Post by lynette on Jul 28, 2018 22:43:00 GMT
A dramatic evening: heavy, heavy rain made the singing inaudible and then the thunder and we presume lightening started because whoops, out went the lights momentarily and then on came some of them and no surtitles. After about a couple of minutes the SM (or ASM) came on shouting 'Stop, stop!' Which they duly did. Not the best way to do it methinks and then after another five minutes or so we were told to have the dinner break. After dinner, we resumed and then had a twenty minute break for the scene change before the last act.
But poor Seneca never really recovered. Not his fault but it was very difficult to get back the depth. Bathos was the Bath ..sorry, couldn’t resist that one. All the performers sang well but here I am going to ask you guys who are much more experienced than I am in opera, something about the so called trouser part of Nero. It was sung by a perfectly adequate singer, but she couldn’t act. IMO. So we got a clunky I’m a man heavy footed, swagger , smirky performance which didn’t do it for me. I would rather have a woman just be a woman if that is what the composer specifies. The duets with Poppea were lovely but the physical stroking, the kiss etc was just awful. We all are happy with women playing men's roles now, aren’t we? But here it was sixth form embarrassing. Does she just need acting lessons or is it a feature of opera. After all we were happy with Henry IV all the parts played by women at the Donmar and it worked a treat. Was it the overall concept , in the prison that made it work or was it better acting?
The direction was very busy, loads of moving in that operatic slow wavy way for no good reason. Virtue, Love and Fortune were all over the place all the time. And the ending was very poorly arranged, no grandeur in it at all. The changing of clothes of Ottone and Drusilla was silly as he was so much bigger than she and I wonder if this is meant to be comic, which they acknowledged here or not because it changed the tone entirely into pantomime.
Special mention to Ottavia, a Russian singer ( I’m not naming names for obvious reasons) whose voice was great and who understood the power of standing still.
But poor Seneca never really recovered. Not his fault but it was very difficult to get back the depth. Bathos was the Bath ..sorry, couldn’t resist that one. All the performers sang well but here I am going to ask you guys who are much more experienced than I am in opera, something about the so called trouser part of Nero. It was sung by a perfectly adequate singer, but she couldn’t act. IMO. So we got a clunky I’m a man heavy footed, swagger , smirky performance which didn’t do it for me. I would rather have a woman just be a woman if that is what the composer specifies. The duets with Poppea were lovely but the physical stroking, the kiss etc was just awful. We all are happy with women playing men's roles now, aren’t we? But here it was sixth form embarrassing. Does she just need acting lessons or is it a feature of opera. After all we were happy with Henry IV all the parts played by women at the Donmar and it worked a treat. Was it the overall concept , in the prison that made it work or was it better acting?
The direction was very busy, loads of moving in that operatic slow wavy way for no good reason. Virtue, Love and Fortune were all over the place all the time. And the ending was very poorly arranged, no grandeur in it at all. The changing of clothes of Ottone and Drusilla was silly as he was so much bigger than she and I wonder if this is meant to be comic, which they acknowledged here or not because it changed the tone entirely into pantomime.
Special mention to Ottavia, a Russian singer ( I’m not naming names for obvious reasons) whose voice was great and who understood the power of standing still.
