Three of the four cultural events in this piece cover great works of art while fourth says much about contemporary western society.
The first is The Tempest believed to be one of the comedies created by William Shakespeare an which I experienced as a stage play by the Royal Shakespeare Company on the 19th of November 1985 at the Theatre Royal Newcastle and again on Sunday May 20th 2012 as a film first released at the end of 2010 and to the credit of Sky added to their anytime films this weekend.
I remember little of the RSC production, except that Alfred Burke previously known to me from a TV detective series, participated, from the programme as Gonzalo the honest Counsellor and which also revealed that James Purefoy was Ferdinand the son of the King of Naples and Melanie Thaw (daughter of John) played Miranda the daughter of Prospero.
I very much enjoyed the film which has Dame Helen Mirren playing the Prospero, the Duke of Milan as Prospera, and a twist which made the story a more convincing one. The film kept to the text is all other respect except that it omitted the play within a play at the end, a device also used in the recently seen and reported Taming of he Shrew which I can confirm was seen in Newcastle at the Theatre Royal in 1988 and also in Oxford by a college company on the lawn on a flying visit when to be researched. Brian Cox played Petrucio in the 1988 RSC production together with Alex Jennings and Fiona Shaw (now CBE who became internationally known as Harry’s aunt Petunia Dursley in five of he Harry Potter films.
The Tempest film also brilliant portrayed the sprite Aerial and used the latest CGI to provide the conjuring tricks of the Prospera as the Sorceress. I thought the film was made brilliantly accessible to contemporary audiences and the casting of Russell Brand as Trinculo, the court jester and Alfred Molina as the alcoholic Butler. Tom Conti is Gonzallo the old Counsellor.
The Duke of Milan and her daughter Miranda is cast adrift in an open boat by her young brother who wanted the title for himself. She lands on an island where the native creature strong man and work horse Caliban shows her how to survive and where she develops he skills as a sorceress freeing the sprite Ariel from imprisonment in a tree. Both become her servants although Aerial is promised freedom for his role in bringing the King of Naples, his son, the king’s brother together with the current Duke of Milan and the Counsellor ashore after using magic to create a great sea and fire leading to the ship appearing to be destroyed and the crew and passengers being tossed into sea and drowning.
The sight of this upset the daughter who since childhood and known no other experience of living with her mother, ignorant of her background and without experience of men. The idea of man being able to bring up a baby girl as a normal young woman is not as good as the original, understandable for a time when young boys played the female roles. Mother reassures her daughter that all are safe and coming ashore as well as the ship which unscathed has been brought to a safe harbour. The Kings, his son and court had been to North Africa for the daughter of his marriage and father and son each believed the other had perished on reaching the shore. Similarly Trinculo is alone and encounters Caliban and in turn they are found together by Stephan the Butler in a genuinely humorous diversion during which Caliban gets drunk, considers Stephano a God and swears allegiance to him breaking away from Prospera,
Prospera has three objectives which she achieves. The first is for she and her daughter to be able to leave the Island. The second is to regain her rightful place as Duke if Milan and he treachery of her brother to be recognised and thirdly, on finding the son of the King to be a fine young man, that her daughter should marry him.
Before achieving her goals she uses Ariel to stop the King’s brother and her own from murdering the King and his Counsellor taken power for themselves believing the son is dead and the daughter married and out of the way and then to put the fear of the devil into them before containing the foursome in a circle so they can be confronted with the truth and father introduced to her daughter and give his blessing to the marriage. She also gives Caliban and the others good fright before abandoning him to live alone on the Island after freeing the sprite. I decided not to read the long final section of play within a play. So I do not know if its absence undermined the original concept but as a film I am sure the cutting contributed to its success and effectiveness just a Coriolanus experienced earlier in the year.
I first experienced Coriolanus in Newcastle in 1990 with Charles Dance as Coriolanus and Babara Jefford his mother. Joe Melia played Junius Brutus.
The second cultural event of importance is also a film Cinema Verité, a fictionalised account of the behind the scenes of the original reality TV experience An American Family in 1973. A decade later I argued at the Henley International management course that the development of the Internet would expand the reality experience idea in all aspects of human life and its condition, from bed room to bathroom. I did not know how right I was to prove.
The 12 part TV series caused considerable controversy after the family had been billed as the archetypal American Dream family. The eldest son left the family to live in New York and admitted to being gay, the first such admission on USA TV. The wife asked her husband to leave and divorce after 21 years of marriage. The main controversy was on the extent to which the show could be said to be reality because of the editing of the months of filming and that it was impossible for people not to act out and react to the presence of the camera.
The film proved an engaging and impressive portrayal of the reality difference between how the USA likes to perceive itself and really is through the behaviour of the wife, Pat Loud who has invested heavily in her children, her home and local community because her husband Bill is constantly away alleging managing his business interests which enable the family to live in a large house with outdoor swimming pool and all the latest gadgets and symbols of material affluence. In fact as she find with the help of the TV series Director, her husband has had a series of mistresses taking them away on holidays lavishing his time as well as money. His children have to cope with the insecurity which the break up engenders although his financial circumstances are such that they are able to continue in their former lifestyle.
Tim Robbins is excellent and the hypocritical husband with Diane Lane as the wife. The great surprise of the film was the casting of James Gandolfini, Tony Soprano in the Sopranos as the film Director. There was no hint of the gangster in this character study barely recognisable in a beard and having lost substantial weight. The film revealed how driven by the corporate pressures for rating and the financial outlay over a million dollars, the Director had misled the couple about how they would portrayed and he had the four children, three sons and a daughter. Once they family realised how they were being shoen and the hostility which resulted they went on the offensive uniting in order to counter the reaction and explain why they had participated and what had happened. In this they were supported by the film crew, a young couple who became Hollywood film makers. They protested about the bending of ethical standards. The family were successful in this with all members gaining reputations and can be said positions as a consequence. The eldest son Lance became something of a cult hero among the gay community and at his requested he was filmed during his final days arising from HIV infection and AIDS. His last wish was for his parents together. His father had remained and also divorced for a second time. The parents have remained together since that time living close to their children so that it can be said that far from breaking hem it has made them stringer individually and collectively. In this respect I suspect they were lucky with the parents being people of substance before the intrusion and having given more to their children than is often portrayed by family of material wealth and social standing.
It is also time to write of my experience of watching a live relay at the Bolden Cineworld of Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto from the Royal Opera House, London, and the 497th performance on Tuesday 12 April 2012 at 7.15. I was unfamiliar with the story or the production in the packed theatre although I overheard a conversation warning that it was raunchy.
In contrast to the Metropolitan and other great Opera House the Royal Opera House London had developed a reputation for staging challenging and at time controversial productions of the classics. The Opera was first performed in Venice in 1851. The inspiration for the work is the play by Victor Hugo Le roils s’amuse which depicts the king of France as an immoral and cynical womaniser. Instead of the King of France the opera features an Italian noble whose title although a real one had become extinct.
The opera open at the court of the Duke who sings about his pleasure in taking as many women as possible. I use taking than having because of his use of position and subterfuge to seduce everyone from whores to the wives of the courtiers. In the Royal Opera production members of court participate in an orgy with loose women who are topless with one naked as the act progresses together one full frontal male nude. Given the audience was primarily middle aged to elder, here were some gasps from those unprepared, although many like me I suspect had lived through the era of Hair.
The Duke is presently engaged in two ambitions. The first is to seduce the wife of the Count of Caprano and the second a virginal young woman he has recently seen at church. The court is also interested in rumours that the deformed (hunchback) court jester Rigoletto has a lover because of visiting a house on a regular basis often late at night and without mentioning it to anyone in the court. Rigoletto does not endear himself to the court especially as suggests arresting the husbands/ fathers of those the Duke wishes to seduce. In one instance the Duke arrests a father who utters a curse on the Duke and Rigoletto who is much affected.
From scene two of the first act the Opera changes its mood. Rigoletto comes across an assassin who offers his service and considers that while the man kills with physical weapons, he uses the tongue to stab victims with its malice. He accept the suggestion of a group of disguised courtiers that he should help them in the kidnapping the Countess Coprano, taking her out of the orbit of the advancing Duke. They blindfold Rigoletto. Meanwhile the Duke having trailed the Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda to her home and overhears the young women express her interest in the young man at church who she hopes is not a noble man but someone poor such as student. He pretends to be so on making contact and gaining the support of her maidservant Giovanna who he sends away. Hearing sounds which she assumes her father returning she sends the Duke away declaring in her interest in him. The blindfolded Rigoletto then aids the group in kidnapping his daughter who they spirit away leaving him horrified when he realises he is at his home and his daughter has gone. He remembers the curse laid on him.
In the one scene second Act Rigoletto returns to the Palace believing it is the Duke who the most likely to have taken his daughter. In fact it is the Duke who learning what his courtiers have done rescues her and then declares his interest without disclosing his position. The courtiers make fun of Rigoletto for having made fun of then and when he explains about the loss of his daughter instead of owning up they beat him up but he manages to finds his distressed daughter who tells him to send everyone else away. Rigoletto convinced the Duke is behind the kidnapping talks of revenge but the girl pleads for the young man with whom she has become infatuated. As with Miranda in the Tempest both women have been kept away from young men and fall for the first male to show an interest.
In the third Act the Duke visits the Inn run by the assassin and his sister and he sings the famous aria La donna é mobile -women re fickle. He is heard by Gilda and her father who are passing by and she then witnesses him attempting to seduce the willing sister. The Duke has previously expressed genuine interest and loving concern for Gilda and a willingness to mend his ways at the commencement of the second Act but the availability of the woman is too much for him and he reverts to his natural ways.
Rigoletto bargains with the Assassin to kill the Duke who because of a storm spends the night at the Inn. Rigoletto persuades his daughter to leave the city, disguised wearing the clothes of a man. The sister has genuine affection for the Duke and on learning that her brother has been paid to kill him pleads with him not to do so but kill the first person available. Gilda overhears the plot and despite knowing the behaviour of the Duke sets out to save him by dressed as a man calling on the Inn.
Rigoletto returns to the Inn at midnight to remove the killed man in a sack to be dumped in the river. He has to see the body for his revenge to be complete and only then sees the body of his beloved daughter. He remembers the curse and collapses. Given that I was unaware of the story the ending is something of a shock although the emotions aroused are very different from those in the opening scene.
The opera is a tour de force for Dimitri Platinias as Rigoletto who made his name when playing the role with the Greek National Opera and this is his Convent Garden debut. I thought his performance outstanding. The Duke is played by the Italian Vittorio Griglo who once appeared in a version of West Side Story with James Goldofini before turning to Opera He made his debut at the Royal Opera House in Faust as the lead. Gilda is played by Ekaterina Siurina having previously performed the role in a production at the Metropolitan.
In a piece about important cultural experience of the year 2012 I debate whether to make reference to the late night low budget (85000 dollars) Nude Nuns Big Guns. Seeing such a title while scrolling through the film channels was irresistible despite anticipating sacrilegious violence and pornography. It is about the worse example of the everything does society. It portrays Roman Catholic Clrgy producing hard drugs using half naked nuns and selling to the criminal underworld. When one of the nuns decides take revenge ion her abusers she is provided with a powerful pair of hand guns although over time he arsenal of weaponry increases and she destroys everyone in sight, clergy, nun, whore and gangster. In the final act she removes the appendage of the chief civilian. It is one of those films where you quickly lose count of the number of slaughters and topless young women. I stayed mesmerised in disbelief.
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