Force of Destiny vs William Tell

[Geoff]

Just saw ENO Force of Destiny (Forza del Destino) and was forceably reminded of the fuss around the ROH William Tell earlier in the year. Leaving aside the general merits - or otherwise - of the two productions I just want to post my feelings about one particular scene.

 

There is a scene on the stage of the ENO of ultraviolence, during which heavily pregnant women are forced to miscarry (with attendant blood and general misery). This is all, like the equivalent scene in Tell, set "ironically" to "jolly" dance music "to show the horror of war" (etc etc etc) but unlike in Tell, everything is shown explicitly at the front of the stage. So, directly comparable to Tell but even more shocking.

 

Yet there has been not a word in the press (yes the scene has been mentioned in reviews but there has not been a general outcry, booing, complaints, story after story in the papers including tracking down the actresses involved, championing "victims" in the audience who said they were traumatised by what they saw) as there was with Tell before the summer. Why this disparity? Both are modern productions of 19th century operas by well-known composers, playing to major opera houses in the West End, by directors not known for traditional stagings. Still the reaction has been completely different.

 

In one case it's the ENO, with its history of radical productions and (possibly) a slightly different audience; the ENO hired the better known quantity Bieito - and it's not "Rossini at the Royal Opera House", which probably sounds like something to take the grandchildren to.

 

The distasteful scene - which added nothing to my appreciation of the opera nor told me anything I didn't know - is now seered into my memory and certainly reason enough to warn people off giving the ENO their money. I wish I hadn't seen this. Shame, as the conducting and some of the singing is worth hearing. Maybe it will be on Radio 3, which would be ok.

[Sim]

Thank you for this rather disturbing report, Geoff. I almost never go to see opera at the Coli no matter how good the production; I like to hear operas in their original languages.

 

I think it is a sorry state of affairs if that kind of graphic and gratuitous violence is being portrayed on stage in any play or opera. I think we can all imagine the horrors that humans can inflict on one another without it having to be show in gory, graphic detail. Do these directors think that the audience doesn't watch the news or read the papers? That we don't already know about man's inhumanity to man??

 

To a lesser degree, I have the same beef with the RO's current production of Rigoletto. Why during the glorious overture do we have to be subjected to scenes of sodomy and other lewd behaviour? Part of the glory of the music is that it tells us all we need to know about the debauchery of the Duke's court; we don't need it played out on stage. I would much rather have the option of using my imagination, since I have one. I always find that, as with the most effective horror films, it is that which is suggested that is much more frightening than that which is shoved in your face.

[alison]

Oh, *that* production of Rigoletto.  Haven't they got rid of it yet (they seem to change Eugene Onegins with great regularity)?  I went to see it some years back and decided not to bother again.

 

Thanks for the warning about Forza, Geoff.  Like Sim, I tend not to be fond of operas in translation - especially when the two languages are completely different rhythmically, so that the target language doesn't easily fit the music.

[alison]

Yet there has been not a word in the press (yes the scene has been mentioned in reviews but there has not been a general outcry, booing, complaints, story after story in the papers including tracking down the actresses involved, championing "victims" in the audience who said they were traumatised by what they saw) as there was with Tell before the summer. Why this disparity? Both are modern productions of 19th century operas by well-known composers, playing to major opera houses in the West End, by directors not known for traditional stagings. Still the reaction has been completely different.

 

I'd guess the ENO/Coliseum isn't regarded as news, whereas the ROH (which is of course full of toffs, evening dresses and so on) is.

[MAB]

Was there booing on the first night?  In general unpopular productions are only booed at the premiere when the production team comes on stage, however awful the evening's been no one would dream of booing at the end of subsequent performances when just singers and conductor take their bows.

 

I do feel William Tell was for its first night audience the straw that broke the camel's back, the latest and most repugnant in a line of truly awful productions the RO management had seen fit to inflict on its regular audience.  Like others posting here I go less to ENO due to an original language preference, the opera I last saw  before FoD was Lady Macbeth of Mtensk and that was an excellent production, so I'm not sure if FoD was the latest in a long line of horrors.

 

Personally I was more upset by the changes made to the story line than anything else as I'm afraid it wasn't the first time I'd seen a pregnant woman kicked in the belly on stage.  Opera going in the UK has become a kind of artistic Russian roulette, You never know when some idiot producer is going to wreck the evening.

[Scheherezade]

I agree about opera in translation and, like many, fail to see why the ENO persist when we have surtitles and a multi-lingual society. Mozart, in particular, sounds dreadful in English, ditto Rossini although The Barber of Seville was worth the effort for the fabulous Jonathan Miller production. Baroque and Wagner seem to survive well in translation. I did not, however, find this production as uncomfortable on the ear as many of the ENO's offerings. Whether this was partly due to the Fagioli factor (the fact that I could not always clearly hear the words) is a matter of speculation but the overall effect, to me at least, was decidedly more lyrical than I had anticipated.

 

I actually enjoyed The Force of Destiny, despite approaching it with much trepidation. Vocally, it was fantasic .Tamara Wilson alone was worth the (very reasonable) price of the ticket, bearing out Dame Kiri's recent injunction that singers need 'a bit of beef' to perform well. I don't know about anyone else but I have certainly found Anna Netrebko's voice more appealing since she has put on some weight.

 

As far as the production values were concerned, I have frequently seen worse, including the ROH William Tell, in which I personally found the scene with the 'naked' children far more disturbing than the simulated rape. I also found that production puerile, nonsensical and insulting to the intelligence of the audience whereas, by way of contrast, the Calixto Bieito Spanish Civil War interpretation of The Force of Destiny made narrative sense, even extending to Leonora's suicide, although I do feel that directors' licence should not extend to changing the intention of the composer. If you don't like the story, direct a different piece.

 

Going back a few years, the Rufus Norris Don Giovanni, which also featured a rape scene - more than one, if I remember correctly, including the rape, rather than seduction of Donna Anna, which made nonsense of everything that followed, and a hideously-depicted gang rape by a mob wearing masks and T shirts carrying the image of Christ, was far less palatable. After the interval, my daughter and I had something of a stand-off with a couple who had more central (and more expensive) seats than ours as all four of us wanted to be as far away from the sight lines as possible - 'You have them', 'No, please, you take them', 'No, really, we couldn't...' And this from my daughter aged approximately 20 at the time, just the age group that the powers that be seem to imagine will enjoy seeing such graphic, distasteful productions.

 

As to 'that Rigoletto', I should think most of us are down on our knees praying for more David McVicar after some of the recent productions (ok, maybe not the 'Trekkie' Aida) - and on that note, try and catch Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail on the current Glyndebourne tour. Glorious!