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Response to James Treadwell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

David J. Levin
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Extract

James Treadwell's perceptive and suggestive discussion raises a number of important questions that I am eager to engage. And while Treadwell was rethinking some of my arguments, the Met has unveiled a production of Lohengrin (directed by Robert Wilson) that challenges some of my claims about the Met's steadfast conservatism, especially when it comes to staging Wagner. So I am grateful for the opportunity to rethink some of my original claims and buttress a few as well.

Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 1998 , pp. 307 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 The Met production was directed by Robert Wilson, who also designed the stage and developed the lighting concept; Frida Parmeggiani designed the costumes and James Levine conducted. The cast included Deborah Voigt as Elsa, Deborah Polaski as Ortrud, and Ben Heppner as Lohengrin.Google Scholar

2 For an introductory consideration of Bakhtin's notion of the dialogic and its applicability to theatrical performance, see Carlson, Marvin, ‘Theater and Dialogism’, in Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R., eds. Critical Theory and Performance (Ann Arbor, 1992), 313–23.Google Scholar

3 See Treadwell, , p. 209: ‘Advocating the study of productions on video implies the textual character of the work more emphatically than any critical hypothesis. The videotape can be paused, reversed, speeded up, dwelt over, just like the pages of a book or a score, and entirely unlike a theatrical performance’.Google Scholar

4 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, ‘”Fidelity” to Wagner: Reflections on the Centenary Ring’, in Millington, Barry and Spencer, Stewart, eds. Wagner in Performance (New Haven and London, 1992), 75–98, here 93. Hereafter, Nattiez.Google Scholar

5 Pavis, Patrice, ‘From Page to Stage: A Difficult Birth’, trans. Daugherty, Jilly, in Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, trans. Kruger, Loren (London and New York, 1992), 33–4; emphasis in original.CrossRefGoogle Scholar