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Dumbing Down?Dateline: 2nd June, 2002 Last week ITV broadcast the Brit Classical Awards. As a classical music fan, I decided to watch although I have to confess that a number of the names touted as being the stars of the show were people with whom I was unfamiliar. In my innocence I assumed that, for instance, Planet and The Opera Babes were somewhat in the could of early Nigel Kennedy: pure classical music in modern dress. Boy, was I wrong! Un Bel Dí sung by two people I could just about accept, but an accompaniment which included relentless huge drums and an all-enveloping soundscape...... Russell Watson singing Jerusalem is fine - although I have to say I don't think Roberto Alagna has got anything to worry about! - but having sexy dancers in short skirts and tops with the cross of St George doing a kind of Pan's People thing in accompaniment was, to say the least, bizarre. I am writing this not half an hour after watching The Prom at the Palace (yes, I often work on Saturday night, sad person that I am!). Angela Gheorgiou simply stood and sang Vissi d'Arte and had me and the 12,000 audience almost in tears, and then she and Alagna lifted us to the heights with a superb performance of the Brindisi from La Traviata. No gimmicks, no modernisation, no popularisation - just sheer, brilliant talent. Dumbing down. That's the modern phrase which we're heard a lot recently, in reference to classical music (Watson, Bond, Planet, the Opera Babes) and TV. We get it in theatre too. Later this week the programme for the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe will be released and there we will almost certainly find some company which has decided to make some great masterwork of theatre "accessible" by dumbing it down. They'll do it to Shakespeare, or possibly one of the Greek tragedies. They'll probably add music, and perhaps a bit of multi-media, and you know what? - it'll be rubbish! Now I've no objection to making Shakespeare or the Greeks accessible by using modern costumes (so many productions), settings (ditto), adding music (Branagh, Edward Hall's Henry V), but I do object to, for example, performing a soliloquy as a rap, or anything else that shows a total lack of sensitivity to the language or the spirit of the play. You can make Shakespeare more accessible by simplifying and adding music (Shakespeare 4 Kidz does it all the time, but they remain true to Shakespeare) - and you can even send it up (as did the wonderful Hamlet the Musical last year), but to try to improve Shakespeare - or Greek tragedy or Wilde or any other play - only succeeds in dumbing down. Those who go along this route should follow the example of the Shakespeare for Dummies authors: they don't bring Shakespeare down to the level of the dummies but try to bring the dummies up to his level! </rant> Articles Indices: |
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