Opera Productions Opera Through the Lens Old and New With the Met Live-in-HD programs, we have got used to seeing opera on the large screen. The advantages are obvious: we can switch between wide views and close-ups, we can watch from angles we would not get from a single seat, we can meet the artists. Yet these remain performances on a stage. For the past fifty years at least, we have seen a steady stream of filmed operas that leave the theater behind. Here follows a very partial survey.

A. Beginning with Boris

We start with two clips of the Coronation scene from Mussorgsky’s . One, albeit in low definition, is filmed in the familiar mode, with cameras in the audience. The second, filmed by Andrzej Zulawski , allows the camera to interpenetrate the action. — Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov, Coronation Scene 1½ Mikhail Kazakov (Boris); Bolshoi, 1979 — Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov, Coronation Scene 2 Ruggero Raimondi (Boris); film 1989 B. Various Views of Mozart

Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film of The Magic Flute, ostensibly filmed in the court theater in Drottningholm, remains one of the most successful of filmed operas. While showing how a production of Mozart’s time might have looked, he also expanded in two directions: by featuring the universal experience of the audience, while taking the camera into areas they would never see. Contrast this with Kenneth Branagh’s 2006 film, which takes us right out of the theater to the trenches of 1914–18. But even in such a context and so realistic a medium, his approach is wildly imaginative, even surreal. — Mozart: The Magic Flute, opening scene (Bergman) 6 Josef Köstlinger (Tamino), Håkan Hagegård (Papageno) We also look at two more approaches to the Flute. A 2012 production 12. Opera Through the Lens from by the artist William Kentridge, presented very much in Live-in-HD style—but the stage production would be inconceivable me as an opera for film that was in fact premiered on the stage. For it without the example of film and video. Conversely, Kenneth Branagh’s contains numerous short scenes that must flow in and out of one 2006 film takes us right out of the theater to the trenches of 1914–18. another, all within the containing envelope of Venice itself. By making But even in such a context and so realistic a medium, his approach is his 1981 film in Venice, director Tony Palmer does not so much specify wildly imaginative, even surreal. an external location as reflect interior moods. We shall compare it to a — Mozart: The Magic Flute, from Act I finale (Kentridge) 3 2013 stage production byDeborah Warner. Genia Kühmeier (Pamina), Alex Esposito (Papageno) — Britten: Owen Wingrave, portrait scene (original TV) 1½ — Mozart: The Magic Flute, opening scene (Branagh) 6 Benjamin Luxon; c. ; d, Colin Graham Joseph Kaiser (Tamino) — Britten: , gondola scene (Palmer) 1½ ’s 1979 film of was one of the best of a , John Shirley-Quirk spate of opera movies in the final quarter of the century that sought — Britten: Death in Venice, graveyard scene (Warner) 4½ out suitably lavish locations to enhance the grand opera experience. John Graham-Hall, Andrew Shore () Losey sets the piece in Vicenza and nearby Venice, where the characters inhabit the architecture of Andrea Palladio. But Losey’s — Britten: Death in Venice, graveyard scene (Palmer) 4½ version begins and ends in the glassworks of nearby Murano…. Robert Gard, John Shirley-Quirk — Mozart: Don Giovanni, opening scene (Losey) 6 D. A Puccini Postlude Ruggero Raimondi (Giovanni), José van Dam (Leporello), Edda Moser (Anna), John MacCurdy (Commendatore) Finally, three clips of Puccini that take us from the ultra-faithful, — Mozart: Don Giovanni, from Act II finale (Losey) 8 through the frankly experimental, to a wild take on a familiar aria that Cast as above owes more to MTV videos than traditional opera. The directors are The 2010 film by Kasper Bech Holten, simply called Juan, is an Giuseppe Patroni Griffi for the 1992 film of in Rome, Christophe updating and reinterpretation. Juan is now a fashionable artist who Honoré for the 2018 production of the opera in Aix-en-Provence, and makes his women the subject of his work. But after he accidentally kills for his contribution to the 1987 anthology film ARIA. the Commissioner of Police, he becomes a wanted man, pursued both — Puccini: Tosca, Act I finale (Griffi) 7 by the cops and his conscience. (Tosca), Ruggero Raimondi (Scarpia) — Mozart/Holten: Juan, ending sequence 6 — Puccini: Tosca, scene from Act II (Honoré) 4 Christopher Maltman (Juan), Mikhail Petrenko (Leporello), Angel Blue (Tosca), Alexey Markov (Scarpia). Catherine Eric Halfvarson (Commissioner) Malfitano (Diva) — Puccini: , “Nessun dorma” (Russell) 7 C. Written for the Screen Sung by Jussi Björling

Giancarlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) and Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave (1971) are landmark operas written for television. While the Menotti found success in stage performances, the Britten is rarely seen in either medium. But the experience surely Many thanks to all for supporting such a wonderful semester! shaped his last opera, Death in Venice (1973), which has always struck http://www.brunyate.com/opprodcolumbia/