We're off to the Barbican tonight to see Bach's St. John Passion with Ian Bostridge as the Evangelist. They have the admirable facility of being able to view the pdf of the programme in advance. I was glancing at it and noticed that the Passion is being played without an interval - estimated running time 2 hours 15 minutes.
Now you can probably make a very good argument for performing the Passion without an interval. But the Barbican seems to have something of a record for making audiences work hard. In Baroque Opera Seria performances it seems to be norm to have only 1 interval, running the other 2 acts together. This seems very unfair on audiences. I know that one issue is running time. A 3 act baroque opera can have up to 3 hours of music before you include intervals. And the management at the Barbican must feel obliged to have a weather eye on the finishing time. But if you've been at work all day, no matter how uplifting the music, 2 hours without a break can be a bit taxing.
So we will no doubt enjoy the concert, but I think we'd have enjoyed it more if there had been an interval to allow us to return to the second half relaxed and refreshed.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Wagner: Das Rheingold - Ingeborg Børch as Fricka, Keel Watson as Wotan - Regents Opera 2022 (Photo Steve Gregson) On Sunday 21st May 2023, R...
-
Halevy: La Tempesta - conducted by Francesco Cilluffo at Wexford Festival Opera 2022 (Photo: Clive Barda ArenaPAL) Conductor Francesco Cill...
-
Wagner: Die Walküre - Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson Regents Opera's new production of Wagner's Die...
-
Wagner: Die Walküre - Justine Viani (Sieglinde), Catharine Woodward (Brünnhilde), the Valkyries - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregso...
-
Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Claire Shovelton) Composer Jataneel Banerjee's new chamber o...
-
Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Ru...
-
Dragon Voices: The giant Celtic horns of Ancient Europe; John Kenny; Delphian Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 22 2016 Star r...
-
Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud A Dangerous Obsession: The Relationship of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud ; Ben Vonberg-Clark, Julien...
-
Handel: Saul - Rupert Charlesworth, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen - Komische Oper, Berlin (Photo Barbara Braun) Handel: Saul ; Luca Tittoto, Aryeh N...
-
Carys Davies, a previous member of WNO Youth Opera and current RWCMD student, in WNO’s main scale production of The Magic Flute . The step b...
No comments:
Post a Comment