Oh yes. Very much B-B-C grades to the BBC tonight. WHOSE BRIGHT IDEA WAS IT TO GIVE INSTRUMENTAL PIECES AT THE PROMS A RUNNING SUBTITLE COMMENTARY????? Whoever it is, I want them hung, drawn and quartered.
I switched on the First Night in some excitement this evening, looking forward to seeing the lovely Janine Jansen playing my favourite violin concerto - Mendelssohn - despite Sir Roger's attempts to get the BBC Symphony Orchestra to play without vibrato (oh boy, they're going to love that...). And what do we see? A purple strap along the bottom third of the picture, carrying little titbits of info and commentary on the music a la Wimbledon. Why? Is this called accessibility? It's not even accessible - what newcomer on earth is going to be turned on to music by the information that the violin is playing a virtuoso figuration over a lyrical counter-melody? Oh help. Help. Help. No. No. No. No.
The presenter was Alan Titchmarsh, of 'Gardener's World' - did someone get him mixed up with John Eliot Gardiner?!? And while the Wimbledon touch of showing a shot of Janine's partner in the audience is cute - Julian Rachlin, no less - why did we later have to see Rolf Harris? At least Alan didn't bother telling us who Nick Kenyon was when he was pictured. In fact I prefer Alan Titchmarsh as presenter to Charles Hazlewood, but maybe I'm getting older.
There is one very practical solution. Switch off the TV. Switch on the radio instead. Wonderful...
Better still, I guess, go to the concert. But, as Cole Porter said, it's too darn hot.
Friday, July 15, 2005
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26 comments:
I too watched this performance tonight! I was so disgusted by the subtitles that I decided a night out in Oxford was far superior to some appalling, and not even just the subtitles, performance of the concerto.
Once upon a time the Proms were looked upon as a highly valued, absolute quality musical event. Now, as with everything, it comes across as an orchestra struggling with rehearsal times and abusing the names of famous performers. People don't seem to realise that even (god help me for saying this!) if you've got Krystian Zimerman, the piece will not be of any value unless there is MORE than ample time for rehearsal. Modern day economics make this impossible, and the results are cataclysmic... in the aviation world we always look out for economics vs. safety -- the pressure seems to be just as great, and musicians must look out for economics vs. quality.
Though I didn't see the Proms broadcast, I'm guessing my reaction to the subtitles would have been similar to yours, i.e., who in God's name would want to read that? So I wonder if you would be interested, like I was, in this post from Two Ears, written by a fellow named Neil who is just getting into classical music, i.e., exactly the sort of person who was probably being targeted...
I remember that a few years ago KZ cancelled a London concerto because there wasn't enough rehearsal time.
Very interesting to see Neil at Two Ears responding favourably to the subtitles. Maybe I'm barking up totally the wrong tree. Still, I can't help it, I HATE them.
Haha. I admit it, I'm part of the no-marks audience they were trying to appeal to! I can see why the subtitles will annoy a lot of people but yeah, I quite liked them and I thought they were appropriate for a Friday night BBC1 audience. Using them on all the TV coverage might be a different story.
Hearty thanks to ACD of Sounds and Fury for tempting readers onto this post with one expressive word: "Grrr!" Couldn't have put it better myself.
After reading Two Ears comments about Naxos, it is clear that he is absolutely an irredeemable heathen. He should just quit trying and put his energies into something more easily grasped. What that would be though, mystifies me.
No! No! Don't stop trying! You gotta start somewhere. If everyone stopped trying, music really would die. Hang in there, Neil.
grrrr indeed. why so much hostility towards something that will obviously help bring new audiences to a dying art form?
1. Art form not dying, just said to be by those who have own agendas.
2. Not convinced this WILL bring new audiences.
3. Risks alienating existing audiences.
Enough? I could go on...
this is the same horrified reaction
that greeted subtitles in the opera. and we are not even dealing with an art form where the images matter as much. the percentage of the population, much less the concert-going public that consists of trained musicians is very small.
but i just love how you tell neil to keep on trying, while at the same time insinuating that any effort other than mere words to reach out to him (and me) is beneath your contempt.
Not beneath contempt. Quite happy if other people like it, I just think it's not going to work. If it does, fine. I love surtitles at the opera - remember once seeing Janacek's 'From the House of the Dead' in Czech with German subtitles and not having the slightest clue what was going on from beginning to end, which wasn't great despite fantastic music & singing!
ok. thats a fair response. all's well in the world again.
Why not say it to my face, 'JMW'? My comments on Naxos basically amounted to this: I know little about them but their cheap appearance puts me off a bit. If that makes me an irredeemable heathen then on the strength of your comments, you're just an arse.
NOW NOW, BOYS. PLEASE, BREAK IT UP. WE'LL HAVE NONE OF THAT HERE. Having just managed to calm "intimidee" down, I'd prefer it if you'd slag each other off somewhere other than on my blog!!!
Whew! I go out of town for the weekend and fistfights break out on Jessica's blog. Too exciting for me!
Can I divert you all from the fight to ask for a definition and description, maybe a little history, of this this called Proms? (I'm an American, but am classical music savvy.)
And do any of you have an opinion of Marin Alsop?
(I need your opinions fast and furious, folks - this is very important! Rumor here has it that she may become the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's next conductor, as apparently Yuri Temirkanov is not returning after his back injury ...)
Sorry for lowering the tone Jessica. He started it though :)
Marin Alsop is generally regarded here as A Very Good Thing Indeed. She's won several big awards and everybody, and I mean everybody, was happy about it. She's currently recording Brahms with Tom's orchestra, the LPO. It is REALLY difficult for women conductors to be accepted here, but Alsop has achieved a level of respect that I think is probably unprecedented.
Thanks for your comments on Marin Alsop, Jessica. It seems that she is universally respected and deservedly so.
Unfortunately, there has been alot of disagreement amongst BSO (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) players about the relative brevity of the conductor search process and things are not going smoothly. Here's a link from the Baltimore Sun, this morning:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/music/bal-to.bso19jul19,1,3725503.story?coll=bal-artslife-music&ctrack=1&cset=true
And it's true the BSO is in debt and that Temirkanov fired our beloved Baltimore Symphony Chorus.
How will it turn out, I wonder?
We got her!
Great! I think that's excellent news. I hope your players will agree. Since I'm married to an orchestral musician, I have some idea of the kind of acrimony that surrounds conductors on a daily basis & I guess there's something wrong if everybody in the band likes the same person. It usually means nothing more than that their rehearsals finish early.
May I quote you on my blog re Marin Alsop?
Unless we've each truly memorized the entire libretto of each and every opera now being performed, and are truly fluent in each of those languages, I think we might want to take another look at subtitles, with a kindly eye.
Basically, I like supertitles (that's what we have here in Baltimore), and at the same time I hate them.
They do make the opera more accessible, as I witnessed taking my 7th grader (13 year old) to a recent performance of Marriage of Figaro here. It was much longer than their video-game attention spans are used to, but they'd studied it in school, so they sat respectfully and did laugh at the funny parts.
That having been said, the TRANSLATIONS really get me aggravated. How did we get "I'll cook his goose" as a translation in the aria Se Vuol Ballare? There's no goose in that aria! Honestly, I can do and have done translations in several languages that are honest, and even scan so as to be singable!
Who's doing these atrocious translations???
Andrea - yes, fine, please quote away! And I'm with you on the translations thing. Someday will write something about what the Victorians did to Baudelaire......
I decided it must have been a NEW production, at least it seemed so from the fact that the costumes in the program photos were identical, just with different singers from like Texas or something.
Now, the costumes themselves were rather interesting, in an okay but really annoying way. Like Act I scene 1 she wears the bodice with the first skirt, and an apron; Act I, Sc. 2 - bodice, first skirt, no apron; Act II, Sc. 1 same bodice, different skirt, etc. etc. etc. And the Count and our Figaro were so very physically similar (in a good way, ladies!) that their nearly identical outfits had even those of us who know the plot confused!
Meanwhile, all of it looked like a nightmarish set of Garanamals (that's a US brand of children’s infinitely-mixable-and-matchable clothing from our 70's childhoods) cut out of the curtains by Maria Von Trapp in the movie Sound of Music ...
arrrrrrgh. The singing was truly beyond fine, quite beautiful, actually, and the orchestra was really in tip top shape, esp for what would probably be considered the upper levels of regional opera theater.
I just had to fight the urge to laugh at the costumes and strangle the translator… But I kept it to myself for the sake of the young people who were seeing it (and maybe opera) for the first time.
Do these productions come as a package, do you think? Is the Director just stuck with the translations (and the costumes) especially if the supertitles are pre-set, pre-printed?
What did the Victorians do to Baudelaire?
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