Does classical music need more theatre?


Alex Ross describes the Simon Rattle/Berlin Philharmonic St. Matthew Passion as his 'DVD of the week (perhaps of the year)'. Peter Sellars is responsible for the direction, or as more accurately described in the DVD credits, the ritualization. My experience of the week (perhaps of the year) was Waiting for Godot at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich in the acclaimed production by the Black-led Talawa Theatre Company. As can be seen from the production photo above this staging combines the visual with the dramatic. That Berlin St. Matthew Passion also has a strong theatrical element, yet many of the attempts to popularise classical music eliminate the theatrical by making it less formal. Does classical music need more, not less, theatre?

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Comments

Pliable said…
Yvonne Frindley emails - I have been asking this same question (in way too many words) for ages, but you capture the issue succinctly with the juxtaposition of theatricality versus increased formality.

Does classical music need more, not less, theatre? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

http://profile.typepad.com/frindley
9:45 am
Pliable said…
But sometimes it does not work - http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/04/aldeburgh-blunts-bachs-passion.html
10:36 am
Philip Amos said…
Lang Lang provides more than enough theatre, I think. And I rather fear that the idea of more theatre would encourage the agencies to seek out more pretty faces and handsome profiles at the expense of the greatly talented.

Perhaps I'm an old fogey on this question, but I think of two CDs I have of concert performances by Solomon. Put Solomon and Jochum with the BPO together in Brahms' Dminor and you have gripping drama; Solomon and Beinum with the Concertgebouw in the Beethoven Cminor and wonderful improvised humour in the Rondo; Solomon and the Kansas City Philharmonic (a hopeless outfit in those days) a wild roller-coaster of a ride that makes the Horowitz/Toscanini sound tame. In short, I think there is more than enough 'theatre' in great music played by great performers. Distract from the music on these occasions, and all is lost.
3:53 pm
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