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bunj's review of Otello I'm going to repay the compliment he paid me regarding Parsifal. He says pretty much what I would've said about the performance[*], down to expressing thanks that we got Forbis rather than Botha (after the final scene, Nuphy turned to me and asked, "Can you imagine Botha getting through that?"; I cringed with my entire upper body) and that he forwent blackface, and I agree that Struckmann was the real standout in the cast. At first his voice seemed too light to represent Iago's unalloyed evil, but then he totally nailed "Credo in un Dio crudel" and my confidence in him was shored up. Nuphy also pointed out that part of the reasons for Forbis' weakness in the early acts was that he pacing himself, which paid off well in Acts 3 and 4.
He's kinder than I am in labeling the incoherent staging "a missed opportunity". Once again it's like the designer had just two half-baked ideas: Shakespeare = Globe Theatre and colonialism = Victorian Britain. Reconciling them is awkward; it wasn't until I saw the ceiling fan in Act 2 that I realised the second element was even meant to be present. The surrounding Globe set is a scenographic straightjacket that adds zilch to our appreciation of Verdi's work. Also, if you really want to comment on colonialism, Cyprus itself was a freaking British colony from late Victorian times until just over a half-century ago. That seems to push beyond "missed opportunity" into "huge blindspot".
Overall a good production and on the whole better than the last one despite the lesser voices since you didn't have Andrew "No Dramatic Sense" Davis bolloxing it all up. But not the kind to make me sit up and say, "Dayum!", so I'm fine with the fact that I led off this years summaries with Parsifal instead.
[*] His insights regarding Shakespeare and Verdi are his own. I don't disagree with them, but they probably wouldn't've ended up in a review even if they had occurred to me independently.
bunj's review of Otello I'm going to repay the compliment he paid me regarding Parsifal. He says pretty much what I would've said about the performance[*], down to expressing thanks that we got Forbis rather than Botha (after the final scene, Nuphy turned to me and asked, "Can you imagine Botha getting through that?"; I cringed with my entire upper body) and that he forwent blackface, and I agree that Struckmann was the real standout in the cast. At first his voice seemed too light to represent Iago's unalloyed evil, but then he totally nailed "Credo in un Dio crudel" and my confidence in him was shored up. Nuphy also pointed out that part of the reasons for Forbis' weakness in the early acts was that he pacing himself, which paid off well in Acts 3 and 4.He's kinder than I am in labeling the incoherent staging "a missed opportunity". Once again it's like the designer had just two half-baked ideas: Shakespeare = Globe Theatre and colonialism = Victorian Britain. Reconciling them is awkward; it wasn't until I saw the ceiling fan in Act 2 that I realised the second element was even meant to be present. The surrounding Globe set is a scenographic straightjacket that adds zilch to our appreciation of Verdi's work. Also, if you really want to comment on colonialism, Cyprus itself was a freaking British colony from late Victorian times until just over a half-century ago. That seems to push beyond "missed opportunity" into "huge blindspot".
Overall a good production and on the whole better than the last one despite the lesser voices since you didn't have Andrew "No Dramatic Sense" Davis bolloxing it all up. But not the kind to make me sit up and say, "Dayum!", so I'm fine with the fact that I led off this years summaries with Parsifal instead.
[*] His insights regarding Shakespeare and Verdi are his own. I don't disagree with them, but they probably wouldn't've ended up in a review even if they had occurred to me independently.