Operas with Makeovers

There was a lot of discussion in class this week about modernizing operatic works and, since it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, I thought I would add my two cents.

A few people mentioned in class that they fell in love with opera because they saw very traditional, beautiful versions of an opera. For me, it was the opposite. For me, it wasn't until I saw the 2005 Salzburg Festspiel version of La Traviata that I became hooked on opera, specifically the possibilities inherent in updating opera. For anyone who doesn't know the production, it is a modernized version starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon as the starstruck couple, and it was successful in using a wide open, minimalist set, a giant clock, and the use of specific color choices to highlight the main themes of the work (For a taste, try this clip...). Granted, I would argue that unlike many of the other Salzburg Festival productions, this adaptation was very tasteful in the way that it updated the work. Clearly, there is a line that can be crossed between an effective modernization and an adaptation of a work that hinges on the simple shock value.

I'm sure we can all think of productions that fall into the latter category. For me, a good example would be the production that the Salzburg Festival did in 2007 of Zaide/Adama (What can I say? That festival is known for pushing the envelope a bit...) which combined Mozart's unfinished opera Zaide, about the love of a harem slave girl for a Christian exile (it was a sketch for what would eventually become The Abduction from the Seraglio), with a new work by Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin about the impossible love between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. Personally, I think the concept was brilliant: bring modern political ideas to Mozart's work and allow them to influence our reaction to it. However, the execution was gratuitously violent and in this production the staging overwhelmed the music entirely. I felt that the composer's voices didn't have a chance; they were obliterated by the sensationalist staging of the work.

This problem of honoring the composer's ideas came up in class when we were discussing the ways in which the 2005 "Live on Broadway" version of Candide altered the original work so as to cut out much of the original import and cynicism. This line between honoring the composer's and librettist's original intentions and updating a work in order to attract a new audience is tricky.

Another recent example of an updated production that didn't fare so well, was this year's Tosca at the Metropolitan opera house. I won't go into it too much. I'll just say that the production attempted to turn Tosca into a comedy in many ways, ways that disregarded the intent of the original work, complete with a Spoletta who tripped every time he came onstage, gratuitous vulgarity, and a Tosca who never actually jumped. At the performance I saw, people behind me laughed when Tosca stabbed Scarpia...[For a venomous review of the production, try this one.]

Not all adaptations are bad though. Many of them succeed in bringing to light some part of a work that was previously hidden, or making a connection between the opera and the audience's collective experiences (For Example, the 2006 Parisian version of Candide). So, yes... it is easy to adapt something badly. One has to be careful; one has to find the balance. But I would argue that modernizing or adapting operas is an effective way to reintroduce them to a public that has not grown up with an affinity for opera in the same way an older generation may have. I would also argue that in our modern (or postmodern, Olivia?) world it seems that all press is good press. Tosca created controversy, but that meant that people were discussing it long after it closed. Couldn't that be a slightly different measure of success? Art should communicate something; it should inspire feelings, even if those feelings are negative.