Believing in Opera (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Sutcliffe, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691015635 ISBN 13: 9780691015637

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1997

Synopsis

The staging of opera has become immensely controversial over the last twenty years. Tom Sutcliffe here offers an engaging and far-reaching book about opera performance and interpretation. This work is a unique tribute to the most distinctive and adventurous achievements in the theatrical interpretation of opera as it has developed in recent decades. Readers will find descriptions of the most original and successful avant-garde opera productions in Britain, Europe, and America. Sutcliffe beautifully illustrates how updating, transposition, or relocation, and a variety of unexpected imagery in opera, have qualified and adjusted our perception of the content and intention of established masterpieces.

Believing in Opera describes in detail the seminal opera productions of the last fifty years, starting with Peter Brook in London after the war, and continuing with the work of such directors and producers as Patrice Chéreau in Bayreuth, Peter Sellars and David Alden in America, Ruth Berghaus in Frankfurt, and such British directors as Richard Jones, Graham Vick, Peter Hall, and David Pountney. Through his descriptions of these works, Sutcliffe states that theatrical opera has been enormously influenced by the editing style, imagery, and metaphor commonplace in the cinema and pop videos. The evolution of the performing arts depends upon revitalization and defamiliarization, he asserts. The issue is no longer naturalism, but the liberation of the audience's imagination powered by the music.

Sutcliffe, an opera critic for many years, argues that opera is theater plus music of the highest expressive quality, and as a result he has often sided with unconventional and novel theatrical interpretations. He believes that there is more to opera than meets the ear, and his aim is to further the process of understanding and interpretation of these important opera productions. No other book has attempted this kind of monumental survey.

Originally published in 1997.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

About this title

Review

The tension between opera's conservatives and innovators has gone on for years: the defenders of an established canon take issue with those who want fresh perspectives. Directors grow increasingly daring, and they often stir controversy with extreme interpretations. Tom Sutcliffe, a British opera journalist, stands firmly with the innovators. He sees opera's future health in its ability to reimagine its classics. His descriptions of the work of provocative directors in the past two decades make a persuasive case, even when some of the productions sound like misfires.

Sutcliffe locates the true effect of a performance inside the mind of the spectator. For him, "believing" in a performance--the ability to become engaged and stirred by it--is the crucial sign of its worth. It is a measure that allows the greatest latitude in interpretation. He examines the work of some aggressively imaginative directors: Patrice Chéreau's violent Ring cycle at Bayreuth, whose stabbings had audience members screaming "Enough!"; Peter Sellars's Americanized Mozart (Le Nozze di Figaro set in a New York penthouse and Don Giovanni among drug addicts in the South Bronx); Richard Jones's garish Die Fledermaus, which sought to shove bad taste down the audience's throat with sets full of dancing champagne glasses and chocolate boxes. Robert Wilson, more influential than any of these, gets strangely little mention.

Live performances are difficult to write about for those who haven't seen them. Sutcliffe fails to solve the problem with excessively minute descriptions of staging, which tend to obscure his larger points. His uninflected prose style, perhaps designed for reportorial accuracy, doesn't help. Nevertheless, his study will stimulate those who see opera as a limitless source of theatrical riches. --David Olivenbaum

From the Inside Flap

"Any study of this field must proceed from both knowledge and insight. Tom Sutcliffe possesses both. We come away from this book with a much clearer understanding not only of the directors themselves but, more importantly, of the ethos of this attempt to venture beyond the literalism of opera stagings. In an environment where productions of opera will increasingly depart, often radically, from the 'norm'--as I believe will occur in the next decade--it is imperative to be able to understand the bases for these rethinkings. This book is of major importance to the field of opera today."--Patrick Smith, editor-in-chief of Opera News, and author of The Tenth Muse

"Tom Sutcliffe's new book Believing in Opera is an important explanation of how opera theatrically ticks and why it should. It is hugely entertaining for fans, professionals, and all those interested in the way opera production has developed since the War. Whether you love opera as theatre or would rather have concerts in costume, this book is for you and it clearly explains what directors actually do and why."--Peter Jonas, Intendant of the Bavarian State Opera

"Believing in Opera, as the title implies, is an affirmation of faith in an art form which some authorities have pronounced to be dead or dying; faith in the music, faith in the artists who perform it, and faith in the process of interpretation which brings the operatic repertoire on to the stage and makes it emotionally and intellectually alive for the audience. Tom Sutcliffe draws on thirty years of regular experience of European opera to illustrate his passionate belief that the theatrical vitality and imagination brought to the opera house by talented and adventurous producers and designers are indispensable elements in the appreciation of opera at the end of the twentieth century. This book is a vigorous defense of opera stagings which challenge and enrich our understanding of the masterpieces of the repertoire. Tom Sutcliffe defines the crucial role of live theatre in our modern society."--Hugues Gall, Director of the Paris Opera

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0691015635
• ISBN 13: 9780691015637
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 480