From Aida produced by Berkeley Opera. Photograph by Jane Kung.
Posts Tagged ‘aida’
Ethiopian King Pleads for Clemency
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007Sex and Aida
Monday, August 6th, 2007
From the “Dance of the Moorish Slaves” in our production of Aida at Berkeley Opera.
Photo by Jane Kung.
Pick a show, any show
Friday, July 27th, 2007Aida Opens
Friday, July 20th, 2007Bezerkeley Opera
Thursday, July 19th, 2007It has been a crazy time at Berkeley Opera. Aida is coming along well and I am increasingly pleased with it although the hours have been very demanding.
It will be interesting to see how we are received as this is about as unconventional a production of the work as possible.
I suppose I will find out when I take my bow on Saturday night.
Sex and Aida
Sunday, July 15th, 2007I get along really well with the artistic director and conductor of Berkeley Opera, Jonathan Khuner. Although I think we have some aesthetic differences, there is a lot we do agree on, particularly in terms of shaking up accepted performance techniques in opera. He does it musically and I do it dramatically, but we discuss each other’s interpretation with an openness and flexibility that actually makes musical-dramatic collaborations seem natural. (As I was asking Jonathan to shorten a fermata for dramatic purposes, my friend Cori Ellison said, “Don’t try that kind of thing at San Francisco Opera!”)But we do seem to be at a disagreement upon one bit of staging: a sex scene between Ramfis and the priestess during Act II, scene I. On the downstairs level of the set, Amneris is getting made up with a sense of erotic anticipation for Radames’s arrival; upstairs, that erotic longing is turned into very uncomfortable and unenjoyable intercourse between one of the country’s most powerful figureheads (Dick Cheney meets Ted Haggard for us) and a woman we see in the first act as a mouthpiece of the system. This happens during the grotesque little dance that is usually a happy “dance of the Moorish slaves,” which must be one of the ugliest ideas in the opera. Part of the consideration for staging the scene in our way grew out of a wish to bring to life that sense of shameless exploitation of one person for the pleasure of another, more powerful person.
[SNIP]
I also have to wonder why this scene involving sex is the one raising some eyebrows: why aren’t the scenes of gruesome violence the disturbing ones? We have plenty in our production, from the very first scene to the very last (in our production, Amonasro’s army overthrows the country and kills the king, Ramfis, the priestess, and everyone else in the system). Aida is quite literally on the brink of suicide from the beginning of the opera, and she and Amneris both suffer disturbing beatings at the hand of their fathers. So why is it sex that ruffles feathers? And in fact, why are sex and violence constantly linked activities in our culture, with sex somehow considered more dangerous?
More Aida Blogs
Saturday, June 30th, 2007So Aida is set to open in three weeks, meaning we are halfway through our rehearsal process. (We have five weeks of room rehearsal before we go into tech–a blissful exception to the short rehearsal process rule in opera in America.) The opera is almost fully staged and certain scenes are already in great shape–notably the scenes that are better suited to a chamber approach in Act III. But the one scene that hasn’t been tackled yet in its entirety is the one which makes everyone’s eyebrows raise at the thought of a “chamber Aida”–the enormous ‘triumphal march’ of Act II. It’s been kept off mostly because of scheduling conflicts, but in many ways it’s good to save this deceptive scene for the last. (We finish staging it tomorrow, incidentally.)Why deceptive? First off, you have to wonder what on earth Egypt is celebrating as a triumph when the very next scene has Radames planning for war again, and with the same exact enemy. As I mention in my program notes (which I published last week), isn’t the whole scene a musical iteration of the “Mission Accomplished” sign hanging over George Bush well before anything was accomplished in Iraq?
The Director Speaks
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007About the Aida I am lighting in July:
What ultimately attracts me to opera is what it can tell us about humanity and society; I think music is the best medium to explore how people think and feel—not how people used to think and feel. This requires a truthfulness of expression that is my chief concern as a director; my answers above may make you think I’m only interested in high-concept ideas, but in opera, concepts are carried by the humans telling the story and conveyed in their relationships. Working with singing actors to foster physically and emotionally true characterizations, connected to our world, is what I strive for. In big houses, this does not always translate across a sea of 4,000+ seats—gestures have to be exaggerated, vocal production has to be extreme, there is no such thing as a real pianissimo. But achieving this truthfulness in a smaller setting, with audience members much closer to the performers, where you can hear the performer whisper and follow their eyes—I think the impact can be overwhelming.
