The (very) Good, the (very) Bad, and the Canadian
Cultural experiences of the last weeks as (sometimes beautiful) breaks in a busy term:
The excellent: Fritz Lang's "M". Different language versions. As with all excellence, it belongs to the entire world.
Peter Lorre in the magnificent last scene...the scene that the Nazis some years afterwards misused for their own purposes.
The very good: Anderson's new film The Phantom Thread, screened in many places in the world right now. The music by Greenwood (leading guitarist of Radiohead, and composer) still in my ears.
The very bad: Silence, Grand Theatre, London Ontario. Bad theatre could be written and staged at any place in the world.
The Canadian: The Abduction from the Seraglio (subtitle: on how to "kill" Mozart for the sake of "political correctness" and lack of modesty), COC Toronto. This is a Canadian product (it could not have been produced anywhere else), not of the sort I have experienced so far, but the worst cultural event in the country where I now live. One really needs to ask for details at COC in advance and before choosing the operas for the subscription, if one ever does it again and does not, instead, fly to Berlin, attend three operas, and come back after three days. Incredible that they went for treating an opera like a pizza, to be cut in pieces, interrupted by intermezzos of lowest level of added theatre writing (a la "All people have a heart and love, in both the West and the East"), and served to us, the customers. We might start sympathizing with Bentham...Which was greater? The KEG Mansion pleasure or the opera pleasure? Do not ask me which of the two was the aesthetic one, as I am wondering. As for the rest of my thought, I censor it.
Why can they (because a lot of mediocre elements had to be combined to create such a failure for Canada) not look upon Kurosawa's Ran? It does not matter where from one comes nor where one might go, but what one does and how one does it. What does Kurosawa do with his Ran and how does he do it? He transfers King Lear into the Japanese landscape. He does not dare call it "King Lear", though. And what do we get? Shining modesty and a shining masterpiece, to stand beside Shakespeare's work.
Recovering the Canadian Shock: Thank God (or gods, or Allah: am I enough politically correct?), there was the Broadcast of National Theatre UK this week and they brilliantly interpreted and performed Tennessee Williams' A Cat on a Hot Thin Roof (not my best of his, but, as all his pieces, excellent in penetrating human relationships). A particularly strong acting by o' Connell in the second act. I recovered from the lowest level served (yes, served) in Grand Theater London ON and COC Toronto. Now I am good, but still talk a lot about the cultural shocks.
Link to the Critique in Toronto Star:
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/review/2018/02/08/canadian-opera-companys-updated-abduction-from-the-seraglio-a-mess-in-all-but-the-music.html
The excellent: Fritz Lang's "M". Different language versions. As with all excellence, it belongs to the entire world.
Peter Lorre in the magnificent last scene...the scene that the Nazis some years afterwards misused for their own purposes.
The very good: Anderson's new film The Phantom Thread, screened in many places in the world right now. The music by Greenwood (leading guitarist of Radiohead, and composer) still in my ears.
The very bad: Silence, Grand Theatre, London Ontario. Bad theatre could be written and staged at any place in the world.
The Canadian: The Abduction from the Seraglio (subtitle: on how to "kill" Mozart for the sake of "political correctness" and lack of modesty), COC Toronto. This is a Canadian product (it could not have been produced anywhere else), not of the sort I have experienced so far, but the worst cultural event in the country where I now live. One really needs to ask for details at COC in advance and before choosing the operas for the subscription, if one ever does it again and does not, instead, fly to Berlin, attend three operas, and come back after three days. Incredible that they went for treating an opera like a pizza, to be cut in pieces, interrupted by intermezzos of lowest level of added theatre writing (a la "All people have a heart and love, in both the West and the East"), and served to us, the customers. We might start sympathizing with Bentham...Which was greater? The KEG Mansion pleasure or the opera pleasure? Do not ask me which of the two was the aesthetic one, as I am wondering. As for the rest of my thought, I censor it.
Why can they (because a lot of mediocre elements had to be combined to create such a failure for Canada) not look upon Kurosawa's Ran? It does not matter where from one comes nor where one might go, but what one does and how one does it. What does Kurosawa do with his Ran and how does he do it? He transfers King Lear into the Japanese landscape. He does not dare call it "King Lear", though. And what do we get? Shining modesty and a shining masterpiece, to stand beside Shakespeare's work.
Recovering the Canadian Shock: Thank God (or gods, or Allah: am I enough politically correct?), there was the Broadcast of National Theatre UK this week and they brilliantly interpreted and performed Tennessee Williams' A Cat on a Hot Thin Roof (not my best of his, but, as all his pieces, excellent in penetrating human relationships). A particularly strong acting by o' Connell in the second act. I recovered from the lowest level served (yes, served) in Grand Theater London ON and COC Toronto. Now I am good, but still talk a lot about the cultural shocks.
Link to the Critique in Toronto Star:
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/review/2018/02/08/canadian-opera-companys-updated-abduction-from-the-seraglio-a-mess-in-all-but-the-music.html
posted by Georgia Mouroutsou | 8:23 pm
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