Past Production Reviews
5This weekend I saw the ENO’s production of Nico Muhly’s Marnie. Based on a novel by Winston Graham which later became a Hitchcock film, the story is full of suspense and drama. Visually beautiful and very cleverly staged, using moving set pieces and projections to provide film-like transitions between scenes, the production was rich to look at, full of eye-catching tableaus and scenes. The costuming was very effective as well, particularly on Marnie herself and her quartet of Shadow Marnies who followed her throughout the show.
La version lyrique de Nico Muhly, coproduction entre l’English National Opera et le Metropolitan Opera de New York, est plus compatissante envers Marnie que le film, et se rapproche davantage du livre original. La voleuse est ici victime, et affirme que nous, êtres humains, incarnons constamment des personnages distincts selon notre environnement. La mise en scène entoure donc la protagoniste de quatre « ombres » (Charlotte Beament, Katie Coventry, Emma Kerr and Katie Stevenson), qui révèlent plusieurs facettes de sa personnalité. Quatre danseurs en costumes de bureau apparaissent à intervalles réguliers dans des chorégraphies très saccadées, pour représenter l’emprise masculine et les forces qui se jouent contre elle. Au cours d’une croisière, ils se placent autour de son lit et rappellent les « hommes aux costumes gris » dont la Princesse Diana parlait régulièrement.
The Theater Hagen is now showing Anatevka ( Fiddler on the Roof ) as a life-packed milieu study somewhere between tragedy and comedy. The production is already a theatrical success at the premiere, which was not experienced in Hagen for a long time, even before Corona. The audience immediately stands up and applauds a committed ensemble and an excellent orchestra. […] Anatevka is the first production in 18 months that the Hagen Theater has been able to show with a full cast; Over 50 participants, soloists, almost all guests, the great, individually led choir, ballet, extras act on the stage, 30 musicians play in the pit with the conductor, and the audience enjoys the opulent performance with the many dance numbers.
o, this Anatevka, situated somewhere in the Ukrainian no man's land, was never beautiful. Poverty, gossip and gossip characterize life, and the coexistence of the Jewish community with the Christian-Russian community in 1905 works more poorly than well. At best they avoid each other, at worst they bully each other. And what is held up as "tradition" cements the hierarchies. It's not a folkloric idyll, but a run-down shtetl, a small town district - Tevje, the main character, is a milkman and not a farmer. Director Thomas Weber-Schallauer points this out in the program booklet, and the unadorned stage with faceless house facades that seem to overwhelm life (stage design: Alfred Peter) underlines that although the rapid change between indoor and outdoor spaces sometimes looks quite improvised. The clichés of Jewish coexistence shouldn't be used excessively, whereby the costumes (Yvonne Forster) are quite traditional - and the choreography (Ricardo De Nigris), who tries very hard anyway, can't think of much else. But all in all, it manages very well to keep the balance between a world that never heals but is nevertheless secure and the reality of expulsion and homelessness in which the play ends.
