A heads up for a UK show going out on Sky Arts tomorrow: English National Opera have commissioned three directors to create videos for three famous opera arias. Current promo golden boy Dougal Wilson (above) is one of the contributors with Werner Herzog and Sam Taylor-Wood completing the trio.

Trailer at You Tube and all three videos at Sky Arts.

         

Largo al factotum - Dougal Wilson flv (pt. 1) Vesti la giubba - Sam Taylor-Wood flv (pt. 1) O soave fanciulla - Werner Herzog flv (pt. 1)

         

Ta prog.

For my money:

Wilson's is neither funny nor pertinent and I was bored.

Sam Taylor-Wood's is the most effective. The Guardian notes the piece's stillness, which is its strength, recreating the operatic experience which tends to be static. What I found particularly interesting is that this film strips away almost everything. By the time the singer gets into the heart of the aria he is entirely committed and the experience becomes very pure. It's fascinating. The English translation of the Italian is highly specific to the ENO's production - and yet the costume isn't, it's the traditional outfit for this character (and anyway, there's no production to be had, done in an anonymous, dilapidated space). Hell, not only is it an odd translation it's in English, when it was originally in Italian and the singer is struggling with grainy low notes and the phsyical and emotional challenges of all the rest of the music. It's that stand off that gets captured and I like it.

Herzog's Sudanese/Ethiopian border film was fascinating to me as I didn't get it but I was shocked. Here is the image I settled on. The couples are the distant cousins of the operatic performers facing their audience - but faced with the warped counterparts of Western operatic critcs, armed not with notebooks or even rotten tomatoes but with Kalashnikovs, they walk away without bothering. There is, potentially, an elegant statement on the corrosion of civilisation I guess, although I feel I'm working too hard to get there.

         

Hmmm. I wasn't that captivated by any of them.

I can't decide whether Sam Taylor-Wood's is incredibly phoned in and succeeds purely by the skill of the performer, or if she worked quite hard at directing it. Still, it's the best of a dire bunch.

Herzog's felt totally unrelated to the music - as did Wilson's for that matter. I would have loved Herzog's a lot more if there was a pull back and reveal that people were sitting around listening to a transistor play this strange music and leaving when they got bored. But it just seems a disjointed and faintly patronizing bunch of Andy Warhol-esque screen tests added to later music. I can almost hear Herzog's bossy voice in my head as I was watching: "Now you look at me. Now look at each other. Now you walk away. NOW!"

Wilson's just felt trivial and out of its depth. Even if he had one of the barbers in front singing away about his fame and conquests while in the background the assistant character had the fight with the hair monster, that might have saved it for me.

         

re: Guardian "Puccini's Che gelida manina (Your tiny hand is frozen)", erm: not. (tho: same opera...).

         

prog wi dju rit pt. 1?

         

i'm pretty sure these are all partial, the end seems to be missing. amirong?

         

dougal wilson's is by far the most imaginative, entertaining, and deftly made: the hairy creature - some sort of barber's shop dust bunny - and the bearded portraits hanging on the walls did it for me.

         

herzog's (lesson in) commentary.