NSFW:
http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf
June 14, 2010
In Flight Entertainment
Lisa Hirsch makes a strong case that Francesca Zambello's Valkyries were probably conceived well before this brilliant little bit of marketing hit the airwaves, but I'm not so sure. My thought is if Zambello is going to subject the audience to the silly and distracting gimmick of parachuting Valkyries, she should have just gone all the way. I'd like to suggest this would be a great improvement over her beginning of Act III of Die Walkure than the one currently on display at The War Memorial Opera House:
NSFW:
http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf
NSFW:
http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf
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Made my day. (Big grin) Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHappy to be of assistance in that endeavor.
ReplyDeleteArgh - Blogger lost my first attempting at replying. (John...this doesn't look like the default Blogger commenting system. Curious what you're using.)
ReplyDeleteI was gonna say, it's 2010, and what's a director to do with the Ride of the Valkyries? Wagner's stage directions have four of them on stage when the curtain goes up. Then several are seen at a distance on horses flying across the sky, with dead heroes draped across their saddles. Then they make their entries from the wings, in theory hauling the heroes bodies', because there is discussion about them and who to put next to each other (some are enemies).
It'd be easy to execute his instructions literally, with projections or puppets or something. I don't think it would work too well in the context of this production, though there might be others where it would work. Or might get a lot of laughs.
I do believe it's intended to be an entertaining spectacle, though!
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI've had major issues with the new Blogger design template and I don't like it at all.
Good point about this being 2010 and what to do about the Valkyries? Freyer is a good starting point and you'll have to trust those who've seen it that it is as effective as anything done in Gotterdammerung.
My tongue is somewhat in my cheek regarding doing it as the advert, but the guy flying the plane is definitely Wotan personified. More problematic for me is making the scene into a gimmick, which I think it deserves better than. One idea would be to have the Valkyries on the ground in the same costumes, collecting the bodies of the deceased heroes, casting aside the enemies and illustrating the true horror of casualties of war. I do think the uncredited use of Iraq/Afghansitan dead is a huge faux paus that should be corrected immediately by an insert in the program. To not call that out just seems offesnsive to me, especially given the lack of interest and involvement/shared sacrifice on the part of the American public regarding these wars and the people who've died in them.
Thus, this scene as "entertaining spectacle" offends me much more than if it were played for babes and boobs ala the video, which would at least reflect America's true interest and attention span.