Bravo Cura

Celebrating José Cura--Singer, Conductor, Director, Composer

 

 

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 Still in a GRRRRR mood over the Budapest Otello. 

But this is the last week to rant about it.  Next week we'll be back with nary a thing about the production, the director, the lighting, the staging... It will become one of those mixed media memories where we will long remember José Cura's performance and basically forget everything else.  Let's hope for at least one more Otello in José's future, because he definitely has the voice and acting chops for it.  I can't imagine any opera house that would not be lucky to get such an artist.

To those who loved the production with it's phallic symbol set and Desdemona corn-rows and ropes hitting us over the head with the spider web of deceit images and squishy black detritus littering the stage (symbolizing, I suppose, the crumbling of society?  Who knows?) or folks dressed from tip to toe in black so they don't even exist as real people, sorry.   Maybe we just aren't sophisticated enough to get the concept of presenting opera as a dream so each member of the audience becomes an independent director--still don't understand.

 I think everyone loves a well put together staging that engages the intellect but it shouldn't exhaust it.   And everyone wants to be immersed in a production that provides new insights or illuminates a fresh look at a tired narrative but abrogating responsibility to the audience when a director can't find a way into the play doesn't really work.  And at the end of the evening, if you have been truly caught up in the tragedy of the innocent Desdemona and the unraveling Otello, you should feel something more than relief that the evening was finally over.

We'll be back with non-Otello stuff next week.

 


Concert:  3 December, Budapest

 


Turandot in Seoul - Conductor

Confirmed dates for José Cura on the podium

December 22, 23, 25, 26

 

 

 

 


Our Photos

A general statement of dismay: the lighting in this production was perhaps the worst we had ever experienced.  

 

The first half of the first act was almost impenetrable black; the second half of the first act was so bright as to make the singers into silhouettes.   Lighting was a little bit better (not much) in Act II, but the stage was still mostly black with some spotlights that sometimes illuminated the singers and sometimes didn't, depending on how and where they stood.  Sometimes the light was so bright that half a face was erased and the other half hidden in shadows; sometimes one of the singers was illuminated while the second (or third) standing right next to him was lost in shadow.  The second half of Act III was the best for being able to see what was going on, probably because there were so many folks involved that the director realized that it would make no sense to have the majority of the singers obscured in blackness but Act IV brought back the light box that either bathed the singers in light so bright it burned out their figures or became so dark they were puppets in shadows.  

 

In addition, the light kept changing Kelvin temperatures, so sometimes the light was blue tinged, sometimes red tinged, sometimes green tinged, sometimes orange tinged, sometimes in the same scene.  The lighting sometimes underexposed, sometimes overexposed.  From our seats, it was frustrating and fatiguing trying to make sense out of a drama when the director so obviously went out of his way to make sure we couldn't actually see the details of it or the effort the actors were making to bring their characters to life   The director's statement that layering a veneer of acting atop the music and lyrics robs the opera of its intrinsic nature seems even more bizarre when you see a demonstration of what he must mean: murky and murkier.  Why bother with staging it at all if there is no value in the scenic, just the musical.  If not providing all the key ingredients to an opera, why not just settle for a concert performance and spare the theater the expense of a stage setting at all?  

 

It didn't help that the director also decided he needed to have a mesh curtain covering the stage to further obscure vision:  apparently, he was going for a dream-like concept where nothing is clear and nothing is for sure and everything is black and white, except when it isn't: his way of presenting the story seemed to be to smudge everything and leave it to the singing actors to do the best they could under dire circumstances.

Folks sitting close the the stage undoubtedly had fewer problem seeing the action and lucky for them.  From our seats in the balcony it was a struggle to maintain interest in the opera we love so much because of the strain  of trying to experience a dramatic as well as auditory performance.    We shouldn't have to choose.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Statement of Concept

To which we say poppycock.

Here's one reason it's a false narrative.  One of the beautiful qualities of opera is that while it helps to understand the language in which the play is sung, it shouldn't be necessary because the singers and the music unite to present the emotions of the text even when it is impossible to understand the singer during a performance.

Reasons vary as to why a director should never rely on the audience to interpret the text over actually producing a play that is self-explanatory, from audience members not knowing the language the opera is sung in so they have no idea what the libretto says to non-native singers not getting the  pronunciation quite right and finally to the need of singers to sing vowels and consonant in a vocal way that often leads to some distortion that keep the words from being easily understood.  Titling systems help but they are a relatively new addition to the theater and some find them a distraction.

Insisting that the audience should know what is going on because it is clear through the text which they don't know and which is being performed by singers who may not be precise is strange, indeed, yet there on rests one of the director's primary arguments for his approach to this production.   We don't need to have singing actors interpreting the words we may not understand; the 'subconscious' should do that for.   Shadow figures and secrets known only to the director are the way to go.

Each member of the audience will of course take away thoughts and feelings about a production but it shouldn't be on the audience to interpret the intentions the director or make sense of nonsense.

Or to sort through the dross on the stage to create a secondary performance by picking up the pieces left by an incoherent director.

Or to create a dramatic superstructure to give us insight into the play when the director seems out of ideas and dumps the requirement on the viewer.

And if you want me to become the actual director, then give me access to the lighting board so some illumination can be added to a very dark situation.

 

Our Photos  -- Act I

Act I was VERY dark and was sometimes blue and sometimes yellow and sometimes white.

 

Act II

 

 

Act III

 

 

   

    

 

Act IV

(sorry)

    

 


Legacy

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@josecuralegacy/playlists


 

Confirmed!

 

Tickets are now available if you are interested...

 

https://billetterie.theatreorchestre.toulouse-metropole.fr/selection/event/date?productId=10229193870063

 

 


 


 

 

 

Available on iTunes and at Amazon

 


Resources

José Cura Facebook PR.

 

Visit at JoseCura.com

 

Find Cura on Wikipedia!

José Cura on Wikipedia.  

Want to know more about José Cura?  Check out his Wikipedia page (click on the photo and find out such neat things as.....

  • Full name:  José Luis Victor Cura Gómez
  • First starring role:  Bibalo's Signorina Julia, Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, Trieste, Italy, 1993
     
  • First performance in US:  Giordano's Fedora, Chicago Lyric, USA, 1994

 

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About Bravo Cura | Bio Information | Concerts 1 | Concerts 2 | Discography | Opera Works | Opera Work 2 | Press

 

Last Updated:  Monday, November 18, 2024  © Copyright: Kira