Simone Boccanegra. And then there’s Jetske Mijnssen’s direction. We have to admit: we’ve seen worse. The director “transposed” the opera to 1871, the year the revised version premiered. Two questions arise: 1) Why relocate? 2) Why 1871? The idea that the nineteenth-century costumes and sets place the characters in a world closer to Verdi himself than to medieval Genoa is utter nonsense. What is closest to Verdi is his own opera, and that is set in Genoa in the 13th (or 14th?) century.
Month: June 2026
Turandot. I love traditional productions as much as the next fellow, but I take Regie productions one at a time. Claus Guth’s Freudian look at Salome was the most potent and disturbing iteration of that opera I’ve ever seen, while the Met’s Carrie Cracknell-conceived Carmen is absolute junk – no Spanish flavor, and a second act that takes place in a moving railroad boxcar! If the audience is puzzled or disgusted, you’re doing something wrong. Worse, even, was Simon Stone’s Lucia di Lammermoor, now taking place in a run-down town in the American rust belt, peopled by drug addicts and cameramen filming the action. Wretched.
Simon Boccanegra.
Er was ook een regie, en we moeten zeggen: we hebben het erger gezien. Zij “verplaatste” de opera naar 1871, het premièrejaar van de herziening. Twee vragen vliegen ons gedachtenraam binnen: 1) Waarom verplaatsen? 2) Waarom 1881? Dat de negentiende-eeuwse kostuums en decors de personages in een wereld plaatsen die dichter bij Verdi zelf staat dan bij het middeleeuwse Genua is je reinste kul. Wat het dichtst bij Verdi staat, is zijn eigen opera, en die speelt in Genua, 13 eeuw (of 14e?), naar wij dachten.
ELEKTRA. Nothing is happening on stage. And the costumes do everything they can to maintain this sense of nothingness. Elektra is a car mechanic clad in overalls; she’s trying to fix the family car, but the damn thing won’t start, so she just sits down on a low wall to sing a little. Needless to say, in addition to the car, the inevitable video projection also made an appearance. In short, where are we here, what are people doing here, and why not? What artistic catastrophe is unfolding here?