Royal Opera
7th June
The others didn’t want to see this because it was violent and because it was by Harrison Birtwistle. I don’t think that’s a very good reason for not seeing stuff but both those things are definitely true. It is Birtwistle and it sounds like Birtwistle and it was quite violent really if you think about it, lots of people got killed.
The music wasn’t very good. There’s lots of good modern operas around but this music was just confusing and there was never much of a tune, no real feeling of the music creating the atmosphere or that it changed in different parts of the story. Maybe if I made more effort with Birtwistle I’d get the music but there’s nothing that makes me feel I’m like missing out by not understanding the music better. The first time I listened to Dr Atomic I was like what the f*** but there were moments in the music where I was thinking like this is quite cool, I can tell why the music went like that just then and it made me think right let’s listen to this again some time. But The Minotaur I’ve actually listened to twice really because I heard it on the radio before it was on TV and I’m still not getting it. Antonio Pappano was the conductor and he totally knows what he’s doing so it probably couldn’t be done better than how he did it.
I reckon one of the reasons I’m not getting it is actually one of the reasons I liked the TV version so much. Everything that happens on the stage is just like so big and dramatic you kind of forget the music there because you’re just looking at everything on the stage. The music and the story should be pretty much equal in an opera really, well some people think it’s all about the music but I reckon if you think that you’re missing out on some really cool story and character stuff. Okay yeah not all the plots make total sense all the same but most of them have got some good stuff in it as well. Like Cosi fan tutte, obviously that wouldn’t work in real life but I was chatting to one of my mates and we were like if we got our girlfriends drunk and then kind of swapped places would they notice then? Not sure I want to know the answer to that though!
The ROH did get a really good cast though, there probably weren’t people who would have done a better job of the music than the people they got. But they weren’t just good singers, they were also good actors and their acting ended up being more important than their singing because that’s the bit that was making you think actually this is quite cool isn’t it?
Christine Rice was Ariadne, she has this well sexy husky mezzo and a very strong stage presence that just makes you look at her and I’m not just saying that because I fancy her, my gay mate watched it too and he said he was looking at her a lot too except when Theseus was on the stage. Ariadne was really miserable for most of the opera but she wasn’t weak or anything, she was quite dominating.
John Tomlinson was the Minotaur, he can do like anything with his voice, singing or roaring. It was really weird watching him, sometimes he was just like this big animal but other times you could see his face looking through the mask really clearly, it was well clever. I don’t know if the lighting people set it up especially so they chose the times when you saw him as a monster and the times when you saw him as a human inside a monster body but it was good.
Amanda Echalaz was the best though, she was the Ker which was like this big vulture thing and after the Minotaur had killed people and they were all pouring blood she came in and she was like a vulture and she was screeching and then she started eating bits of people’s organs or something that had fallen out of their body and she got blood all over her face, it was so cool and seriously respect to her for being happy with doing that. My brother kept coming in the room and saying he was going to tell mum me and Sophie were having sex on the table which we so weren’t, seriously he’s so pathetic but after he saw Amanda he pissed off and we never saw him again, funny that.
The Innocents were really good too, those are all the people Amanda ate. I didn’t recognise all of them but Rebecca Bottone was the first one to get murdered and then I noticed Wendy Dawn Thompson and Pumeza Matshikiza who’s a Young Artist when the Minotaur was bumping off the rest of them. Andrew Watts was the Snake Priestess, he was cool and Philip Langridge was the bloke who translated what she was saying. Johann Reuter was Theseus, he’s a good singer and everything but he can’t act as well as all the others could, he wasn’t bad but everyone else was totally brilliant.
The sets were quite dark and there was nothing about them that made them stand out but everything did look quite real, sometimes I forgot it was done on a stage and not on location. Stephen Langridge was the director, he’s Philip Langridge and Ann Murray’s son and he used to go out with Janice Watson but I reckon he must have got the job because he’s a good director because he really knows what he’s doing. Even though he was working with singers who could really act he really inspired them like to a new level. He’s probably got a very warped mind but he’s got some really great ideas about what creates a good visual effect so he must be pretty cool.
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