Amph Not just fat ladies - an opera thread

For those who think that opera is just about old stuff. Yesterday I found "Covid fan tutte" - the Finnish National Opera's take on the current situation. It's such a great satire, and so relevant. They have taken (mostly) Mozart melodies and given them new lyrics in Finnish. The broadcast has English subtitles, but I'm pretty sure that it's even funnier in Finnish, and if you understand all the written things that show up in the background. It also doesn't hurt that they have world famous conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen in the pit, and one of the best dramatical sopranos in the world, Karita Mattila, who jumps in and does such funny acts that are very far from her regular dramatic repertoire. I really recommend it.

 

So, I was thinking. This thread doesn't get a lot of discussion, it's mostly about "I have watched this". In order to get a bit more of a discussion, would you be interested in doing something similar to the JC spotify playlist, but here we would pick our favorite opera pieces and vote for the ultimate JCC opera playlist?

 

So sometimes I get into arguments on what kind of opera productions are the best. The ones who are more faithful to what it would have looked like when the opera premiered, and thus in a way maybe closer to what the creator intended, or more modern and reinterpretative productions. Yesterday I turned on the TV and it just happened to show a Lohengrin production, I think from Bayreuth 2018. It was totally modern, and I really didn't understand the setting. It was some marsh landscape and the main characters all had wings on their backs. The TV presenters also didn't say anything about the production. The strangest thing was when the Duke of Brabant shows up in a costume that made him look as if he was made out of grass, or rather he was wearing a lawn suit. The musical value was outstanding even if I didn't understand the production so it was no problem to stay concentrated on it.

Still the reason why I like modern productions is that it kept me thinking, and just before going to bed I realised that since the story takes place in Brabant, and is about conflict between the old and new, this was a story of land reclamation in the Low Countries. The marsh insects (the winged characters) disappeared and instead the future is the future of the cultivated land.

This production made me want to see it again to understand more, and it kept me thinking a lot more than the production I had seen that was so traditional and just following the directions that Wagner wrote himself. Modern productions aren't always good, but I rather have something not good but thoughtworthy than just the same old scenery over and over again.