Opera and theatre

Opera is just like the musicals, only the music is better, and if they're produced properly, they're much more exciting.  I've always tried to make opera a human story so that people feel emotionally involved.  It mustn't be unbelievable because people need to relate to the characters.  Ken Russell, 1987

1982 The Rake's Progress (Stravinsky)

Russell was invited to direct The Rake's Progress at the prestigious Maggio Musicale festival in Florence.

Russell says "Auden, one of the librettists, gave me a clue via an old programme note in which he stated that he both he and the composer considered their simple talk of moral decay to be a timeless one. Accordingly, my designer, Derek Jarman, and I updated it to Thatcher's Britain"

Gösta Winbergh plays Tom Rakewell (the rake) and Cecelia Gasidia plays Anne Truelove. Nick, the devil, is played by Istvan Gati.  Tom, with walkman, is gradually seduced by Nick with material wealth, and his progress leads to his suicide in the London underground, in the Angel tube station.

Russell and conductor Riccardo Chailly.

1983 Madama Butterfly (Puccini)

Staged in Spoleto, Houston and Melbourne.  Russell's American debut.

Site visitor Michael Thomas Roe says "I saw Ken's production of Madama Butterfly during Spoleto in Charleston.  It was unbelievable.  The "cast" was mingling around outside the opera house (in full costume) and I had this great feeling like I was in the middle of a Ken Russell movie!"

Russell says "I wanted to get across Puccini's message- the real clash between East and West. I mean, I feel the piece was prophetic. Why, for example, should Puccini have chosen to set in in Nagasaki? He could have chosen hundreds of other places in Japan. Well, when I saw that, the rest just fell into place. I worked back from the bomb and ended up in a brothel".  Ken's direction includes Madama Butterfly putting a Mickey Mouse mask on her child to illustrate his Americanization, at the wedding feast the sailors bring cans of beer. Russell ends the opera with the explosion of the atom bomb.

The photos shows Ken Russell directing Rosalind Plowright and Richard Leech in the dream sequence in the Houston version.  The photo is by Ava Jean Mears.

Barry McCauley plays Pinkerton and Catherine Lamy plays Madama Butterfly. John Matheson conducts the Spoleto Festival Orchestra.

1984 The Italian Girl in Tangiers (Rossini)

Staged in Geneva Opera, Switzerland. John Rawnsleyn performed Taddeo.  Russell said "I'm going to base it on a marvellous Bud Abbott and Lou Costello movie called ´Lost in a Harem`.

1984 La Boheme (Puccini)

Staged as part of the Macerata Festival.  The conductor was José Collado, the designer was Richard MacDonald and the roles were played by Cecilia Gasdia (Mimi), Elena Zilio (Musetta), Angelo Romero (Marcello), Giancarlo Ceccarini (Schaunard) and Mario Luperi (Colline).  Thanks to Joseph for the information.

1985 Die Soldaten (Zimmerman)

Staged in Lyon and later the ENO, London.  Ken Russell says "When we did it in Lyon, Nancy Shade, our leading lady, who received ovation after ovation, later told the press that it was the most disgusting, filthy thing she'd ever been associated with".

1985 Faust (Gounod)

Charles Gounod's opera of Goethe's Faust directed by Russell. Singers are Francisco Araiza as Faust, Gabriela Benackova as Helena and Ruggero Raimondi as Mephistofeles. The Wiener Staatsoper is conducted by Erich Binder.  Vienna State Opera.

My original review, based on the poor video, was "Despite the opera including nuns, priests and crucifixes this is a conventional staging of the opera, but no less good. Similar to his restrained work on Judith Paris´ play of Weill and Lenya.  Opening with Faust in his study, a coffin is delivered and a girl removed and placed on a table. She is revived, another Metropolis/ Bride of Frankenstein image (Aria, Dante's Inferno).  Mephistofeles later appears in a flash of smoke.  Faust is in one scene in front of a large fence, with nuns clawing his body through the fence, again a reference to Glenda Jackson in The Music Lovers (also reused in Valentino).  This is the only scene that is typical Ken Russell. But intriguingly the video includes the statement "The Walpurgis Night scene is omitted from this performance". Too many nuns?"

Watching the DVD changes everything.  The DVD shows Ken's visual imagery, Mephistofeles spearing the status of Jesus which then bleeds, the guillotine overshadowing the stage.

1989 Mefistofoles (Boite)

Russell's staging of the opera is also filmed by him and available on video. It is well staged and remains exciting throughout: from the beginning with a workman in the dark holding a torch to the audience, to the ending with the singers disappearing in the smoke.

Russell used all his old tricks on this opera and almost all his themes occur, without the whole collapsing.  Adam and Eve are tempted by a snake which is a vacuum cleaner hose (Lair of the White Worm uses the same image).

There is a crucifixion scene, as well as Nazis throwing nuns into a pit of fire. In one scene a drunk holds a giant beer bottle as if it is a giant dildo. There is a television playing during the performance.  The fridge, when opened, has shelves with a head on one and hands on another (as in the short film Aria).

The performers are Paata Burchuladze, Ottavio Garaventa and Adriana Morelli.  The cover misspells Goethe as Ghoete.

1992 Princess Ida (Gilbert and Sullivan)

	English National Opera at the London Coliseum.  Ken tackles light opera this time.  His London debut.  Russell's staging was highly original in this story set now in 2002 (then 10 years in the future) outside Buck´n´yen Palace. Ken was invited to stage the Gilbert and Sullivan opera when the ENO's production of Tannhäuser was withdrawn as being too costly. The designer was James Merifield, who had just finished working with Ken of Lady Chatterley. Pricess Ida was performed by Rosemary Joshua.   Richard Van Allan played Hildebrand, Mark Curtis was Hilarion and Richard Suart was Gama.
	Predictably the audience were split between those who booed and those who cheered at the end (what's new!!).

1993 Salome (Richard Strauss)

Five years after Ken filmed the Oscar Wilde play, he returns and directs Richard Strauss´opera of the same work. Opera magazine (October 1993) says that "The first-night audience did not enjoy the new work.  Ken Russell returned thanks for their demonstration of displeasure in his own fashion, by bowing with his behind towards the audience".  The singers were Graham Clark (Herod), Helga Deresch (Madame Herodias), David Pittman-Jennings (Jokanaan) Emily Rawlins (Salome), Marcus Haddock (Narraboth), Regina Mauel (the page).  Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Beethovenhalle Orchestra.  It was staged in Bonn.

2000 Weill and Lenya (Paris and Russell)

Russell's directs David McAlister and Judith Paris in the latter's play about composer Kurt Weill and singer wife Lotte Lenya. In London.

It is primarily a musical, with Weill´s songs sung by Paris and McAlister. Weill and Lenya are married having escaped Nazi persecution, but are having difficulties in America both in their married life and professionally. It is a two person show plus two musicians on stage who sometimes join the story, for example doubling as Nazis checking passports.

Russell had already made a television film Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill in 1962. Judith Paris has appeared in Russell's work from Dante's Inferno to Lady Chatterley.  The play is written by Paris with additional dialogue by Russell. This is Russell's first direction of a play as distinct from an opera.