Gods and monsters
Jun. 7th, 2008 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaHaving just watched Harrison Birtwistle's new opera The Minotaur on BBC2, all I can say is John Tomlinson is having a GREAT year.
I blogged a bit about his Wotan in the Ring last winter. That went to some dark, disturbing, fucked-up places-- good preparation, in other words, for playing a half-man-half-beast with a permanent hardon stitched onto the front of his leather trousers. This makes me doubly sorry I missed his Baron Ochs (Ochs= Ox, get it?) in ENO's Der Rosenkavalier. As the Minotaur, there are solo scenes in which he waxes poetic and philosophical, and set pieces in which he can only bellow like a beast. Birtwistle is said to have based the Minotaur's death scene on that of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but to me it recalled the death of Fafner in the Ring: the dying, deep-voiced monster uttering prophecy.
The other miracle that occurred tonight is that I voluntarily watched something by Harrison Birtwistle. I tuned in fully prepared to switch off if things got boring in the usual "assorted percussion instruments being dropped on an angry soprano" way, but no-- Birtwistle, in his dotage, is getting positively lyrical. I'd call The Minoutaur discordant, now, rather than outright atonal. It's still not the sort of thing you'd rush out and buy the CD of, but onstage it works well. Plus, leading role for a mezzo (beautifully sung by Christine Rice). And Philip Langridge being sinister, and a countertenor with breasts. I don't really see what more you could ask from an evening.
I can see where this is leading. I'm going to have to find the DVD of Gawain, aren't I? And watch Birtwistle voluntarily. Again. WTF.
I blogged a bit about his Wotan in the Ring last winter. That went to some dark, disturbing, fucked-up places-- good preparation, in other words, for playing a half-man-half-beast with a permanent hardon stitched onto the front of his leather trousers. This makes me doubly sorry I missed his Baron Ochs (Ochs= Ox, get it?) in ENO's Der Rosenkavalier. As the Minotaur, there are solo scenes in which he waxes poetic and philosophical, and set pieces in which he can only bellow like a beast. Birtwistle is said to have based the Minotaur's death scene on that of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but to me it recalled the death of Fafner in the Ring: the dying, deep-voiced monster uttering prophecy.
The other miracle that occurred tonight is that I voluntarily watched something by Harrison Birtwistle. I tuned in fully prepared to switch off if things got boring in the usual "assorted percussion instruments being dropped on an angry soprano" way, but no-- Birtwistle, in his dotage, is getting positively lyrical. I'd call The Minoutaur discordant, now, rather than outright atonal. It's still not the sort of thing you'd rush out and buy the CD of, but onstage it works well. Plus, leading role for a mezzo (beautifully sung by Christine Rice). And Philip Langridge being sinister, and a countertenor with breasts. I don't really see what more you could ask from an evening.
I can see where this is leading. I'm going to have to find the DVD of Gawain, aren't I? And watch Birtwistle voluntarily. Again. WTF.