An Electronic Journal for the Exchange of Information
on Current Research, Publications and Productions
concerning
Oscar Wilde and His
Circles
Vol II. No. 3
March 2002
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Notice of the ninth (February) issue of THE OSCHOLARS was transmitted to 523 readers. Since then, the number of those registered as readers of the journal has risen to 568 in thirty-five countries, the great majority in one or other of 229 universities or university colleges from Alabama to Zadar. THE OSCHOLARS is also subscribed in the City Library, Ystad, Sweden; the National Library of Ireland; the Library of Trinity College, Dublin; and the Library of the Instituto de Artes del Espectáculo, University of Buenos Aires.
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Plans continue for 'Staging Wilde', the first OSCHOLARS colloquium on Oscar Wilde, which will take place in Senate House, University of London, on Tuesday 25th June in collaboration with the Institute of English Studies www.sas.ac.uk/ies/conferences. Expanded details of this will continue to be given in THE OSCHOLARS. The fee for the day will be £25.00, £15.00 concessions. Coffee/tea and biscuits will be provided, and lunch facilities are available in Senate House at the Macmillan Restaurant. We hope that the day will conclude with a reception. Please regard this notice as a Call for Papers. All those giving papers will have the option of publishing them in a special supplement to THE OSCHOLARS. Numbers are limited to one hundred; all bookings up to 1st May will be at the concessionary rate. (Cheques, money orders should be made out to THE OSCHOLARS.) As the Colloquium will be widely promoted, we urge early booking. Speakers so far engaged are Yvonne Brewster, director of the Talawa Theatre Company, who will talk about her 1989 all-black production of The Importance of Being Earnest; Robert Gordon, Reader in Drama and Head of the Drama Department at Goldsmiths College, on the staging of the 'society plays' in Britain the last decade; Robert Tanitch, author of Oscar Wilde On Stage and Screen (London: Methuen 1999); Frederick Roden, Assistant Professor of English, University of Connecticut, on 'Staging Wilde in the Classroom'. |
As always, suggestions for improvements, additions and above all corrections, to THE OSCHOLARS are very welcome.
There is a new section this month, 'And I? May I say nothing?', in which from time to time points from our own research will be published. Readers who wish to publish articles should first consider The Wildean, contacts for which are to be found below. As a print journal, The Wildean is more substantial than THE OSCHOLARS, although we each believe the other is complementary to our own endeavour. That said, readers may wish to submit articles for consideration that are too long for the Notes and Queries section and too short for The Wildean or elsewhere. We are certainly not going to publish our own musings and refuse to consider those of others.
The April issue will see the introduction of a new correspondence section. This will be a link from our homepage to a JISCmail page. JISCmail is the (British) National Academic Mailing List, the equivalent of the North American LISTSERV, and will function throughout the month. It operates in a way not dissimilar to Yahoo discussion groups, but is linked to other academic sites. It will only be accessible to readers of THE OSCHOLARS, who will be able to inaugurate their own discussions and controversies where these are germane to the purposes of THE OSCHOLARS. We will use it to announce news that arrives after our copydate, and we also hope it will serve in particular to keep student readers in touch with one another.
Nothing in THE OSCHOLARS© is copyright to the Journal (although it may be to individual writers) unless indicated by ©,and the usual etiquette of attribution will doubtless be observed. Please feel free to download it, re-format it, print it, store it electronically whole or in part, copy and paste parts of it, and (of course) forward it to colleagues.
As usual, names emboldened in the text are those of subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS, who may be contacted through Melmoth@aliceadsl.fr. Underlined text in blue can be clicked for navigation through the document or to other addresses.
One innovation in this issue has been introduced to help
navigation. By clicking on any Green Carnation displayed thus ,. To return to our hub page, click ; and for THE
OSCHOLARS home page, click . [Noted added February
2007: with our move to www.oscholars.com some attempt has been
made to standardise these navigational aids throughout all issue.]
The bust of Oscar Wilde displayed above is by the Irish sculptor Jeanne Reinhart; photograph kindly supplied by Claudia Letat (Oscar Wilde- Ode an ein Genie). The Spanish translation of 'There is only one thing worse than being talked about' has been kindly supplied by Irene Lukasch of BuenosAires.
The technical assistance of Dr John Phelps of Goldsmiths College has been invaluable; but the errors remain the Editor's.
Editor: D.C. Rose
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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16. Any topic |
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20. Collaboration |
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5. Broadcasts |
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22. Trickster's Way |
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23. The Importance of Being Arthur (new call) |
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III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC |
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25. Victorian Ireland (second call) |
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26. Scope |
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1. Film |
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2. Exhibitions |
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c. Phil May |
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3. Talks |
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4. Conferences |
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10. Arts and Crafts |
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13. Wallpaper |
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14. Wilde dimensions |
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15. 'Lesbian Lives' |
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a. Boèce |
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6. Broadcast |
VII. 'MAD, SCARLET MUSIC' |
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7. Red House |
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1. Australia |
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2. England |
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3. France |
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4. Germany |
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5. Italy |
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6. Scotland |
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7. USA |
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8. Wales |
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IX. THE OTHER OSCAR |
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10. Emigration / Immigration in Irish Literature and Theatre |
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XII. A WILDE MARCH |
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I. GUIDANCE FOR SUBMISSIONS
Publication is on the last day of each month(or if this is not possible, the first day of the next); copydate is not later than the 25th.
Please specify if you wish your e-mail address to be included.
Work in Progress: Please give the provisional title, status (e.g. article, book, M.A. Dissertation, Ph.D. thesis etc.)and where appropriate your university affiliation.
Publications: Full title, publisher, place and date of publication as usual, ISBN if possible.
Notices: If you are kindly submitting notices of events, such as conferences, productions, broadcasts or lectures, please include as many details as you can: venue, date, time, and contact address if possible or relevant.
Notes & Queries: Please keep these reasonably short, and use the new section 'And I? May I say nothing?' for longer pieces.
II. NEWS FROM SUBSCRIBERS
1. Publications and Papers
Trevor Fisher's Oscar and Bosie, A Fatal Passion will be published on 18th March by Sutton Publishing at £20 stg. Hardback. ISBN 0750924594. It will be reviewed in THE OSCHOLARS by Alan Sinfield.
Merlin Holland will be talking on 'No place; no date; wrong envelope; the problems and pleasures of editing the letters of Oscar Wilde' at the Crescent Arts Centre, University Road, Belfast on Saturday 16th March. This is an event of Between the Lines, Belfast's Literary Festival, 14th - 23rd March. Bookings and enquiries 028 90 242338.
Claudia Letat's Oscar Wilde - Standing Ovations continues to expand its coverage at http://home.arcor.de/Oscar.wilde/start.htm.
Philip E. Smith writes 'I'm editing the MLA Approaches to Teaching the Works of Oscar Wilde; the first call for contributors appeared in the Fall of 2000 and there is now a full table of contents for the proposed volume which is under consideration by editors and referees. However, additional responses to the questionnaire about current approaches to teaching would be welcome. If you'd like to receive an e-mail copy, please write and I'll send one. For the volume I'll write an introductory section discussing current approaches based on the returned questionnaires and the situation of teaching Wilde in universities.'
Department of English, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Fax (412) 661-1303
v Philip E. Smith is co-editor with Michael Helfand of Oscar Wilde’s Oxford Notebooks - A Portrait of a Mind in the Making, Oxford University Press 1989.
NOTE ADDED MARCH 2006 and updated February 2007: This Volume is still in the making. – Ed. THE OSCHOLARS.
The Newsletter of the Oscar Wilde Society, in a 'new series' under the title Intentions has evolved in recent times and is now issued six times a year containing details of events for Society members, public events of Wildean interest, and brief notices of publications whose contents are primarily or more incidentally Wildean. The current Intentions (No. 18 - February 2002) mentions among a number of others, Peter Ackroyd's The Collection, Terry Eagleton's The Gatekeeper, the first issue of Boèce: revue romande des sciences humaines and Laurel Brake's Print in Transition 1850-1910: Studies in Media History.
The notes about events for members include those forthcoming, such as the Society visit to Dieppe and Berneval, and accounts of recent occasions (which in previous years were more often covered in The Wildean). In the current issue, we recount the Society's visit to Trinity College in the company of a witty and knowledgeable guide, an author's lunch with Matthew Sweet (Inventing the Victorians) and a meeting at the Shaw Society where Neil Titley and Barry Morse put their hobbyhorses (Wilde and Shaw) to the joust. The Annual Birthday Dinner is also described, both the talk by Patrick Garland and the souvenir menu with its facsimile of the programme for George Alexander's 1902 revival of Earnest.
For further details of the Society and its publications see below.
—and for the record:
A lecture Oscar Wilde in Context: Drama, Meaning and Material Culture by Joel Kaplan (Universityof Birmingham) was held at King's College, London, on 23rd January. We regret that we learned of this too late to include it in the January edition of THE OSCHOLARS.
A lecture Peacocks and Pearls: Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt by John Stokes (King's College, University of London) was held at King's on 27th February. We regret that we learned of this too late to include it in the February edition of THE OSCHOLARS
Photograph of Sarah Bernhardt courtesy of Mark
Rimmel's website The Sarah Bernhardt Pages
2. The Oscar Wilde Societies
The inaugural celebration of the new Oscar Wilde Society of America, founded by Marilyn Bisch and Joan Navarre, will be held in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, the weekend of Saint Patrick's Day 2002.
Marilyn Bisch writes
Information on the Society , including a schedule of events for the Saint Patrick’s Day Weekend celebration of the society's inaugural in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, are now available on-line.
The address is: http://www.indstate.edu/humanities/owsoa.htm
The society is especially pleased to announce that in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of Oscar’s visit to the Twin Cities, Mayor Randy C. Kelly, has officially proclaimed Saturday, 16th March, 'Oscar Wilde Day' in the city of Saint Paul.
'Oscar Wilde Day' special events will include participation of society members and supporters in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade through downtown Saint Paul, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and a general meeting of the Oscar Wilde Society of America, from 2 to 5 p.m., at the Saint Paul Hotel.
The meeting is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. A registration form is available at the OWSOA web page, as are contact addresses for those desiring further information.
The officers of the society would like to thank all those who responded to the announcement of the society’s foundation in THE OSCHOLARS February issue. Such kind and generous offers of support are truly a hallmark of Wilde scholarship, and are greatly appreciated.
The officers of the Society are
Marilyn Bisch, President; Department of Humanities; Root Hall A-140; Indiana State University; Terre Haute, IN 47809. telephone 812.237.8272. e-mail hubisch@scifac.indstate.edu
Joan Navarre, Vice President; e-mail jnavarre@hotmail.com
Richard Freed, Treasurer; English Department; Case Annex 488; Eastern Kentucky University; Richmond, Kentucky 40475. e-mail Richard.Freed@eku.edu
John B Thomas III, Secretary; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center; The University of Texas at Austin.
Donald Mead (Oscar Wilde Society, Great Britain) has provided Society's events programme for the first half of 2002. These events are only open to members of the Society, but details of membership may be obtained by reference to the Society's section of THE OSCHOLARS (see below).
3rd to 5th May: Weekend in Dieppe and Berneval.
20th July: Lunch at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Colleen Platt, who founded the internet Oscar Wilde Discussion Group, has withdrawn as List Owner/Moderator. It is now being run by Ms Platt's co-moderator, Rob Stoddard, who is Administrator of the Institute of European Studies at the University of British Columbia, and John Cooper has become the new co-moderator. Ms Platt built up the group from scratch to its present membership of 241, and we hope to see her name associated with other Wilde endeavours. The Group, which also discusses the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oscarwilde
3. Wilde on the Curriculum
We decided to broaden out our Wilde on the Curriculum feature by instigating a discussion on VICTORIA, which has brought us a number of new readers. We present here a synoptic view of the points made (all but two, interestingly enough, from North America). The focus was chiefly on The Importance of being Ernest. We also asked about sensitivities to Wilde’s attitudes, involving 'the hideous Jew', Mr Isaacs. Of course the phrase is Dorian's, not authorial. Would any of the earlier contributors to this section like to return to the task?
Heather Schell (Georgetown University) taught The Importance of Being Earnest in two classes last year at the Hamilton Campus of Miami University of Ohio, an open enrolment two-year campus in the rural Midwestern U.S. The enrolees were primarily first-generation college students, in a British Literature survey class, as well as in the segment on plays in the Composition and Literature sections. Each classput on a rough production of the play, with every student participating in at least one act. They got some credit toward their final grade for their work on the project, which gave everyone some extra incentive. The smallest roles were given to the students with literacy problems, while the most talented students took the more challenging parts. Each act had its own director, and one class day was devoted to reading the play through. Dr Schell answered questions about content and pronunciation during this reading. Every group was required to meet outside of class for at least one rehearsal; some groups met more often. The students who felt overwhelmed at the prospect of memorizing the lines were given permission to read from their scripts during the performance. Having to work through the lines in order to perform in class forced the students to figure out the meaning. By the date of the class performances (the audience comprised of students not performing in any given act), everyone got the jokes. It didn't seem to matter that they'd needed the jokes explained to them only a week earlier - they enjoyed the play as though everything were fresh. On their class evaluations, many students noted Earnest as their favorite reading. Dr Schell adds 'Many faculty might not want to devote so much class time to a single play, but I found it quite rewarding.'
Eva Badowska (Fordham University) has been teaching Earnest in a number of contexts. Ina sophomore seminar in comparative literature at Harvard (when she was a Lecturer there some years ago), she used it to open up questions of 'naming', going on to read Saussure, Barthes, and Lacan. Now, she teaches it in a completely different context, the 19th/20th century survey which is required of majors at Fordham. In this context, Dr Badowska focuses on Wildean refractions of æstheticism through irony (having read fragments from Pater the week before). 'I also teach it - I can just hear a collective gasp of horror - in my freshman writing class. There, we often perform scenes and focus primarily on the notion of "wit." Students then writea close reading of a chosen scene analyzing the workings of wit within it ("Bunburying" in Act I is a clear favorite). Actually, I think my freshmen enjoy it a lot, though enjoyment doesn't necessarily equal comprehension.'
Others also referred to comprehension. Chris Willis (Birkbeck College, University of London) wrote that cultural differences did emerge: 'I suspect that there may be a bit of a culture gap here. In the UK the play is so frequently seen on stage, TV and in endless amateur productions that it's almost inescapable (as a child, my partner once saw three different productions of it in a fortnight!) So most students had seen (or even taken part in) productions of it before we studied it. And we did begin by showing extracts from a video - I defy anyone to keep a straight face while watching Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell!' There is a real difference (not just a distinction) about the way a wider American audience and a wider British one will respond to a text, especially if it focuses on a critique of the upper class and the hierarchy of Britain.'
In the experience of Lisa Jadwin (St. John Fisher College, New York) who has taught Earnest usually in the context of a 19th /20th century survey, there has been incomprehension from students ('I [...] understand the frustration of trying to explain the humor to a group of grumpy and stone-eyed students.') Part of this, she thinks, 'stems from their relative inexperience as readers, and extends to other satirical Victorian texts like Vanity Fair'. Professor Jadwin goes on to raise rather more critical issues: 'The ideological assumptions of the jokes critique, however, seem to me to be more postmodern than Victorian, and this may account for many students' resistance to the humor of the play as well as their delight when they "get" the gist. I have had some success in sending them on a joke-finding mission before our first discussion of the play - they are instructed to mine the first act for Wilde’s neatly inverted jokes, which they then are required to categorize ("money and credit," "loveless marriage," "lying"). Then when we meet as a class, we scrutinize the patterns that have become evident - and address the question, "Why are these critiques presented as jokes?"
'Ultimately this makes it possible for us to address the way Wilde has reconfigured "earnestness" as accessible only through irony and indirection.
'While this doesn't necessarily help them get the scintillating humor of the play, it at least helps them see how Wilde is operating, and occasionally one of them starts to roar at Lane's preposterous whopper that "there were no cucumbers to be had at the market, even for ready money" (probably as they consider their own credit-card debt).'
Professor Jadwin adds of the Anthony Asquith film 'though it may seem dated, the performances are so delightful that even the most resistant students invariably make the trip over to the library to watch the whole thing. Then again, maybe they're just avoiding reading.' Academic cynicism apart, this does help explain the popularity of Wilde in America for theatre audiences, and it would seem that these students, even if they will not turn into literary exegesists, will at least support the stage!
Sheldon Goldfarb (University of British Columbia, Canada) also taught The Importance of Being Earnest to a first-year class, 90% of whom were Chinese students, essentially a remedial class for students for whom English was a second language. 'One amusing incident that I remember concerns a student in the class who was named Ernest. I asked him to explain the difference between "earnest" and "Ernest." The word "earnest," he correctly defined as meaning serious. And Ernest, I asked? "That's my name," he said.
'I have a sense that the class may in some ways have had less trouble with Wilde than a class full of North American-born students might have, because many of them were from Hong Kong and had had a British-influenced upbringing. Unfortunately, I never taught the play again, so cannot compare the ESL experience with a native English one.'
Mary Lenard (University of Wisconsin-Parkside) provided a more detailed approach to Wilde.
'One technique that has always helped my students to "get" the humor of a Wilde play is to set aside a particularly funny scene (in The Importance of Being Earnest I always use that part of Act 1 from when Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen come in to Lady Bracknell's exit) and tell the students that they will be reading it aloud in class the next class day. Have students volunteer for different roles, and tell them to look over their parts, so they can put some feeling into their "acting." If there is hesitation about volunteering, first get someone to do Algernon's manservant, Lane (Lane only has one line in the section of the play that I use) and this assignment of a "bit part" to someone always gets a laugh and loosens things up enough so that other people volunteer for the bigger roles. I do Lady Bracknell myself unless a particularly enthusiastic student asks to do it. The reading is always fun and the volunteer students do a good job, although there is some stumbling over unfamiliar words. Sometimes, I will have a particularly good actor wanna-be who will do a great performance in a role - one semester, for example, I had a young African-American woman who did a creditable Lady Bracknell. I have found that listening to their peers' rendition of these wonderfully absurd lines gets a few giggles outof even the toughest class.
'I agree that the 1950's movie with Edith Evans and Michael Redgrave is great, but it helps to have the students get into the drama a little themselves too.'
Julie Melnyk (University of Missouri, Columbia) says that she always teaches The Importance of Being Earnest at the end of her Victorian survey course, showing the film and even serving cucumber sandwiches - 'with dainty cookies provided for the less adventurous'. The week is invariably a success: the students, having just finished a semester of engagement with Victorian culture, not only get the jokes butare pleased with themselves for getting them. The final exam then introduces each essay question with a quotation from the play: most of the topics get at least an epigram from Wilde.
Sheldon Goldfarb replied to this that it reminded him that when he taught it, though it was not in the wake of teaching high Victorian texts, he made a point of noting various Victorian attitudes that Wilde was sending up. For instance, after drawing the Ernest-earnest dichotomy out of my student Ernest, he went on to note that earnestness was a Victorian ideal which Wilde was mocking by, in this play, making it important tobe Ernest rather than earnest.
There are other culture gaps. Dr Badowska noted that whenever she describes what cucumber sandwiches are to her students, they invariably make noises of profound disgust. 'Where is this coming from? Especially from a generation that grew up on peanut butter and jelly!' Dr Lenard, however, added the useful information that with cucumber sandwiches, it helps to remove the seeds from the cucumber slices (because then you have less sliminess and slipping around of the cucumber slices),and to press out as much extra liquid as you can with layers of paper towel. (Various recipes for cucumber sandwiches were given by correspondents, to which we may return one day: meanwhile we content ourselves by fishing from our crane bag the recollection that in Dutch the 'silly season' is known as 'cucumber time'.)
Richard Fulton (Whatcom CommunityCollege, Washington) is teaching The Importance of Being Earnest in his English Literature survey course, pairingthe reading with a video of the 1950s film, using Wilde as an example of the fin-de-siècle in English literature: (I'm trying to trace a number of cultural and artistic attitudes in the survey rather than simplystart in one century and march stolidly on to the present'.
Moving away from the plays, Margot Louis (University of Victoria, Canada) wrote that she taught "Impressions" and" Symphony in Yellow" near the end of her Victorian Poetry course, and bring in some Whistler for context. 'Usually there are one or two bright and/or artistic souls who thoroughly enjoy this, and others who are baffled. WhenI teach first-year lit., I always include The Importance of Being Earnest, but it's some years since I gave that course. I have taught The Picture of Dorian Gray (also some years ago), and it was very popular; in a Victorian Poetry and Prose course, I included The Critic as Artist and The Portrait of Mr. W. H.'
Meri-Jane Rochelson (Florida Internationa lUniversity) has also been teaching Dorian Gray both to undergraduates ,and in her graduate course. Referring to Mr Isaacs, while stressing that this is not her finally developed view of the point, Dr Rochelson writes 'It seems to me that Wilde, while incorporating the bigoted view of his time, also partly salvages this character by noting his insistence in producing the classics of drama in his seedy East End venue. And "others" in Wilde should always be looked at closely,I think'.
Finally, Sondeep Kandola (Birkbeck College, University of London) wrote:
'Just to add to the Wilde teaching experiences - whilst teaching a seminar on new historicism/cultural materialism last week ... I looked at ideas of surveillance in Wilde’s The Sphinx Without A Secret which actually worked really well -perhaps I was blessed with a particularly bright group but my students' conceptualisation of surveillance/gender roles was really heightened by using this piece - so that is one of Wilde’s stories that I'd definitely recommend using especially when compared to the poem The Sphinx.'
4. Work in Progress
Mary Callaghan writes
I am a final year PhD student at the Department of Music, Queen's University of Belfast. The subject of my thesis is Richard Strauss's opera, Salome. I am dealing primarily with the issue of meaning. This is being approached from two angles: firstly, what Salome meant to the composer, and secondly, what it meant to his contemporaries. The first line of enquiry involves my examining the composer's sketchbooks, annotated copy of the play, and his personal correspondence with colleagues and friends in which Salome is mentioned. The musical setting is also examined, with particular attention being paid to the nature and development of the thematic material, and the symbolic use of instrumentation and key. The second part of the study is an investigation into the early reception history of the opera in various cities (Dresden, Graz, Paris, London, New York). The response of critics, other composers, and music lovers as found in concert reviews, educational booklets on the work, journal articles, and personal recollections is examined.
Tiffany MacEnroe (Royal Holloway College, University of London) is working on the influence on Yeats and Joyce of the Irish poet James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849) for a Ph.D. Mangan was so much an '1890s' figure half a century early that other traces of him in the works and correspondence of the 1890s writers may be found. We would welcome any report of such sightings.
5. Broadcasts
We know of no broadcasts by subscribers in March, and refer readers to the News from Elsewhere section
6. The Swedish Connection
The award to Sir William Wilde of the Swedish order of the Polar Star is well-known, as are Speranza's Swedish enthusiasms. Irene Gilsenan-Nordin writes 'The English Department at Högskolan Dalarna is in the process of applying for external funding for a project which aims to establish a Research Centre for Irish Studies (RECIS). The project aims to set up a national and international network, facilitating student and teacher exchange in the form of jointly run courses, conference and seminar activities, and through joint research projects. These activities will enhance an exchange of ideas between scholars of different nationalities and specialities, by providing a forum for Swedish and international experts in various fields of Irish studies.'
Anybody interested in this should contact Dr Gilsenan-Nordin at ign@du.se. We hope for some stimulation of Swedish interest in Sir William and Speranza.
7. The Nightingale and the Rose
One of the more unusual Oscar Wilde manifestations, and a very welcome one, is a version of The Nightingale and the Rose as a play for radio. This has been created as a school project by Anna Baumann and Andrea Thür, of the Kantonsschule im Lee, Winterthur, Switzerland, where they are in their last year. There is a frame-story of how they came to choose The Nightingale and the Rose, and then the dramatisation, with the authors reading the parts. Ms Thür plays the piano in the beginning of the radio play and at the end, and also while singing the duet between the Oak tree and the Nightingale. Ms Baumann plays the piano when the Nightingale sings to the Oak tree. This has been recorded on a CD. We hope to hear more of this.
III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC
We hope to carry at least one review in each issue.
1. Salome in Copenhagen
by Peter Hyldekjær
In November 2001 and January/February 2002 the Royal Theatre has revived the production (and now co-production) of Salome from Jyske Opera(1999).
The Opera is as a willing stroke, that goes from sensual decadence to a black destructive fable, staged and produced by Michael Melbye with 'updated' soldiers wearing uzis and Herod wearing a dinner jacket under the oriental coat. Now and then meet Modernity on stage.
Salome - the 16 year old formidable manipulator - a victim of her surroundings- is sung brilliantly by soprano Tine Kiberg (Jan./Feb.2002) though in her acting less dangerous than Inga Nielsen (November 2001). Less bite in the kiss.
Herod (Ole Hedegaard) as an old buffer in his vices' grip and Herodias (diva Lone Koppel- 40th anniversary next week) as a depraved relic of a man-eater with mechanical flirting - strong and hysterical at the same time – make a unique couple. (Kjeld Christoffersen) mpresses with his pressive baritone. Michael Schoenwandt conducts Strauss with a great precision and the main orchestral passages are highlights in the performance.
In this present and almost perfect work of art, Salome is not killed by the soldiers' shields - the page kills her with the dagger by which Narraboth committed suicide.
Though a great performance, this opera would have benefitted from a bigger stage.
v Peter Hyldekjær is Librarian of Denmark's International Study Programme.
2. Salomé in Ghent
by Eva Thienpont
"Grensbewoners" is a project set up by Publiekstheater/Arca in order to provide young directors with a platform for their experimental productions. The first performance in this series was Oscar Wilde’s Salomé as interpreted by Gil Renders. The cast assembled at Arca were all of them amateur actors, and the performance did not really benefit from their lack of professionalism. The budget was very tight, and this showed in the absence of a unified costume design and scenery. Nevertheless, the director's vision lent an undeniable interest to the performance. A bath tub and a duplicated princess are the most striking trademarks of Renders' Salomé.
Renders has, like so many directors, not been able to resist the temptation of changing the text of the play she is presenting. With a cast of six actors, she has got rid of all those among Herod's courtiers who are not necessary to the three intersecting love stories in the play. She retains the Page, the Young Syrian, Iokanaan, Herod and Salomé (x2).
The main question that arises when one watches Renders' Salomé is why she cut Herodias. Leaving out the Queen of Judea is, it can be argued, not necessarily an improvement to the text. For one, Renders reassigns some of Herodias' lines to Herod and Salomé, which unfortunately creates an inconsistency of characterisation. Her Herod claims not to believe in miracles because he has seen too many - a claim characteristic of his down-to-earth queen, but strangely incongruent with the Tetrarch's awareness of portents and his anxiety at the news that Christ raises the dead.
Herod is the main victim of Herodias' disappearance, because with her an important dimension to his rich character is lost. The audience does not find out that Herod is the son of a camel-driver and has by intrigue and murder won his throne. Renders' Herod is not an ambitious winner who takes it all, but rather a softened version of the self-indulgent ruler.
One would expect Salomé to benefit from her mother's disappearance, as Renders has apparently cut the queen in order to have two actresses to play the princess, an idea that is not uninteresting in itself. Unfortunately, the duplication of Salomé is the most disappointing of Renders' interventions. One Salomé speaks the part, whereas the second remains mute.