What a blast that piece of music is - a 50 minute, single movement musical rendering of a hike through the Alps, with an afternoon thunderstorm and all. The normal Youth Orchestra (playing at QPAC) was boosted by extra brass, the huge organ in the concert hall (which I had never heard played before), not one but two harps, and extra percussion stuff (cowbells, sheet of metal, rolling barrel thing for making wind sound) all crammed in onto a completely packed stage. Not only that - at the end, a bunch of extra brass players came on stage to take a bow - I didn't know where they had been, but my daughter explained later that they had played off stage to create a certain effect (!). It was, quite likely, the biggest assembled orchestra I have seen, in fact.
So, there was certainly no lack of volume: it blasts away at times with something approaching rock band volume, which made for quite a different experience from the normally restrained volumes of most classical pieces at that venue.
Interestingly, though, I read in the program that the piece when first performed was not overly enthusiastically received, with some saying it was too "cinematic". I get the impression that the less-than-completely-enthusiastic reception to certain works of famous composers is not an uncommon thing in classical music history - I assume Tim knows about that more reliably than me. Anyway, more explanation about the symphony is set out in this neat piece at The Conversation, if anyone is interested.
So, after feeling entertained by this Germanic power classic, I was reminded that Wagner's Ring Cycle is coming to Brisbane next year, and I have found out that C reserve seats up in the balcony stratosphere are $380 for the entire cycle.
Now, I have never been to an opera in my life, and it would be kind of ridiculous to start my experience of them with (as the QPAC website explains) a 15 hour epic performed over 4 nights. But hey, it's the very ridiculousness of the idea that is perversely tempting me to do it. And when you divide the cost into the hourly rate, it's quite the opera bargain! (At least for the cheap seats - the premium ones are $2,200. I trust that a glass of champagne before and during intervals might be included in that.)
I heard someone from (I think) Opera Australia spruiking it when it was announced, and he was saying that it sounds like a heavy experience, but it really isn't - he claimed that he has had so many people say to him at the end that they could happily go back and watch it all over again. He called it a "life changing experience", which seems a bit of an opening to making a Hitler-ian joke about it making people want to invade neighbouring countries, but I am sure that is not what he meant.
Anyway, I have my doubts I will do it, but I am (at least a bit) tempted.
Update: I should have guessed - there are lots of amusing takes on the net about what it is like to go through the Cycle. I think ClassicFM's The 18 Stages of watching Wagner's Ring Cycle is pretty funny. More encouraging, and still witty, is How Crazy Do You Have to Be to Sit Through 15 Hours of Opera. On a more serious note, but still with the occasional funny line:
The director Achim Freyer once informed me that sleeping during Wagner simply means listening on a different level.is this piece at the Washington Post.
5 comments:
Richard Strauss makes me a sauerkraut
Italian opera is more fun. Even *other* German operas are much more fun than Wagner (Mozart can be a hoot!)
One can understand easily how modernist and post-modernist compositions get a poor reception - "sigh, another composer, another revolution in thought and sound, another attack on my ears" - but yes, it happened in pre-modernist times also. For that, I think, other factors must be considered. Sometimes the audience might just have been accustomed to trivialities. Sometimes, they might have been completely ignoring the music - opera houses could get pretty baudy and debauched. And sometimes, they just felt like creating a riot - Wagner's Tannhauser apparently incited riots among Parisian audiences because it opened with a ballet/dance scene (they felt strongly it had to come later in the opera, as per tradition!) Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was greeted with one of the most famous riots in all of musical history; there is a suggestion that his artistic partner - ballet director Diaghilev - deliberately encouraged the riot to make a scene.
If a certain passage in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones is to be believed, sometimes audiences would start a riot - just because!
Quite a lot of people do get into this whole Ring cycle thing, though: which is a little odd for opera that isn't much fun. I think the premium tickets ($2,200) have nearly sold out for all three "cycles"!
I wonder if they sell T shirts along the lines "I survived the Ring cycle 2020"?
I've never sat through a single Ring Cycle opera - even at home. I've heard a few other works of Wagner. Look, it'd be an interesting experience. I may yet try it. He can be a glorious composer. But I'd bear in mind the warning of - was it Debussy? "Wagner has glorious moments and terrible half hours."
Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) are often mentioned in the context of the Second World War, with some justification. You could view them as an elegy for an entire culture. Grab a hanky when listening to this, Steve! (The translation is in the comments).
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