Florida performing arts center. S. Florida you know. Wayne Huizenga gave a donation. Nothing quite as a romantic as the Waste Management Mezzanine.

[ml/nj]

Until now, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has stood resolutely against Regietheater decadence. In fact, its greatest gift to the world at the present moment is to mount productions—whether sleekly abstract or richly realistic—that allow the beauty of some of the most powerful music ever written to shine forth.

This guy hasn't seen the current Fidelio.

ML/NJ

[Greg F]

Mozart DID have a bit of difficulty “selling” Abduction because a harem was considered a brothel.
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Mozart could have written operas with Masonic subtexts and I’d forgive him. Oh, wait, . . .

[freepertoo]

ROFL!!!!!!!!

[tanuki]

Thank you for posting this. As an opera buff, I will be better informed about where to put my dollars. How sad, that western culture now has to be protected from the very lands that created it.

[freepertoo]

Mozart’s operas have something wonderfully special about them...like his uplifting music.

[stylin19a]

I like Opera way better than FireFox

[Monkey King]

The Abduction from the Seraglio does not call for a prostitute’s nipples to be sliced off and presented to the lead soprano. Nor does it include masturbation, urination as foreplay, or forced oral sex.

Otherwise known to Bill Clinton as "Last Tuesday Night"...

[Greg F]

This is the part of the show where we slice the prostitute's nipples off.

[x]

The problem in Europe is that the opera houses are supported by the state (kinda like NPR and PBS). Therefore, they can mount any crappy, puerile production and still get paid. The reviewers are perverted sycophants who love anything ugly. The audiences generally boo these repulsive, filthy stagings. The directors get lots of press and enjoy the publicity of being "notorious".

That's pretty much true, at least about Germany. I tried picking my way through some German newspaper accounts of these theatrical controversies. It seemed like they were the great cultural controversies of the century. When I saw in plain English what the arguments were about I had to laugh that such Dreck was taken seriously.

I don't think it's so much that the reviewers are perverted, though. These controversies sell papers, or at least get people to look in the culture section, and keep reviewers and editors employed.

[Chairman Fred]

To the producers of this perversion of Mozart, from Osmin, the Harem Guard (and villain) of the Abduction etc.:

"O, wie will ich triumphieren,
Wenn sie euch zum Richtplatz fuehren,
Und die Haelse schnueren zu..."

"Oh, how I will triumph, when they take you to the Place of Judgment, and the Noose gets tight..."(!!)

[neb52]

!