Setting the Stage, Staging the Set:
Staged and Filmed Interpretations of Theatrical and Operatic
Moments
Harai Golomb
1. Preliminary Remarks
The title of this lecture, inspired by this year’s summer-school theme,
demonstrates that terms borrowed from one field or discipline can often contribute to
understanding certain phenomena in another. Thus, I hope to show that the concept of
setting can inspire a fresh way of analysing the production and performance of plays
and operas on stage and screen, though the term setting is rarely used in the study of
the arts (искусствоведение) and in performance analysis.
Indeed, this term is used (at least in English) in various senses, and one of them
is stage-design; the term is also closely related to the concept of frame, which is crucial
to the understanding of all arts: this latter term stresses the demarcation line between
the autonomous work of art, which is set within a frame, on the one hand, and the
world around and outside this framed artistic text, on the other hand.
This lecture is confined to analysing examples of the way settings are made to
function in two closely related arts — opera and theatre; indirectly, it also comments on
setting and framing through the process of photographing staged productions for the
big screen of cinema and the small screen of television. The chief protagonist whose
work will be examined is the Director (режиссёр): mainly the stage director for the live
performance in the theatre, but also the film/television director, who is responsible for
the way the production is photographed for viewing on screen. The theatre director at
first sets the stage and then stages the set. By the former phrase (setting the stage) I
mean that the director prepares the stage and makes it ready for a specific work of art
(usually play or an opera) originally composed as a text on paper; by the latter phrase
(staging the set) I mean the process by which the director turns a lifeless, immobile
array of objects/props into a structured and theatrically meaningful set, i.e., the design,
the visual component of the total production on stage.
The 20th century was in many ways the era of the directors, who have often
become more important than actors and authors alike in the production of operas,
plays, films, and television programmes. Directors of film, television and video
productions are probably most important in our time, since they control what countless
audiences consisting of millions of people may experience from the moment of
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photographing the performance till doomsday (because the filmed document — unlike
the live theatrical event on stage — is potentially immortal). Indeed, in certain televised
versions of live performances one can sense a potential clash between the directors for
stage and for screen, as the latter can misunderstand, misrepresent, or otherwise
distort the intention of the former. Examples for such situations are not rare, thought
the present lecture is not focused on them.
The growing importance of the electronic director for the screen is a symptom of
the prominence of the visual and spatial elements at the expense of the strictly textual
and auditory ones. The old question of who serves whom (the author of the verbal text,
the music, the director, the conductor etc.) and what is subordinated to what (the text,
the music, the design, etc.) among the components of complex arts like theatre and
opera has become much more acute and complex in our time: the great authors of the
past could not envisage the emergence and diversification of the staging and electronic
means of recording which carry the performances to millions and preserve them for
posterity. What we see on stages and screens is often different from what the original
authors had, or could have had, in mind.
This lecture’s aim is to look at its subject-matter through a microscope rather
than a telescope and to demonstrate, through recorded examples of brief scenes, the
poetics, or artistic policies, of a limited number of directors in recent decades; to show
how these artists’ work interacts with the original authors’ written texts to provide the
visual frame and setting for the audience to observe. My theatrical examples are taken
from two moments in Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1901); my operatic examples are taken
from the works of two central composers from the first two centuries of opera’s
existence: Claudio Monteverdi (17th century) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (18th
century).
2. Textual and Visual Illustrations
2.1. Filming Plays: Two Moments from Chekhov’s Three Sisters
Act 1 of Three Sisters there is largely devoted to Irina’s birthday party a
marginal character, Fedotik, enters the stage (with his friend Rodé) and takes pictures
of the event. This act of photographing tangibly makes time stand still: everyone
freezes motionless when posing for the camera, thus temporarily undermining the
forward-moving time of the theatre. Then Fedotik gives Irina a present — a spinning
top — and activates it, commenting on its exceptional sound. Irina’s only reaction is
“how charming”. This sequence is demonstrated in the Russian production (Video
Example 1), which follows the text quite closely. However, in the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s production (Video Example 2), directed by Trevor Nunn, the director dwells
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much more on the still moments of photography; he lets us ‘see’ the resulting
photographs, and expands on the motionless effect of the circular movement of the
spinning top quite extensively. He inserts this extended moment between the Fedotik’s
introduction of the spinning top and its sound and Irina’s expression of enjoyment and
amazement. While the top is spinning, the camera moves from one character to
another, and every one of them looks thoughtfully at the static–dynamic motionless
spinning. Thus, while keeping Chekhov’s original text intact without any addition or
deletion, the film director stages his set with extra time-frames for each still photograph
and, mainly, for the spinning top. The result is a set of changes in hierarchies and
emphases, stressing the clash between two perceptions of time — directional–linear and
circular–periodical — that is very crucial in the world of Three Sisters. Without changing
any word, then, the director makes an important point about the meaning of the play.
An analogous example is taken Laurence Olivier’s film based on his stage
production of Three Sisters for London’s National Theatre (1970). Before analysing this
production, let us look at the written text first. Act 3 of the play ends when Ol'ga, the
oldest sister, and Irina’, the youngest, have gone to bed very late in a sleepless night
when the town is on fire. Irina pleads with Ol'ga, trying to trade her consent to marry
Baron Tusenbach, which is her elder sister’s wish, for the implementation of their
Moscow dream; she says: “I implore you, let’s go! There is nothing better than Moscow
in the whole world” The two sisters fall asleep, and the curtain falls on Act 3.
Subsequently, Act 4 starts with scenes of farewell: departing officers take their leave
from the local inhabitants who stay behind, in their town. Towards the end of Act 4 (and
the entire play) Chekhov introduces the sounds of the military band playing marches,
thus signalling the departure of the soldiers.
So far Chekhov’s written text. In the gap between the two Acts, however, the
director Laurence Olivier introduces a text less scene, bridging the gap between the two
Acts, which is supposed to be Irina’s dream as she falls asleep. In a somewhat crude
way (you may say, crude Freudian way), this ‘dream’, which is the director’s invention,
brings together visual images from the previous scenes with supposedly irrational logic
of a dream. When the dream (displaying almost all important people and themes in
Irina’s life) is over, the real sounds of the military band playing the imperial anthem
“God save the Tsar” penetrate Irina’s dream from the street. After that, the farewell
scene of Act 4 proceeds exactly as written by Chekhov. Regardless of what we may
think of the crudeness of this ‘dream’, it is a fascinating example of introducing filmframes as rearranging the hierarchy between characters and themes in the play, again,
a new setting without adding or deleting any word in Chekhov’s text.
(Video Example 3).
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2.2. Filming Operas: Moments from Two Centuries’ Classics
1. The Coronation of Poppea [L’incoronazione di Poppea] (1643) is the last opera
written by the first great composer of this art, Claudio Monteverdi (1576–1643). In its
final love-duet Monteverdi’s music conveys various degrees of equilibrium between the
two protagonists, Nerone and Poppea. In the original, both parts were sung by soprano
voices, a woman and a castrato. The effect of voices of equal pitch-range moving ‘neck
to neck’ around each other, here reciprocally ‘caressing’ softly and there reciprocally
‘biting’ tensely — is brought out musically in the Aix-en-Provence festival performance
conducted by Marc Minkowski and directed by Klaus Michael Grüber (Video Example 4).
It is amazing that we hear the voices as two independent lines, because we see where
those voices originate, i.e., in two equally balanced individuals, who focus on
themselves rather than on each other. Almost like sleep walkers, they move towards
each other, then pass each other and go their separate ways, basically ignoring each
other’s existence. It is a very intriguing (but, to my mind, wrong) interpretation,
selectively choosing some aspects of the music while ignoring others (notably the tight
closeness and almost too-sweet harmony created from time to time, which would
suggest more on-stage physical closeness between the two).
Totally different is the effect of a Salzburg Festival version, directed by Michael
Hampe and conducted by René Jacobs, where the voices (and physical presences) of a
man and a woman are used. The interactions between the frame, the gestures, and
their synchronisation with the structures and textures of the music, are so clear that
they hardly need a verbal explanation. Note the subtle differences within the duet
(unlike the previous example, in which one single principle organises the setting of the
piece as a whole). The protagonists here are lovingly aware of each other.
(Video Example 5).
2. Moving from the 17th to the 18th century, let us look at two versions of the
Terzettino in Act I of Così fan tutte. Here I resort to another meaning of the word
setting in English, which also denotes the adaptation of music to a verbal text (the
common phrase is that a certain text is set to certain music). To understand Mozart’s
work in this instance, let us recall the events at this moment in the opera’s plot.
Ferrando and Guglielmo, two fiancés about to get married, have just parted in phoney
tears from their brides, because they are supposedly going to the army (in fact, this is
part of a bet designed to test the ladies’ fidelity). The two ladies, heartbroken, remain
on shore with Don Alfonso, who had masterminded the hoax, and all three, looking at
the boat disappearing in the horizon, sing: “May the winds blow gently and the waves
be calm, and may every element look benignly on our desires!” The music is indeed
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calm and gentle; its last word, desir — like its English equivalent, desire — has different
shades of meaning, ranging from spiritual wish or aspiration to carnal lust. The soft
music, at first, reinforces the lofty and benign elements and undermines the ‘low’, lusty
connotations of the word. However, one dark, ominous, totally surprising chord,
accentuated by sudden change in orchestration and halting the even flow of the music,
appears as the second musical setting of desir, thereby realising its potential for dark
eroticism, which sounds particularly ominous in its setting within the musical and
dramatic context. As if Mozart is saying to us, “take heed, it’s desires/lusts we are
talking about here!” The point is that the entire opera is actually about that ominous,
hard-to-resist yet hard-to-accept desire; thus, this single chord heralds the opera as a
whole.
Most known productions of this terzettino are static: the three protagonists stand
motionless and sing (Video Example 6). In the following example, however, the Director
Peter Sellars makes his singers/actors respond to the way the musical emotional
structure unfolds, mainly through the use of their arms and hands (Video Example 7).
Let me stress that I am quite critical of Sellars’ interpretations of Mozart’s operas,
including this scene. I am just pointing out Sellars’ exceptional attentiveness to the
music’s hidden meanings. He indeed listens to Mozart’s setting of the text to the music,
and underlines it with a setting of his own.
3. A truly exceptional case of stage-setting in interaction with music occurs in
the Finale of Act 2 of Don Giovanni. The murdered Commendatore, in the form of a
statue, comes back to earth to challenge Don Giovanni and offers him a choice: either
to mend his ways and repent, or to go to the other world with him. Focusing on the way
two directors approach the stage setting for this fantastic scene, I will contrast two
important productions: the first is from Salzburg Festival, conducted by Herbert von
Karajan and directed by Michael Hampe, and the second is from a semi-staged
production performed at the Concertgebouw Auditorium in Amsterdam, conceived,
conducted and directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
The scene presents a clash between two protagonists, who are not only opposed
to each other; they represent two totally different worlds in any conceivable way, but
mostly in moral and existential terms: Don Giovanni is a murderer, rapist, adulterer,
libertine, sinner etc.; the Commendatore is his exact opposite: having led a spotlessly
moral and honourable life, he is the murder-victim of Don Giovanni. More importantly in
this context, Don Giovanni is a living mortal, part of the real world, whereas the
Commendatore is a supernatural, ghost-like apparition, a talking and walking statue,
who comes from the ‘other world’ and goes back there. The confrontation and conflict
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between them, then, is not between two men but between the eternal super-human
entities that they represent. It is an abstract, spiritual, unworldly confrontation
The stage, however, is real, tangible, and susceptible to the audience’s senses.
The staged representation of the kind of conflict just described, then, is an exceptional
challenge to any director; it cannot be based on any mimetic principle, for the simple
reason that no human being has ever witnessed the likes of it. The two stage settings
that I am going to contrast are diametrically opposed in meeting this challenge.
The musical language that Mozart uses here is awe-inspiring. It is characterised
musically, inter alia, by very dark colours (a trio of three basses), emotional intensity,
tonal ambiguity and instability, extreme chromaticism, and other frightening effects.
The role of the Commendatore, more than the other two roles, is also marked by nonmelodic leaps and zigzags that dominate the effect of the entire scene and endow it
with inhuman qualities.
The conflict between the two major protagonists culminates
with the following exchange:
Commendatore: Repent! Giovanni: No! Commendatore: Yes! Giovanni: No!
[now the yes/no exchange is repeated three times, followed by] Commendatore: Your
time is up. Here Mozart give purely musical interpretation to the yes/no argument:
every no of Giovanni undermines the tonality (the basic musical key) at the given
moment, and every yes of the Commendatore is an attempt to resolve this ‘threat’ to
the tonality by suggesting a tonally stable solution, which in turn is undermined by
Giovanni’s next no. This sequence could go on ‘till doomsday’, but the Commendatore
has had enough of it. The music, to which he sings the words your time is up, sums up
the entire argument between him and Giovanni, quoting the entire sequence as just
sung by the two, and is then concluded when the Commendatore takes charge and reestablishes the tonal order, which Giovanni is by now powerless to challenge. In short,
Mozart ‘translates into the language of music’ every yes as the voice of musical sanity,
order and stability, whereas every no is a call from hell, suggesting a musical
earthquake that makes the world collapse into an abyss of disorder. In short, Mozart
supplies a musical equivalent to the conflict between the forces of social and moral
order and the satanic forces of chaos.
It is important to understand this nature of the scene in order to understand the
difference between the two interpretations that I am about to show. The Salzburg–
Karajan–Hampe version shows the Commendatore as a superhuman force; he is
remote, almost celestial, a star or planet in the firmament. Giovanni’s rebellion and
challenge is remote from the audience: we, as mortal humans, witness this conflict as
we would watch a natural catastrophe from a distance (Video Example 8).
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On the other hand, the Concertgebouw–Gardiner production (Video Example 9)
brings the conflict down to earth. The Commendatore appears behind the backs of the
audience, accompanied by ‘his’ trombones, and walks down the aisle to meet Giovanni,
who is on stage behind the orchestra. As the point of the yes/no argument approaches,
members of the production team ask members of the audience to stand up and place
themselves between the Commendatore at the back of the auditorium and Giovanni on
the stage. They are told to give hands to each other, and the two audience members on
the two extremes give their hands to the two protagonists — one to Giovanni in front
and the other to the Commendatore in the back. Thus, these audience members form a
human chain that connects Giovanni and the Commendatore. The yes/no argument is
accompanied by movements resembling pulling a rope: audience members are the
‘rope’ pulled in opposing directions by the two protagonists. When the conflict is
resolved by the victorious Commendatore, the human chain is allowed to fall apart, and
all its ‘links’ become once again separate individuals who return to their seats. This
powerful interpretation makes the conflict between Giovanni and the Commendatore a
human, rather than a cosmic one. We, human members of the audience, are the arena
where a battle is waged between Giovanni’s satanic, chaotic and destructive no and the
Commendatore’s orderly, constructive yes. It is an inescapable battle for our souls, here
on earth; it is not a remote battle between superhuman and inhuman forces. This
interpretation, then, is a radical and unusually creative and imaginative use of setting
the stage and staging the set.