Epictetus - Discourses on Wargaming: Cavalli

Showing posts with label Cavalli. Show all posts

Sunday, 13 November 2022

The Bear Unecessities

“Oh well, bears will be bears,” said Mr Brown.” - Michael Bond

There are a surprising number of plays which call for a bear to appear on stage: 'A Winter's Tale' probably being the most well known. Usually, and for obvious reasons, they are represented by some technical trickery such as back projection. In a version of Philip Pullman's ' His Dark Materials' that I saw many years ago the actors playing the polar bears wore very large, but non-naturalistic head gear which worked well. In my review of Cavalli's 'La Calisto' I mention that they rendered the bear very effectively, without bothering to include the detail of exactly how they did it. Presumably I assumed my memory would be sufficient; it isn't. Why am I reminiscing about ursine theatrics? Because I've just seen a bear on stage that was far superior to any other that I have ever seen. I'd like at this point to include a picture of it, but I can't find one online so this one will have to do.

And the play? It was 'Guy Fawkes', guess what's in the barrels in the background there. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on the Gunpowder Plot, but I think all readers in the UK at least will be familiar with the basics of the story, which after all gets trotted out annually. Those basics have, in my case at least, until now excluded the bit about the bear. Still, thankfully one is never too old to learn something new.

The play may have been, shall we say, creative, but wasn't really very good. It did however make me laugh sufficient times to make me glad I went. And that is essentially the problem; they did it as a comedy. Which, when your subject matter is the plotting of a terrorist act intended to cause mass slaughter after which the protagonists are tortured and then hung, drawn and quartered, is to set oneself a difficult task. The author went for treating it as drunken pub talk that got out of hand; it didn't work. But, as I mentioned before, the bear was good.

Monday, 31 October 2016

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

So opens Keat's poem 'Endymion'. I mention this not just because it is his 221st birthday today, but also because - in the joined up manner beloved of your bloggist - Endymion is a character in the latest opera that I have been to see: Cavalli's 'La Calisto'. This further slice of baroque brings together two mythological episodes: the 'seduction' of Calisto by Jupiter and the liaison between Diana and Endymion.

English Touring Opera play it for laughs in the first two acts with, for example, yet another man playing a part written for a woman sharing scenes with a woman playing a part written for a woman playing a goat-boy, followed on stage by a man dressed as a woman miming to the voice of a mezzo atop an upstage ladder. The setting was Victorian steampunk meets Peter Jackson style elves which gelled surprisingly well with both the seventeenth century music and the humour. Endymion as Professor Branestawm (or possibly Doc Brown) was especially effective and Mercurio gave good quiff.

In the third act they focussed more on the drama. Faustini, the librettist was obviously giving the Venetian public what they wanted and expected rather than going for anything deep and meaningful; he plays rather fast and loose with Ovid, Aeschylus and whoever else his sources were. However, there is something poignant about the mutual love of the moon and an astronomer, the two being inevitably and permanently separated by the natural order of things. Jupiter and Juno however clearly deserve each other. And if I was the title character I'd think I'd have preferred to stay as a bear - which was very effectively, if briefly, realised - than be raised to the heavens as a star, but perhaps that's just me.

Saturday, 2 August 2014

How great an ill is love to man

And so to the theatre; the National Theatre no less. I think the last time that I went to a performance there was to see Sir Ian McKellen give his Richard III and that was a long, long time ago. But now it was to see Helen McCrory as Euripides' Medea. Obviously Jacobean tragedy hadn't been bloodthirsty enough for me so I needed a fix of the Greek. You will recall that back in November I saw Il Giasone by Cavalli which also features Medea and Jason, but any resemblance between that story and this one is entirely...well there isn't one.

Nor with this one

Firstly, I cannot praise McCrory enough for a powerful performance that gripped the audience, she is ably supported by Danny Sapani as Jason and you should see it if you can. And as it's being live streamed to cinemas, you can. Be warned though; it's heavy stuff, dealing with what is possibly the most unthinkable of crimes.

However, I did have some reservations. Firstly, I didn't like the translation. I don't want to imply that I am familiar with the original Greek text - for the avoidance of doubt Epictetus is merely a nom de pseud - but Ben Power's version lacked the poetry necessary to carry it off as Tragedy and relegated it to merely tragic. And secondly there was the music (by Alison Goldfrapp) and, even more, the use made of it by the director. If they were making a music video it would have worked, albeit that Michael Jackson would probably have sued for plagiarism, but in this context it didn't. Disco infanticide, I don't think so.

Friday, 1 November 2013

Dell'antro magico

And so to the opera. For once it wasn’t Opera North, but rather the English Touring Opera. The latter seem to specialise in works from the Baroque period which have small casts and, even more importantly, small orchestras. They are in Harrogate for a few days – three different operas over three nights at the Harrogate Theatre plus a concert performance of Vivaldi in a church – and I went along to the first night. The piece in question was Il Giasone by Cavalli, written and first performed in Venice in 1649.

Our hero is still recognisably the Golden Fleece man although sadly neither libretto nor staging owes anything to Ray Harryhausen. The onstage Jason here is a lover not a fighter although quite what the women see in him I’m not sure. Not only is he a two-timing cad willing to murder (or more accurately get Hercules to murder for him) if it suits his plans, but he’s also a countertenor; and we all know what that would have meant back in seventeenth century Venice.

Musically, it’s almost all recitatif, but there are some rather fine arias and ensemble pieces, the highlight for me being Medea’s aria towards the end of the first act (they were performing Ronald Eyre’s two act translation) while she carries out some witchcraft aimed at protecting her lover in his upcoming fight with the dragon. This is also the highlight of the staging with books bursting into flames and the appearance of a snake adding to the allure of the rather fetching Hannah Pedley.

I say he’s her lover because although the prologue is set at their wedding (where oddly although her father Apollo is in attendance – and looking for all the world as if he is about to enter a Charles Dickens lookalike competition - some other unidentified chap gives her away) at the end Jason leaves her and returns to his wife. Perhaps they did things differently in Ancient Greece.

The prophetic deity of the Delphic oracle

Anyway, this was my first encounter with ETO and I was very impressed. The singers and musicians were strong and the choice of opera was spot on. I’m not sure I am up to three trips in such quick succession, but I shall certainly look to catch them on their next visit.