Backstage at the Opera ...
Post categories: behind the scenes
|11:48 UK Time, Thursday, 24 June 2010
A big welcome to the Blog for Jan Younghusband, the BBC's Commissioning Editor, Music & Events! Jan draws on her personal experiences of opera to reflect on this year's Opera at the BBC programmes; she describes the thought processes involved in translating opera from the theatre experience to the viewer's living-room experience - and there's lots of good news about future broadcasts.
I was thinking about Gareth Malone's Glyndebourne programme today and remembering my own excitement when I first went to the
The show was Raymond Leppard's famous 'realisation' of Cavalli's opera La Calisto- it was thought to be the first production since 1651 (!) and came right in the middle of the early opera revival; Leppard's work was regarded as a significant step in creating new audiences for baroque opera: so it was great to hear the opera again the other day on Radio 3. And amazingly, Glyndebourne was to become part of my life: I went on to train in opera production there, and later it became part of my working life in TV.
When I first saw Britten's Peter Grimes at English National Opera, I thought 'it's a film'; ever since then, I have putting opera on TV. My first ever TV opera was Grimes, for the BBC. Grimes was played by Philip Langridge, who sadly died earlier this year - God bless him: was he the best Peter Grimes ever? Come on, I don't think you can argue too much about that!
So it's great to be back at Glyndebourne. I urge you to go on to the website for Knight Crew - the opera which has been the catalyst for Gareth's chorus work, and the TV programmes- and listen to the music: it's a great opera... (Whoops, shouldn't be saying that, I suppose, because hopefully you're watching the programmes and know that already!)
The other good news is that we have also just recorded Britten's Billy Budd - it's had universal rave reviews and has been one of the Glyndebourne season's hottest tickets; and in August we're doing Jonathan Kent's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, new this year.So we are back at Glyndebourne in a big way. I wonder if everyone knows yet that you can also see Billy Budd on a Big Screen in Somerset House, London in August - check it out on the Glyndebourne website.
My favourite place to sit at the opera is to the side looking over the orchestra pit - I love to watch the conductor and the musicians as well as the drama. And my big questions to myself are always these: how can you capture a theatrical experience on camera? And what happens when you transfer it to the different medium on television? That's the skill, and the reason why I am obsessed by opera on TV - I am puzzling and puzzling how to get it right for the audience at home. What do viewers really want to see? For me the close-ups and sometimes the clarity of High Definition pictures are too much, and I really want a bit of mystery. When we shot Peter Grimes all those years ago, we put stockings (yes, ladies' stockings) over the camera lenses to make the pictures look more filmic. An old trick, but it really works - all that technology and 20 denier! Can't beat it. Never tried it with my holiday snaps, though...
I have had so many favourite moments from the Opera on the BBC programmes so far. What I have enjoyed most is having real practitioners telling us about how they do it: opera from the engine room, if you like - I am so grateful to the artists for giving their time to it. And getting to see backstage at the Metropolitan Opera. For me, hearing our Opera Italia host and presenter, Tony Pappano, singing on a gondola was fantastic - Tony is probably the first and last Royal Opera music director who will ever do that, and I would LOVE to do it too. I sing on my scooter (not so well, but being on it gives me courage, and my scooter journeys also give me thinking time.) Also the moment when he tells us that Verdi might not have been here, but for his quick-thinking Mum's life-saving decision to hide her infant son in the church bell tower to protect him from marauding Russian and Austrian troops after the defeat of Napoleon: it's impossible to imagine a world without Verdi... And Kiri Te Kanawa, Danielle de Niese and Rolando Villazón have also been fascinating on how to be great singers.
There is so much more to come, though: there's a film - TheDirector's Cut - about Graham Vick who has spent much of his life taking opera out of the opera house and doing it in new ways; you might have seen his amazing production of Aïda performed on (and sometimes off ..) the famous 'floating stage' at Bregenz on Lake Constance. But, sticking with Verdi, we've also managed to capture his stunning new community production of Othello with the Birmingham Opera Company. Watch out for this in September.
One of the great things about Opera on the BBC for me personally has been to have radio, in the shape of Radio 3, included for the first time in my TV life. This has meant we have been able to offer a rolling roster of great performances across the full spectrum of the airwaves: Berg's Lulu, live from the Met, and Janáček's Katya Kabanova from ENO. It struck me the other day that, while we're still waiting for TV to come out of our wrist-watches (it's already in our mobile phones), radio is fab because it's so portable. So I have been singing my heart out in the car and on my scooter - fairly embarrassing at the traffic lights, but
satisfying retaliation against boombox drivers! I could do with some lessons from Kiri ...
We have two very exciting things coming up - Verdi's Simon Boccangera in a new production from the Royal Opera House with Plácido Domingo, and although I can reveal that the Proms on TV this year will be taking on a new look, I won't steal our own thunder by giving away the details here. I think the first night's Mahler 8 on BBC2 will be amazing; and BBC Four also has its own first night at the Proms, with a complete performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with Bryn Terfel hot from Welsh National Opera's new Richard Jones production- this special Proms performance, will have TV coverage presented by Stephen Fry who I am sure will have lots to say about the opera, having returned himself from a first time visit to Bayreuth, as chronicled in the Stephen Fry on Wagnerfilm which was so well-received in Opera on the BBC.
So as you can see we are opera mad at the moment - we even managed to slip the overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro on to the TV trail for the Glastonbury Festival! Opera is everywhere at the BBC. Someone said to me the other day: is this it, is this opera and then you won't do it again? Not at all, it's just the beginning, really, and we will be doing more. So watch this space.
Another scooter moment - I was thinking, if I had my one moment of fame, what would I sing? Actually I think it would be Mozart (maybe because I wouldn't stand a chance of getting near anything else!) It would have to be the trio from Così fan tuttewith my friend Suzy, because I would need some friends up there to keep me going. So as the sun sets in my window at TV Centre, the gondola awaits ...
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