[Azol]

6. Favorite opera director.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. His early death was a tragedy

Ponnelle for me as well

 

[The Conte]

Richard Jones

N.

 

[Green pasture]

7. Opera that best illustrates Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong)

Il Trovatore: Leonora tried desperately to save her love Manrico by giving herself to the Conte and then sacrifice her own life by taking poison, but this ends up with the acceleration of Manrico's end (ordered by an enraged Conte).

 

[Itullian]

The Ring

Contes d'Hoffman

 

[Jorge Hereth]

Every opera will always be the one to best illustrate Murphy's Law, you just decide to put it on stage.

Spend the last two hours before a presentation in an opera theater and give a look at the setup preparations: you'll firmly believe the presentation will have to be cancelled because:
- music sheets of right that opera for the orchestra and conductor are unfindable
- music sheet holders in insufficient numbers and nobody has a clue where the remaining ones have gone
- equipment breaking right while heavy stage decoration is brought up to be assembled behind the stage
- audience seats needing a last minute nailing because the fixing job ordered a week before has never been done and stage workers just hope that will keep the respective seats together
- a stage plank will not make it until the end of the presentation and no joiner or carpenter will still be working at that time
- etc. etc. etc...

Orchestra, choir and singers having arrived it's realized:
- the tailor had received wrong measurements and his stage clothes will not fit the tenor
- in compensation the stage dress for the soprano is too long she will certainly stumble and urgent last-minute measures must be taken by the cashier girl who should be doing her own job but she's the only one who knows how to sew it a way it will hold
- the conductor has forgotten his concert trousers
- a cello bow has broken on the way to the theater
- the curtain mechanism is stuck
- etc. etc. etc...

And once the show has started nevertheless, the entire working crew gives signs of relief, but everybody knows it's not necessarily the end; risks of something going wrong continue:
- a stage worker on the catwalk spills his refreshment drink right over the mezzo-soprano
- some choir singers and musicians start showing serious signs they're pretty intimate with Mary Joan but the grass was spoiled
- a violinist starts suffering from diarrhea in the middle of the second act
- a choir girl starts menstruating at the start of the third act, right the one wearing a white dress, and she has believed it would take another day
- a trumpeter gets ill
- etc. etc. etc...

And during all stages from the beginning to the end:
- the delivery van bringing the needed things has been pulled over by police

There's so many things unpredictable, specially from the last two hours before an opera starts until the presentation being over, and which all must be solved within minutes, and most of them occur after stores and workshops which could serve for a logical solution have already closed...

And solutions have to be given quickly and discreetly, the audience may not even dream of what's going on...

 

[DavidA]

We all know the story of the stroppy soprano singing Tosca who the stage hands sabotaged by putting a trampoline under her when she leapt from the balcony so she reappeared several times. In another production some inexperienced stage hands were drafted in for the last act as soldiers coming to arrest Tosca. All they were told was 'run after her'. So they ran after Tosca as she sang "Scarpia, before God" and jumped. The audience were then surprised to see four soldiers jumping after her! :lol:

 

[Diminuendo]

7. Opera that best illustrates Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong)

Il Trovatore: Leonora tried desperately to save her love Manrico by giving herself to the Conte and then sacrifice her own life by taking poison, but this ends up with the acceleration of Manrico's end (ordered by an enraged Conte).

And throwing the wrong baby to the fire. Azucena getting caught and Manrico's failed rescue attempt. Count killing his own brother. What more is there to go wrong?

 

[DavidA]

There was a production of Gotterdamerung where the two stagehands who had to carry Siegfried off after his murder had not time for a rehearsal. Anyway after the murder they come in and hoist the hero on their shoulders and carry him off. Sadly they were facing in different directions as they walked off, much to the amusement of the audience! :lol:

 

[Jorge Hereth]

I didn't know that story, but deducing from what you're telling for the trampoline, I'm pretty sure there was no sabotage but the original device to keep the soprano unharmed had gone missing and the trampoline was the only replacement that could be found; one of those last-minute solutions, and I bet someone responsible -if present while the decision was mad - or the stage workers themselves had underestimated the effect a trampoline could make.

Now for the stage hands at Tosca's jump, the experienced ones usually know the operas they are or have been working at. But the unexperienced ones, too often it's the case that if they are not explained every on-stage step of theirs before, such things are pretty likely to happen, and too often scene directors forget about that one or just don't have the time to tell them what to do exactly...

 

[DavidA]

I didn't know that story, but deducing from what you're telling for the trampoline, I'm pretty sure there was no sabotage but the original device to keep the soprano unharmed had gone missing and the trampoline was the only replacement that could be found; one of those last-minute solutions, and I bet someone responsible -if present while the decision was mad - or the stage workers themselves had underestimated the effect a trampoline could make.

Now for the stage hands at Tosca's jump, the experienced ones usually know the operas they are or have been working at. But the unexperienced ones, too often it's the case that if they are not explained every on-stage step of theirs before, such things are pretty likely to happen, and too often scene directors forget about that one or just don't have the time to tell them what to do exactly...

The story goes that the soprano had been so obnoxious the stage hands sabotaged her with the trampoline so she reappeared several times after her jump.

 

[The Conte]

Don Giovanni (from the Don's perspective AND assuming that the opening scene contains an attempted rape).

N.

 

[nina foresti]

Worst of all, Gelb's dream of that costly "Machine Contraption" in Das Rheingold

 

[howlingfantods]

Forza. Just a ridiculous sequence of coincidences and rotten luck that leads to everyone's death, starting with Alvaro killing Leonora's dad by accident.

 

[Balthazar]

7. Il Trovatore is my pick. Macbeth would be second with some help from Shakespeare. There aren't too many operas where things go smoothly.

 

[nina foresti]

8. Alagna/Garanca (Carmen)
also ran: Netrebko/Villazon (Romeo et Juliette)

 

[Jorge Hereth]

...

There aren't too many operas where things go smoothly.

You bet on that one...

 

[DavidA]

8. Best seduction scene is probably when Carmen gets Jose to free her then later ensnares him.

 

[The Conte]

Tristan and Isolde's exchanges in act one of Tristan. Potion Schmotion, methinks those two doth protest to much.

Why is this a seduction scene? Psychologists will tell you that playing hard to get can be the best way to attract someone.

N.

 

[Braddan]

Carmen would probably get my vote too.
Does said seduction need to be successful?
Don Giovanni is one long seduction scene and there are the almost equally questionable attempts by the disguised protagonists of Cosi. Mmm...Mozart...do I see a pattern?

 

[Balthazar]

8. The Saint-Sulpice scene where Massenet's Manon seduces the Chevalier-turned-priest.

"N'est-ce plus ma main, que cette main presse? N'est-ce plus ma voix?"

I know it wasn't there during the time of Louis XIV when the opera is set, but Massenet (along with his audience) was presumably familiar with Delacroix's mural of Jacob Wrestling with the Angel installed in one of the chapels at Saint-Sulpice. No doubt the temporal purists will scoff, but I find it a serendipitously fitting metaphor for Des Grieux's embattled conscience and like to imagine him gazing at it while singing "Ah, fuyez, douce image!"