I’ve got your TL;DR here for you right here: we left at intermission.
Why, you ask?
- The music was unpleasant. Picture Wagnerian opera sopranos singing discordant meandering jazz.
- And it was all sung, every word, full-throated, operatically, even lines like, “Stella, get me a beer.”
- The question you want answered: Stanley half-yells and half-sings “STELLLAHHHH.”
- The subject matter for Streetcar Named Desire was very toothy for a movie in the fifties, but not toothy enough for an opera — at least not a 2.5-hour-long opera.
- Well, there was one part that wasn’t toothless. You may not know that Blanche catches her young husband with a man, she says he disgusts her, and he kills himself. They took that out of the movie. That was toothy.
- I’m sure it is hard to project vulnerability when you also have to literally project. Vivien Leigh could whisper her lines and look haunted, while Opera Blanche had to sing her lines to the back row.
- Blanche covers the light bulb with the Japanese lantern to soften the light, and that’s just a fire hazard.
So, Anne and I discussed it at the intermission and we agreed we were not keen on seeing the next act when Stanley rapes Blanche, especially given there’d already been a really explicit thrusting sex scene with Stella. Plus, I didn’t want to see him gaslight Blanche. And, really, I just didn’t want to see him, period. I hate to say it, Marlon Brando made Stanley less of an ass just by being so handsome, somehow.
So we left, and when Anne got out of the car she said, “You know, we can’t be sure how it ends. Maybe they re-wrote it like they did Cosi Fan Tutti. Maybe Mitch and Blanche get married and Stella kicks Stanley to the curb. Let’s just believe that.”
A postscript: Andre Previn wrote this opera. He wrote two operas. Guess what other movie he turned into an opera. Guess.
Yiiiiissssss. My favorite movie, Brief Encounter. Kill me now, for I am compelled to find that on YouTube. Does little Margaret sing “My birthday’s in June and they don’t have pantomimes in June?” Because she would have to sing it in the same monotone she uses in the movie.
Updated: Margaret and Bobby, the best part of the movie, are not in the Andre Previn Brief Encounter opera. Even so, I preferred it to Streetcar. He wrote it years after and it’s more dreamy, less strident, and the lyrics pull some weight. They put words to what’s behind Alec and Fred’s eyes.
4 responses to “Opera Review: Streetcar Named Desire”
This seems extremely reasonable. Some stories/whatever are just plain less suited to some formats (although occasionally geniuses can adapt them anyway, somehow), and when you don’t really like the adaptation *AND* you don’t really want to experience the portion of the story that you know is coming… well. There is not much to stick around for.
I’m glad the “Brief Encounter” adaptation was better anyway…
KC – well, I checked other reviews this morning and according to all of them it was a “revelation” and “tremendous” – evidently we were the only ones who didn’t like it.
… were the other reviews all by men? I have found that reviews by men seem to think that depicting vileness in characters as though it’s rather more acceptable than it is, is a Bold Artistic Choice That Paid Off vs. uh, well. Ditto for things that are aesthetically unpleasant; “oh, that scene where they literally scraped fingernails down the chalkboard; a bold artistic choice that paid off!” and… no, it just sucked, you’d have to have a *LOT* of reason to do that to an audience in my view before I’d call it a Bold Artistic Choice That Paid Off instead of being a jerk to your audience. Memorable is not the same as successful!
KC – I don’t know that it was a one to one ratio, but I do remember reading just one review and thinking “and that’s a woman saying that.” So I hear you.