Word: stageful
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...face of it, conductor Daniel Hathaway seemed to have limited his ambition to a formal concert performance without dialogue. Actually he failed to resist the temptation of doing Fidelio as a stage production as well...
...furthermore decided that the work would be performed in Sanders Theatre, which except for its size has very little to recommend it as an auditorium for music. Vocal sound, particularly when female, tends to get trapped in great pockets of space. The shape of the Sanders stage made it necessary to have the entire chorus stage right, facing stage left at right angles to the audience--a position not in the least conducive to projection. Moreover, Sanders is across the street from the fire station, and the wailing sirens interrupted the concert several times...
...combined the worst of both alternatives. Bass David Ripley kept the audience informed with bits of plot summary between musical numbers. Fidelio's typical rescue-opera plot was ridiculous distilled into narrative prose and recited with a straight face. Furthermore, Hathaway had his soloists marching on and off stage, simulating the enrtances and exits of a stage performance. These movements were ill-planned, ill-timed and meaningless...
While some of the soloists moved about the stage as if they were acting, others executed their parts straight-forwardly from stand or hand-held score. The production never decided what it was going to be. As a result the audience never knew if it was supposed to be caught up in the drama of the thing or appreciating the work for its pure musical value. The awkward silence preceeding the applause after each number was a telling sign of the audience's confusion...
...House shows try to disguise what they are by converting dining rooms, junior common rooms et al. into ordinary theatres or close approximations thereof. Kay Bourne, the director of Burnering, uses a wood-panelled junior common wall for a backdrop, windows for entrances and exits, and a simple platform stage. Through imaginative, deliberate use of lighting, Miss Picker's hour long play is staged without interruption and with only...