Protected: L’Amour de Loin: part 1
July 1, 2009
ABORTION, GUN CONTROL AND…….OPERA
March 3, 2009
ENO's Doctor Atomic, the focus of intense debate
John Adams is absolutely right in his views on contemporary opera. During an interview with BBC Newsnight, broadcast on Friday 27 February, he said ‘alongside abortion and gun control there is no better way to get people shouting at each other’. The composer of Doctor Atomic, which opened for the first time in the UK at ENO on Wednesday 25 February, would have smiled if he’d seen the final few minutes of BBC Newsnight Review when a heated discussion between the three critics – Jeannette Winterson, Paul Morley and Tom Service – and dissolved into a cacophony of shouting and raised voices about his new opera. In comparison, the previous discussion of the newly opened Picasso exhibition was positively tame.
It was the second heated discussion around Doctor Atomic last week. On Wednesday 26 February an RSA and ENO debate explored ‘What really drives Scientific Development?’ and pondered the human dimension, ethic and moral considerations as well as political and economic drivers. John Adams and the director of Doctor Atomic Penny Woolcock joined a panel including eminent science writers Lewis Wolpert, Jim Baggot and Alom Shaha – it was certainly lively.
I seem to remember equally robust discussions in the media about ENO’s production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (with Improbable Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera, New York) and Olga Neuwirth ’ s Lost Highway, which we staged at the Young Vic theatre last year.
Opera, and most potently, contemporary opera, is not for the fainthearted. It often sets off its own explosion of opinion (it is not unusual for some to give composers a masterclass in composition). Yet opera can make people think more about the world in which we live and has a unique ability to provoke the kind of discussion which Doctor Atomic has done over the last few months – bringing one of the most controversial events of the 20th century into focus again.
I hope this is not the last opera from John Adams and we look forward to more productions from Penny Woolcock in the future.
John Berry
Artistic Director, ENO
Charlotte van Berckel from ENO’s Technical Director’s Office shares her experiences and her photographs from behind the scenes at the La bohème dress rehearsal
Its not the norm to have the crew in costume. Normally, they don’t need to be. They change the set around behind the big curtain during an interval or interlude and so wear all black. The efficiency of this change takes time and practice to perfect, and it has to be perfect otherwise there would be a grumpy show – noise, delays, broken sets…. However, the luxury of the big curtain assists in hiding possible hiccups and the black attire hides them.
The set for La bohème is made up of two trucks – in this case two houses of sorts – that stay on stage throughout the show. The majority of the scene changes take place in front of the audience and without the aid of the big curtain. So, the crew must wear costume to make these changes look as subtle and unobtrusive and as natural as possible. For La bohème they are as seamless and beautiful as I have ever seen. As the two lovers descend from the artist’s loft and head in to the daylight the stage quickly fills up with people and the sets swiftly move, spinning in a carefully coordinated sequence of moves. As they turn, the light changes and falls and different colours and shapes appear. Activity must be the tool to blind us to the technique because before you know it the trucks are in place and the scene is set and happening. The boundaries of each time frame have been blurred and the crew have disappeared back off in to the wings.
See all of Charlotte’s photos on Flickr
The Show Goes On
February 10, 2009
THE SHOW GOES ON
Perhaps it was inevitable that, in the middle of one of the harshest winters on record, both temperature-wise and economically, the opening night of our new production of La bohème, directed by Jonathan Miller and set in the 1930s depression (with its own splattering of snow), should be temporarily postponed due to bad weather.
Snow being dropped from the Flys during Act III
But the Company’s spirit remained intact, the first night transferred to Wednesday 4 February (after hundreds of phonecalls!) and with it the first multi-channel broadcast of its kind.
We assembled a marvellous production team with SKY ARTS (www.skyarts.co.uk/opera) and DCD Media to produce two live broadcasts from in front and behind the stage, both going out live from the Coliseum. It was a risky project given the broadcast production team had complete access to our production, creative team and singers. With cameras present throughout the rehearsal period, it was always going to be a challenge but we never doubted it would be a success. In the event, the broadcast team became part of the production team and the Company as a whole were the stars of the show, with the broadcast revealing a truly unique insight into the workings of ENO. This came across wonderfully in the rich and varied ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage.
camera crew and cast at the live broadcast on opening night
Penny Smith, the behind-the-scenes presenter, found a surprisingly sympathetic balance between keeping the back stage interviews serious and involving for a potentially new opera audience. She touched on some big subjects such as opera in English and plenty of fascinating snippets from how singers warm up to how much perfume first-night audiences wear! Front of House, Petroc Trelawny, with his knowledge of opera and experience of live broadcasting, presented the performance marvellously.
Penny Smith backstage
The broadcasts revealed that opera is a rich art form for such a transparent approach. So many wonderful personalities; the furious paddling below the water line of technicians, singers, musicians and stage crew; and the palpable tension leading up to the first bars of Puccini’s marvellous score.
We’ve had a wonderful response to the broadcast (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sarah_crompton/blog) and from the public to the production (www.eno.org/video). Like all of Jonathan Miller’s productions (including the most enduringly popular like Rigoletto and The Mikado) the first reviews have been a bit luke warm, but the public love it and we expect it to run and run.
Meanwhile, as more harsh weather moves in this week, we turn to new challenges. John Adams’s Doctor Atomic premieres in the UK at the end of February with director Penny Woolcock (www.eno.org/video) and the superb Gerald Finley as Robert Oppenheimer and we begin rehearsals for a new work, directed by Katie Mitchell for the Young Vic theatre, which opens in April (www.eno.org/afterdido). Going to the Young Vic last year was a daring new idea at the time but it paid off – winning us the South Bank Show Awards for best new opera. Snow or no snow, the show goes on.
John Berry
The Curtain Call seen by the cameras
Shadows and silhouettes: backstage at the Boris Godunov dress rehearsal
November 11, 2008
Charlotte van Berckel from ENO’s Technical Director’s Office shares her experiences and her photographs from behind the scenes at the Boris Godunov dress rehearsal
It’s cold in the lighting box today and the auditorium lights are not on. The teams are still working on the Show and I’ve developed a panic-induced mini cold sweat. ‘But its 0945?! How I am supposed to see what I am doing and be ready in time for curtain up’ I ask myself loudly. I love these little conundrums – so different from my desk job.
Peter Rose crosses the stage as Boris Godunov
I am taking photos of Boris Godunov today for the Technical and Production Department; the show starts at 1030am so I don’t have long to set up the camera – the one thing that the success of my day depends on.
Charlotte’s photos of the performance on Flickr
Unlike the press photographers who bring vast quantities of equipment and set up in the stalls using tripods, we (the Technical Department) have a small digital Canon G9 which I attach to a bracket and fix to the lighting bar on the front of the dress circle just above the stalls. A long USB cable connects the camera to the laptop that I’ve set up in the lighting box underneath. The software allows me to operate the camera – aperture, shutter speed – remotely and I can see the photos as I am taking them, and of course compare and improve. It’s the same as taking a picture from an actual camera; instead of staring through a view finder I am staring at a screen.
Success depends on making sure everything is functioning successfully. Today I can’t log on to the laptop, which happens to be new and so learning skills are required; the USB cable isn’t in its normal place so I need an extra pair of hands which are hard to find as everyone is busy; and it’s dark (did I mention that) so I have to wait to position the camera correctly. I am probably over-worrying a touch as this is actually the first of two dress rehearsals and therefore closed to the public; meaning that I don’t need co-ordinate the complex timing of the camera instalment with the entrance of ENO’s faithful public. That always adds an edge to the procedure.
I get it done and sit in the lighting box testing it. ENO staff and the creative team trickle in to the stalls just before curtain up. There’s always a bit of buzz at this time; moments of chatting before the darkness and the orchestra. I make sure I have the sound turned up in my little tardis so I get the full experience.
Boris is not an easy show to take photos of. The lighting is subtle and low (and people keep moving. Don’t they know I am trying to take a photo of them? Low light + people moving = blurry blurs) with lots of strong visual contrasts. As I am primarily here to take reference photos of the set (for when we put the show on again or for companies who might rent it from us) I need to make sure I record all the elements and in all the different configurations; today that means overexposure. These don’t make for pretty pictures so I also take a set of more visually balanced photos. It’s a good learning curve and a challenge for me – the quest for perfect exposure is eternal it seems – but it’s also useful to have these photos for directors, agents, or our production department: anyone who might need copies.
I go backstage the following day; to observe the other side and to see how the magic is made. There’s a lot of waiting. Talking. Movement. People whisper, others don’t. I feel a bit nervous. Don’t want to get in the way of activity or interfere with any zone that the performers may be in, waiting. It’s all a bit dark. How does everyone else see where they are going? Best if I just keep still for a while and watch. Got my camera with me after all and do not want to make a fool of myself. Lots of activity going on but not sure what it means. Seems that everyone plays a key role. Activity begins and ends out of nowhere. The back stage show seems to consist of sequences of moments.
There are no scene changes in Boris; only opening and closing of doors and things. Staff and performers stand together; performers waiting to cross the threshold, staff ready to assist and facilitate. This makes for wonderful shadows and silhouettes and glimpses of the stage and audience beyond. And standing in the background I get to see this show within a show.
Fresh thinking and new ideas: by John Berry
August 11, 2008
Having time and space to read is a treat. I can’t read on the move, fitting in a page here and there, blotting out noise and bustle. All too distracting. Peace and quiet, a sense of calm, having a good run at several chapters is for me fertile ground to tackle a frustratingly growing pile of books.
Reading on a plane maybe, a train, never on the tube and occasionally late at night.
Now with some space this summer to reflect on 2008, reading is the most cathartic of pastimes. Yet it’s a contradiction. On the one hand you need concentration, yet it somehow clears one’s mind making space for fresh thinking and new ideas. That’s crucial for me, at the end of one season, and before the start of another. With Mohsin Hamid’s thoughtful and gripping writing (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) I was off the starting blocks. It’s a relatively short novel: you can read it in a day and it was easy to immerse oneself in his gritty political insight. I had already read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of A Yellow Sun, and her sensitive and beautiful writing in The Purple Hibiscus was a treat. Jonathan Coe’s The House of Sleep I found needs to be read in large chunks. It has a wonderful, but complicated plot, constantly shifting time periods and needs concentration. Yet it’s witty and intense, centred around a group of students who are drawn back together by a series of coincidences involving their obsession with sleep. A surprising and original book.
However, reading this summer makes me think of my dear friend and colleague Anthony Minghella. I must be one of many who think about him daily. A wonderful man with a big heart, such modesty coupled with strength and integrity. He was a writer at heart. Yes, a great director and producer, but every conversation with him centred around words. He wanted to tell a story and therefore writing a script, screenplay, radio play or synopsis for an opera was about how it would speak to an audience. His award-winning direction of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, which we are presenting again next year, is a wonderful legacy for ENO. His death is a great loss and everyone at ENO – in particular members of the Chorus who worked with him and our front of house staff with whom he built a close relationship – will miss him.
Buraki Dancer Madam Butterfly © Johan Persson / ENO 2005
- Wedding Madam Butterfly © Johan Persson / ENO 2005
As we seek a new collaborator for the new opera by Osvaldo Golijov it makes me think that the role of the librettist in opera is often taken for granted. However, behind great operas are great stories and universal themes like solitude, loss and tragedy will always provide compelling narrative for music theatre. Identifying talented writers and working closely with them to create new work for the operatic stage is very much part of ENO’s future programming. We want to create new work that has the potential to connect with a contemporary audience and sometimes reflect a certain mood of society. Great works, such as John Adams’s Nixon in China and Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, have explored historic events and we look forward to the UK premiere of Dr Atomic next season. We are currently developing a number of large-scale pieces with exciting writers and composers, some in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera, ….but more about that later. More immediately, Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot, has written a new version of Pagliacci, and the great poet and writer Sean O’Brien has done a new translation of Cavalleria rusticana. Our 2008/9 season will open with this new production of Cav & Pag, directed by Richard Jones. Find out more about this and other Autumn productions with our new Digital Opera Guide.
Gerald Finley as Oppenheimer
Satyagraha © Catherine Ashmore / ENO 2007
New Classical Music: Torture or Temptation?
July 17, 2008
As Guardian readers will already be aware, there’s a debate raging within the publication’s pages - both in print and online: a debate inspired by Joe Queenan’s article on the ’tortuous’ nature of new classical music, and to which ENO’s Artistic Director John Berry has responded. Given the contraversial nature of Queenan’s argument that new classical music leaves something to be desired, it’s not suprising that a whole host of responses have appeared online, making for some fascinating reading!
Read Joe Queenan’s full article: http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2289751,00.html
Read John Berry’s full article: http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2290929,00.html
Tom Service’s Blog: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/07/no_were_not_as_bored_as_you_ar.html
You can also listen to John Berry and Joe Queenan debate live on air on WNYC radio!
JOIN THE DEBATE! What do you think about new classical music?…
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The Pursuit of Happiness – Photography competition
July 11, 2008
The image above was chosen as our winner. Photographer Jaynel was inspired by ’Make our Garden Grow’ from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide.
“Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can’t be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.”
Winner Janel recieves a funky fifties style Diana camera, a year’s membership to The Photographers’ Gallery (London) plus two free tickets to see Candide and a bottle of champagne.
Many thanks to everyone who uploaded a photo!
Here are some more of our favourites:
To see all the images http://www.flickr.com/groups/candide/pool/
ENO Interactive www.eno.org/eno_interactive
Write a review www.eno.org/eno_interactive
Read our blog http://englishnationalopera.wordpress.com
Candide Culture Minute
July 7, 2008
Check out Candide covered by Telegraph.TV’s Culture Minute:
- Candide on Telegraph.TV\
Click on the image to see the video.
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Thanks to the West End Whingers for their review of Candide including a link to our audience reviews: http://www.enoinsideout.org.uk/eno/?page_id=97
ENO Interactive www.eno.org/eno_interactive
Write a review www.eno.org/eno_interactive
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Candide: The Pursuit of Happiness??...
Calling all budding photographers! English National Opera, in association with The Photographers Gallery would like to offer you the chance to win a funky fifties style Diana camera, a year’s membership to The Photographers’ Gallery (London) plus two free tickets to see Candide and a bottle of champagne.
Voltaire’s Candide is a naïve optimist whose travels around the world in pursuit of happiness are challenged by a series of adverse circumstances – to great comic effect! Inspired by Voltaire’s masterpiece, Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story, On the Town) wrote the musical Candide which maximises the deliciously rich content of the novel by combining the philosophical, the dramatic and the comedic in one witty and entertaining masterpiece.
ENO is delighted to be staging an outstanding production of Candide at the London Coliseum from 23 June to 12 July and in this adaptation, Director Robert Carson has set the story in post-war America of the 1950s offering a new angle on Candide’s optimism in the wake of the international horror of WWII.
Voltaire’s Candide has, therefore been an inspiration to creative talents across the centuries! How does it inspire you?
We want to see your photographs inspired by Candide’s travels in pursuit of happiness. Taking inspiration from this story in its various guises we’d like to hear what Candide’s philosophy means to you!
For more inspiration, check out our interview with director Robert Carsen: www.eno.org/candide/video.html or watch our series of behind the scenes films: englishnationalopera.wordpress.com
To Enter The Pursuit of Happiness competition
Upload your photograph entitled ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ to our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/candide. Deadline is Thursday 10 July. A winner will be chosen and notified by Friday 11 July 2008 and the winning image published in our blog englishnationalopera.wordpress.com.
We look forward to receiving all your entries and wish you the best of luck. You can enter as many images as you like, but the winner will be chosen on its relevance to the title ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ and to ENO’s production of Candide. www.eno.org/candide
englishnationalopera.wordpress.com
ENO Interactive www.eno.org/eno_interactive
Write a review www.eno.org/eno_interactive
Read our blog http://englishnationalopera.wordpress.com
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