I.) Last night I was at the opera. This year, the Munich opera did the entire Ring and last night they showed the final part, the Götterdämmerung. Unfortunately, after the three previous productions were all well sung and imaginatively staged (the first production in which bringing masses of people who aren't in the script on stage actually worked for me, because said people formed the forest, the Rhine, etc, in a great use of body colour and performance art), for the last part the director abandoned his psychological/painting-by-bodies approach in favour of neorealism plus topical allusion. Suddenly it was about the Euro crisis and the one of the essays in the program (translated from the English language, by an American) earnestly informed us that Angela Merkel is Wotan (who doesn't even show up in Götterdämmerung), Francois Hollande is Brünnhilde and Alexis What's his name from Greece is Siegfried. And then there was Gutrune riding on a symbol for the Euro. Um. The singing was still great, but any attempt to imagine Francois Hollande as a former Valkyrie or vice versa was met with swift and abject failure. (If, gentle reader, you have no idea what the Ring of the Nibelung is all about, fear not: here is the fifteen minutes version, written by yours truly.) Also, nobody deserves being compared to the most obnoxious opera hero ever. (Why no, I can't stand Siegfried.)


II.) The first past of The Hollow Crown, Richard II, was broadcast, and reviewed by the Guardian thusly: Ben Whishaw, last seen being ambitious and lairy in The Hour, reprised both talents as Richard II but also managed somehow to trample wonderfully over himself and the kingdom with a masterclass in passive-aggressive venality and foot-shootery. Whishaw and Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke mesmerised, and it was a rare delight to see David Suchet, as York, tear himself free ("ouchayowsa!") from Poirot's moustache and be allowed to act, but the best scenes were saved for super-thesp Patrick Stewart as John of Gaunt.

Not my favourite man in real life, due to a certain innate… bumptiousness… but not the point. He's an actor, and does so honestly and terribly well. His speech before his son's banishment from England, to "look what thy soul holds dear" and "imagine it/ To lie the way thou go'st, not the way thou comest", and "Suppose the singing birds musicians… The flowers fair ladies…" was essentially the shortest, pithiest and best self-help book ever.

Stewart-as-Gaunt's dying valediction to England – the "sceptr'd isle" stuff – and the "this happy breed" stuff was not only backshiveringly good but, listened to in full, suddenly struck me as the perfect opening speech for the Olympic thing, with its sheep and village greens, to encapsulate a land's history. The blip, of course, comes in the savage, resentful ending, Gaunt despising nephew Richard's greed. "This land… is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,/ Like to a tenement or pelting farm./ England… is now bound in with shame." So Shakespeare also foresaw Visa and McDonald's.

Go on, Danny Boyle, we dare you. The skypes are calling. We'd love you so.

III.) Every now and then (read: when I'm breaking that rule), I'm reminded why I stick to the few fellow Merlin fans on my flist and stay away from the fandom at large. You have the two extremes between the fanatic Arthur/Merlin OTP crowd who curses Gwen (and her breasts) for existing and the Gwen fans who think the show doesn't have anything worthwile to watch but Gwen and everyone else is horrible (and/or horribly written). And here I am, waving my OT3 flag, and being fond of Gwen, Arthur and Merlin together and in any combination. I'd love more screentime for Gwen, absolutely, but I also loved s4 best of all the seasons. (While considering it flawed, like all the seasons. But I just don't get the "only s1 was good" thing.) And then there's the "everyone agrees that..." Every time I read this, I want to raise a hand in protest because how would the poster know "everyone" agrees? I usually don't, and not just in Merlin. So, my rules for staying sane instead of spending my days in frustration is:

1.) Stay away from any fic which has a variation of "Arthur realises Merlin, not Gwen is the one he really loves" in the summary. Arthur loves them both.

2.) Stay away from any fic that has a variation of "Merlin can't stand it anymore" in the summary. Merlin loves Gwen and ships Arthur/Gwen madly.

3.) Stay away from any fic that looks like it's skipping over what Morgana did to Gwen in s4 in order to get them together. This is especially frustrating because I'd love to read encounters between Morgana and Gwen post season 4 and am on the lookout for those, but ignoring mindmessing and consent issues isn't any less icky if it's a female character responsible.

4.) Stay away from any post that pulls faux feminist arguments like "my problem with Gwen isn't that she's the female love interest of one half of my slash pairing but that she's written without agenda; I liked her in season 1, totes!" (you know, when she wasn't together with one half of the slash pairing) "and she had so much more initiative there" (um; I love s1 Gwen, but s1 Gwen would not have challenged Arthur on standing by and allowing a good man to die (again) as she does in s2's The Witch Finder, wouldn't have responded with that quiet, devastating put down to Uther as she does in s3 (and we have a direct basis of comparison to s1 when it comes to Gwen being dragged in front of Uther and accused of magic, wouldn't have challenged Agrivaine in the councel on behalf of the citzens of Camelot as she does in s4). Maybe I'm wronging some people, but every time I've read something like that it came across as a flimsy pretext.

Yesterday's Tannhäuser: about the production, the less said the better. If I tell you the action was transferred to a brewery-plus-biogas-factory, which, as someone earnestly told me during the break, was supposed to symbolize the circle of life, you can imagine what it was like. Also the singers were merely okay, for Bayreuth, I mean (meaning they were good, just not extraordinary), except for the Elisabeth, Camilla Nylund, who was excellent. The one moment of tastelessness beyond belief involved her character, unfortunately: she entered a (bio-)gas chamber in the third act. If there is one stage in all of Germany where you really should think a thousand times before changing an opera's action so that one character dies by gas, it's in Bayreuth with its Uncle-Wolf-aka-Hitler-best-friend-of-the-house history, but noooooo..... The unthinking director was called Sebastian Baumgarten, in case you want to avoid him.

On the bright side: you can't kill the music. There is always that. And I acquired two dvds with the one innovation by Katharina Wagner that was met by general approval since she took over - a Wagner production specifically for children each year. Last year's was Tannhäuser, so I bought that in the hope it won't be set in a brewery and there will be no suicide-by-bio gas, and this year's, already out on dvd, is a short version of the Ring. I'm really curious how the last one works out, because on the one hand, splendid material for a fantasy story, on the other, various crucial plot elements that can't really be cut out involve sex (Alberich's motivation early in Rheingold, the yay incest! twins from Die Walküre), plus I'm not sure Wotan's Schopenhauer-inspired ponderings are comprehensible. Though I presume they won't make the cut. Well, we'll see.

( Until next year, Bayreuth! )

5 favorite/least favorite royal characters

I'm going with "least favorite" this time, and also with characters in the sense of fictional characters, which unfortunately excludes fictionalized versions of real people (like Shakespeare's kings, or various folk from Tudor era novels) as well.

1.) King Robert from G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones. Seeing him incarnated on tv and reading queenofthorns' well-deserved rant about him just reminded me of this. Robert is criminally irresponsible, full of self-pity and it feels like he's getting indulged by the narrative because he's described most often through the pov of his boyhood bff who has a nostalgia-coloured opinion about him.

2.) Siegfried (alternate name versions: Sigurd, Sigfrid), son of the King of Xanten, to be found in the Nibelungenlied, Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung and various other versions of his tale. Takes part in the deception of a queen (or Valkyrie, depending on the version of the tale) which results in her marriage against her will. In opera version, is relentlessly cheerful tenor except for the sequence after he killed his stepfather and possibly most annoying person in the entire Ring cycle. Definitely responsible for the bloody demise of a dragon, which gave him invulnerability (except for that one bit on the shoulder). Somehow, fighting other people while being invulnerable gives him a reputation as a hero instead as someone with an unfair advantage. Which brings me to the next guy.

3.) Achilles, son of King Peleus. Popular as half of a canon slash couple but not with me. Like Siegfried, invulnerable except for one bit of his skin, and famous as a butcher. Drags enemies around city gates for their families to see. Really good at sulking in tents when deprived of slave girls (not on account of the slave girls, on account of his own status being insuffiently acknowledged) at the expense of comrades' lives. Seems to have gained intelligence after death, as tells Odysseus during the later's visit in the underworld that he'd rather be a living farmer than a dead king. Tough luck, Achilles. I'm sure so would the people you killed or who got killed thanks to you.

4.) Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. And let's not forget about this charmer. After killing Clytaimnestra's previous husband and first child (well, in one version of the tale) he sacrifices their oldest daughter Iphigenia for good wind after having pissed off the goddess Artemis. Is as good at sulking as Achiilles and as guilty of this impacting the Greek war conduct. Is somehow surprised when his wife kills him nonetheless. Gets one of my favourite mythological characters, Cassandra, killed on that occasion, for had he not taken her as his slave Clytaimnestra and Aigisthos would not have bothered.

5.) Paul Atreides from Dune. Son of a duke, true, but given he ends up Emperor, he still qualifies as a royal character. You know, I like his mother. I like his father. His sister I find tragic and fascinating. I like his lover, and his wife. I like his children. But Paul? Yes, being a prophetic messiah and result of genetic breeding sucks, but the self pity is still overwhelming, and you know what, nobody asked you to lead a galaxy wide crusade and then leave everyone else with the resulting mess while you bugger off. One of my least favourite Chosen Ones of all time.

Blood Ties

Liberation: plotty, UST and other -tensions soaked story around Mike, Henry and Vicki, solving a case in the aftermath of the Father Mendoza incident. Mmmmm.

Dollhouse

For Those Rebellious: futurefic, in which Priya-Sierra and Tony-Victor are trying to figure out who they are after the Dollhouse.

It starts somewhere: Topher backstory, mixing bright, cheerful and absolutely chilling, very appropriate to the character.

Iron Man

Chaos Magic: post-Secret Invasion, just pre-World's Most Wanted, this is a great Tony Stark portrait at this point.


Momo

Several Architects: lovely, lovely Michael Ende fanfic which as much of what Ende wrote is also great meta on the art of storytelling.


Oresteia

Last Days: Clytemnestra, ruling in Argos, encounters Odysseus. Sharp and memorable.

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Das Lied von der Erde: the story of Wotan and Erda, great to read even if you're not familiar with Wagner's interpretation of Norse mythology. (BTW, the story is in English, not German, non-German speakers.)


Twin Peaks

And Devil Makes Three: absolutely awesome story about the first meeting and subsequent first case Albert Rosenfield shares with Dale Cooper. The snark, the suspense and the mixture of funny and creepy rules, and the character voices are brilliant.

And a treat for friends of Doctor Who and the Latin language:

In Pompeium: given that the family from Fires of Pompeii was from the Cambridge Latin Course, this is only fair!

Parsifal is never going to be anyone’s favourite Wagner opera: too esoteric, and of course as with every Wagner opera you have the ongoing debate about whether or not the composer’s views are expressed in the work (and I’m not talking about the older Wagner’s enthusiasm for Buddhism, of which there is quite a lot of Parsifal). At the same time, Parsifal will never go entirely out of fashion, either. It wasn’t just Wagner’s last opera but the only one he wrote already knowing what an opera in the Festspielhaus would sound like, having produced the Ring there already, it contains some incredibly beautiful music, and there is nothing quite like listening to it in Bayreuth. It was the first opera I ever heard there, having gotten a ticket via a friend, more than a decade ago, it was this year’s new production, and it was the opera with which the 57 years of Wolfgang Wagner’s rule as head of the Bayreuth Festival ended, last night. Yours truly and the aged parents were in attendance, and it was captivating, at times highly irritating, and oddly touching.

( Other than that, Selena, how was the opera? )

Apologies to theatrical_muse and fandom_muse people; not only did I have a very busy week past, but as I'll be in England from tomorrow until Friday, I'll have a very busy week coming. Hopefully, starting next Saturday I'll be day-long at your disposal.

It was great seeing shezan again; the poor APs were a bit bemused by the conversation wandering off now and then from opera and politics to people called the Doctor or shows named "Spooks", but otherwise was delighted to have her with us as well. Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth, directed by Katharina Wagner in her Bayreuth debut at 29 and gambit for the succession, was savaged by the critics and turned out to have some interesting ideas, some very silly ones, good singers in the male roles and unfortunately weak ones in the two female ones, and some imagery that made me think of all the epilogue complaints in HP fandom, a thought I could unfortunately not share with the Aged Parents who are decidedly not into HP. (And didn't like this production, but not because of the satirical depiction of future families; 'twas the wannabe shock of an interlude with waltzing masks, several artificial phalli and some genuine nudity which made my mother roll her eyes and go "oh, please".) Something we all could agree on was that Katharina W. has guts, because this was the second performance, not the premiere, and she still got on the stage to take her bow and confront the most vicious boos you can imagine (short of vegetable thrown), several times. (The singers got mostly enthusiastic applause, in contrast.) Also, of course she's right in that you can't play Sachs' final song which ends the opera about "holy German art" in Bayreuth, of all the places, without letting the scene reflect on the fascism to come, but then again, it showcased one of the problems of the production, imo: it was a set piece not connected to the rest of the opera, which didn't deal with rising fascism (or fascism in other stages) but mostly with various ideas of how to be an artist and the artist-audience relationship

Whereas Great-Grandfather Richard had written Stolzing as the young musical revolutionary, Sachs as the understanding wise middle-aged genius who eases said revolutionary's way into society and Beckmesser as the dry critic who can only plagiarize, not create art of his own, Katharina interpreted Stolzing as a poser who's only too glad to sell out revolutionary pretensions for public acceptance, Sachs as someone who is frightened of his inner Bohemian and hence ultimately throws himself into conservatism, and Beckmesser discovering his inner avantgardist and being the genuine artist in the end. Which isn't completely new (Beckmesser's version of Stolzing's song as atonal before its time is an intepretation I've heard before), and the singer who sang Backmesser was magnificent, but then you're left with the same problem many a modern production of "The Merchant of Venice" has: everyone who wins is loathsome, and the ostracized outsider isn't exactly someone to root for, either, due to some of the attributes the work he's in has given him. The most successful set piece focused on this reinterpretation was Stolzing presenting the final version of his song as a historic dress production in front of an audience which was clearly meant to be the Bayreuth one; after having booed (via signs) the earlier avant-garde presentation by Beckmesser, they cheered this one. Mind you, telling your audience you think they're too easily pleased with classical stage presentations (which at this point haven't been shown in Bayreuth for decades) and too dumb to understand the avantgarde isn't going to endear you to them (see also: boos for Katharina later), but it was a reinterpretation of this particular scene which worked.

During the first break, we were invited backstage, where we didn't meet Katharina but saw Wolfgang W. (had two strokes since last we met, and was clearly not in particularly good shape, but gamely tried his best to nice) and wife Gudrun with other guests. One of which was a 80-something years old woman from Bonn, hung like a Christmas tree with jewels who immediately launched the most cringeworthy monologue about the incredible novelty of a modern dress production, which she never saw before (I take it this means she never visited a theatre, either for drama or opera, during most of the decades of her life). Wolfgang W., who rather famously isn't a big fan of modern dress production when it comes to Die Meistersinger (his own productions of that opera were either somewhat historic or abstract) but is doing his best to make his younger daughter his successor just sat there and smiled without comment.

During the second break, I chatted with the bookstore owner who has a mini branch at the Festspielhaus each year (complete with rare recordings), and he told me that Christoph Schlingensief, who is responsible for the current horrid Parsifal production which is going to end with this season, has hinted he wants to do a Tristan and Isolde. Any man who manages to suck out the eroticism of the Parsifal/Kundry kiss which is pretty much the point of the scene, as it clues him into adulthood and what happened to Amfortas, shouldn't be let anywhere near Tristan, so here's hoping the fact he recently bitched about the Wagners on national tv means he won't be, at least not in Bayreuth.