THE NEW ZEALAND OPERA SOCIETY

When one reads reviews in overseas opera magazines of increasing numbers of concert performances of operas, or parts of them, one might ask why our orchestras do not come more often to our rescue, given the funding limitations of our two professional companies.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Royal Christchurch Musical Society performed a series of operas in concert, sometimes taking them to Wellington as well; and there have been a lot of others, notably Academy Opera in Christchurch and Wellington.

There is a trend overseas towards semi-staging—what we got for example, in the NZSO’s performances of Das Rheingold in 1997. Even with staged opera, with budgets of $1–2 million, we often get little more staging than what a bare concert platform might offer.

Nicholas Tarling, in a recent personal opera journal, made the point that semi-staging had the advantage of fore-closing on directorial excess. Semi-staging came to seem an attractive choice, he thought.

With sensitive lighting and careful costuming, very telling effects can be obtained without the costs of set design and construction, and presumably we could save a good deal of stage rehearsal time. As a bonus, perhaps we’d get two operas semi-staged for the price of one staged.

Two phenomena at the recent New Zealand International Arts Festival raise these questions. Quartet was staged most effectively with a few chairs, some well-designed clothes and hair-styles. Plus there was the brilliant device of a large screen bearing images of the location and the performers in vivid action, with the words being sung given in comic balloons. With singers who can act, as the four in this production could, everything needed for a highly entertaining performance was there.

Then there is the continuing fixation by the Festival with using the Michael Fowler Centre for the ‘big’ opera. We wonder whether there lurks in Wellington the remnants of the 1960s and 1970s mentality, unable to appreciate the beauties and suitability of traditional theatres.

When you present opera in a concert hall without wings or proscenium or flies, why try to stage it? The magic of the proscenium-stage will always elude you. The result will always be a compromise. Past festival operas have been praised for their success in overcoming the obstacles presented by the unsuitable venue of the Michael Fowler Centre.

But why give yourself an unnecessary hurdle when Wellington has two beautiful theatres that offer very much the sort of conditions to be found in theatres all over Europe? Why ignore them?

It is our orchestras, whose home is the concert vhall, that should be doing concert opera. We await an announcement about completing the Ring cycle, begun in 1997.

From May 2004 issue of New Zealand Opera News