“Re-imagining” the classics
“Re-imagining” works of art that have withstood the test of time is a trend, one I encountered last night when I attended this performance of the full opera “Hansel and Gretel” at the Yale School of Music.
I’ve written about this opera and my love of it before (see also this), and I’m well aware that sometimes directors are inspired to “re-imagine” it—always in ways that undermine the classic’s beauty, charm, and even the gravitas of parts of it (yes, gravitas).
So I’m usually aware of the warning signs that I might have that kind of experience if I attend a certain production. While I’m tolerant of some changes—in costuming, in translation, in orchestration (often missing and replaced by a forlorn and single piano), there are certain changes I really have trouble stomaching, such as the ones in the current Met production (see this).
I didn’t see any hints of special problems in the description of the evening’s offering: “Yale Opera: A fully-staged production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel in the intimate Morse Recital Hall.” The accompanying photo at that website looked like a standard but minimalist production. But it turns out it’s not a photo of the current production, which is costumed something like a more schlumpy version of this:
And the college setting didn’t clue me in, either, because I’d seen beautiful versions at CUNY-Purchase in New York, with a full orchestra and traditional staging and scenery. Here’s an example of a Purchase production, if you’re an H&G aficionado:
Too bad I didn’t look at this article about the Yale production (published after I’d done my research and purchased my tickets) before I hied myself to Yale and sat in the audience for what turned out to be one of the most dreadful experiences I’ve ever had in the theater.
And that’s saying something.
At least the Yale campus was in full spring flower. I got there early and walked around and saw trees and bulbs in bloom on a gorgeous day. So there’s that.
Here’s a description of Yale’s production from that recent article:
In reimagining [there’s the dread word; beware, beware!] Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel for Yale Opera’s spring production, director John Giampietro found inspiration in the technology that consumes us even as we recognize the benefits of being so thoroughly connected.
…Giampietro wanted to ask, by way of the production, “How is this immediate to our world and our experience?” The Brooklyn, New York-based director pointed out that “in our modern-day world, we’re sort of lost as a civilization,” we’re having “our lost-in-the woods moment,” consumed by technology and asking ourselves, “What is real?”
In the Yale Opera production, the mother hooks the children up to a virtual realty game in which they enter a forest depicted by projected designs. To find and rescue their children from danger, the parents, too, have to enter a virtual reality and play the game…
That doesn’t even begin to describe how awful a “re-imagining” this actually was.
Here’s what I have to say to wannabee geniuses like Giampietro: If you must make a commentary on the alienation of modern life and the internet, start your own blog. And if you want to stage an opera on that subject, write your own friggin masterpiece. Don’t ruin someone else’s.
Perhaps if Giampietro wrote his own opera on that theme, few people would come to it. Or perhaps he’s popular enough that it could get the crowds, and I encourage him to go for it. But by putting on “Hansel and Gretel,” he gets a ready-made audience for what amounts to a bait-and-switch. At least make sure you put “re-imagined” on the website, so people are forewarned.
What Giampietro did to this opera was an abomination—hard to follow (even though I know it by heart), devoid of meaningful context (the plot was actually nonsensical in various ways), with the delicate, humorous, and touching interplay between and among the characters virtually (to coin a phrase) gone.
And whoever “designed” the set (white couches and a light show projected on the back wall) and the “costumes” (mostly black and white clothes that might be suitable for waitresses in a hamburger place or maybe working out) should get out of the theater, pronto. I’ve never seen a more visually boring piece of “entertainment.”
The sad thing—or perhaps it’s the happy thing—is that the performers’ voices were wonderful. If you closed your eyes you could even imagine you were listening to a good recording of the opera—albeit miked, as far as my ears could tell; and if these are opera students, why the miking, particularly when they were only competing for attention with a single piano? (See this for a discussion of the amplification of opera sound).
I wish these young and talented opera singers good luck with the current trends in the operatic (and theatrical, for that matter) world. They should be better served by their directors, but somehow I doubt that they will be.
One word, “Yale”.
It sounds like one more example of the maxim: “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance… baffle them with bullshit!”
Offering to the public this “abomination” is demonstrable proof that Giampietro is incapable of grasping that he has permanently embarrassed himself… i.e. made an ‘ass’ out of himself by mediocritizing an artistic masterpiece.
In art, can there be any greater crime?
Jay Nordlinger, the music critic at The New Criterion, frequently has to endure this kind of thing, and occasionally engages in some denunciation, though you get the feeling that he thinks they’re best ignored. Really, your Yale experience sounds fairly mild compared to some of the stuff he’s described. Unless you didn’t mention the part where Hansel sexually abuses Gretel.
My dream job would be to be an opera singer. I don’t need to be a diva, someone in the chorus would suffice. I love it, rarely see it in person, but sing along to my heart’s content with CD’s and Youtube.
My new car has no CD player. Now I have to find an iPod or something so that I can sing as I drive. I wouldn’t have bought the damn car if I’d realized that.
Susanamantha:
Surely a CD player can be retrofit for under $100?
Mac:
Yes, but this is “Hansel and Gretel” we’re talking about, a lovely opera but one supposedly geared to children.
I just came home from a minimally staged version of Tosca. It was quite good. Traditional costumes. A few set pieces. Good lighting. Wonderful voices. I’m sorry your experience was so awful.
neo-neocon Says:
May 5th, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Mac:
Yes, but this is “Hansel and Gretel” we’re talking about, a lovely opera but one supposedly geared to children.
* * *
This is a major point.
H&G is supposed to be the “gateway” for kids to get hooked on the hard stuff.
Adolescents (directors) pretending to be adults are always ruining things, because, ego.
“The sad thing–or perhaps it’s the happy thing–is that the performers’ voices were wonderful. If you closed your eyes you could even imagine you were listening to a good recording of the opera–albeit miked, as far as my ears could tell; and if these are opera students, why the miking, particularly when they were only competing for attention with a single piano? ”
The linked article was very interesting, and the author is, IMO, correct. Miked vocals are always noticeable, and unseamly (that is not a typo for unseemly, although miking is that, as well; I use it based on the concept that the voice is an integral part of the sound of the operatic music).
If the singers can’t project over the accompaniment, then another line of work should be contemplated.
So; the reimaging was just really bad vs PC inspired? At least there is that…
Neo, there is more to it than re-imagining. The word desecration comes to mind. The director chose purposefully to demean and foul a great work.
Occasionally, I can appreciate and see the hard work and effort that goes into a production, even if I find the work unenjoyable and/or not to my taste.
But if there’s not even that, it’s near unbearable trash.
Ha! Get used to it. In the opera house of Florence, Italy, they changed the ending of Carmen because the original one was not feminist enough:
http://europeanpost.co/italy-ending-of-opera-carmen-re-written-to-be-more-femminist-will-we-now-have-to-change-all-the-endings-in-literature/
This story reminds me of the movie “The Goodbye Girl” and the Richard III production that is part of the plot.
Many years ago, I attended a production of “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe in London. I did not know that the production was altering the characters to a homosexual Helen of Troy and other liberties.
This was the 1970s and the audience did not take nicely to the alteration of the play. The cast was nearly chased off the stage, It was a hilarious farce but not what I thought we would see.
As to Carmen, I am in love.
I share your trepidation about “re-imagining” the classics. I’m about to see a community production of Gogol’s “The Inspector General”, in a “new adaptation”. I read the Gogol play years ago, and it was very funny; but, I am leery these days about seeing any theater production with any hint of political subject matter. Fingers crossed.
All “art” is in Progressive hands. The classical forms are so disgustingly pre-modern.
Carmen ending:
People don’t understand the tragedy of the Opera if that is what they’re doing. Don Jose was an honorable man who let himself be destroyed by Carmen. In the end, he finally, in a sense, stands up to her — and it will destroy him. Her killing him is just the last bit of her walking all over him. No dramatic tension release.
People are stupid.
“People are stupid.”
Tragedy in the modern world.
heathertheurer.com/galleries/disney/
It says I am duplicating my comment but I don’t see a copy here.
I joke that “Tosca” is my favorite opera because of the beautiful music and the happy ending.
Is that a picture of you in the white tee shirt and black pants?
Or, “top” as you girl types, call it.
A very minor quibble, Neo: it’s SUNY Purchase (State University of New York), not CUNY Purchase (City University of New York.) I used to live nearby and took a few summer courses there, long long LONG ago. Also, come to think of it, the one and only blind date that I ever went on was with a student there. I hadn’t thought of that in years!
Just proves that progressives have no imagination; what has been written in the last 50 years to compare to the classics?
One example might be this attempt to rank with the tragedies, but it’s marred (IMO) by the blatant pro-Palestinian spin. The family objected strongly to the use of Klinghoffer’s story.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/may/17/the-death-of-klinghoffer-eno-opera
“ENO to stage opera about 1985 hijacking of cruise ship Achille Lauro
The Death of Klinghoffer focuses on murder of disabled Jewish passenger at hands of Palestinian paramilitaries.”
Just proves that progressives have no imagination; what has been written in the last 50 years to compare to the classics?
Plenty, in Japan.
What are the political ideologies of Japanese opera composers? I really don’t have a clue – are any of them equivalent to Western Progressives?
I don’t follow opera, but I have always had the impression that you went to an opera to enjoy it. I get the impression that you MUST see a re imagining in order to get your mind right.
Aesop: Their politics aren’t comprehensible to other cultures. It’s sorta like Germany’s Christian Democrat Party Merkel bringing in undemocratic rapists, invaders, that aren’t Christian. Makes no sense to me but apparently to German politics it is the PERFECT GRAND COALITION of prime ministering factions.
Last time I checked, they had a 1960s student revolt as well. The professors, elders, and others used some kind of military force to suppress the Leftists and socialists. Apparently Japan made the blood run in the streets and cleared them out before they metastasized.
Japan takes public order and morality quite seriously. No Woodstock open orgie there or black armed panthers taking over Alan Bloom’s university.
Japan accepts Western concepts and business ideas, but they do not accept Western ideologies and religions. That is considered a foreign influence and Japan has a high resistance to “foreigners”. Their citizenship law is even stricter than Germany was in 1990s.
They do have a nationalist “right wing” party, but in Japan the Loyal Opposition apparently is actually loyal. Which is strange given my background with the Left’s betray of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The nationalist party is considered militaristic and Japan still has weird ideas about what a military is. The last military they had created the Imperial Junta behind WW2. Bad mojo. “Militaristic” though just means reviving the Ministry of War.
Plenty, in Japan.
And even better: South Korea.
Yann, are you talking about those internationally popular S K dramas? The ones where the Russians know more than the SKoreans.
In the Yale Opera production, the mother hooks the children up to a virtual realty game in which they enter a forest depicted by projected designs. To find and rescue their children from danger, the parents, too, have to enter a virtual reality and play the game…
Hah. The guy is literally plagiarizing off Sword Art Online, Chinese net novels, and the Matrix movies.
The only thing Hollywood and their affiliates are good at “re imagining” is how to get more money so that they can pay Child Protective Services more money to traffick more sex slaves from the border over to Hollywood. So that they can get more movies and songs outputted so that they can make even more profit.
As for actually creating art, that’s not a power of evil.
They can definitely channel creative energies from the muses and spirits, as many Hollywood or music singers have. The product isn’t so much new or a result of divine creation as merely the retelling of a story that nobody knows about.
Kan, Kardassians, Brit Spears, all had interesting run ins with these channel methods and also paid the appropriate price for them. Just look up Spears’ and Kan’s hospitalizaton histories.