Lydia’s Blog

Okay. Scheisse (or Scheiße) means shit in German. Most English speakers at least know that much. The Bolshoi is the famous Muscovite Opera and Ballet House, renowned for, well, overly ornate yet static staging practices. Bolshoischeisse is a term I’ve come to know in this season at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. It is a quick and dirty little word used to describe overblown, 1950’s-looking stage antics.

For instance, with our production of Jenufa here, Catalonian “enfant terrible” Calixto Bieito inherited a set and concept from David Alden and his designer, Gideon Davey. It featured an intricately carved silver ceiling over a trashed “factory” setting. With the Alden/Davey concept (which was scuttled under monumentally ungraceful circumstances), the ceiling made great sense. Calixto, rather a stranger to delicate design, saw the ceiling and immediately declared it Bolshoischeisse. All present nodded, as they tend to do.

For the record, the ceiling was kept and used to great effect.

For singers, Bolshoischeisse tends to refer to hand-wrenching, breast-beating, woe-is-me arm-flailing, throwing-oneself-conspicuously-onto-the-floor-at-inopportune-moments-and-then-raising-said-self-up-to-a-graceful-kneel-two-measures-before-beginning-to-sing-so-as-to-stare-at-the-conductor-in-a-pained-manner, and the like.

I hadn’t really come into contact with this form of Bolshoischeisse until I began remounting an upcoming production at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Of course, I’d worked with awkward and oblivious singers on stage before, but that’s another point altogether. The fact is, that Bolshoischeisse and bad acting are not the same thing. Most practitioners of Bolshoischeisse produce an excellent presence on stage. They are intensely aware of themselves and the pictures their bodies present. In fact, were it actually the 1950’s these people, when blessed with great voices as both of my current Bolshoi devotees are, would have made excellent careers as singing actors.

Unfortunately it’s about sixty years too late. Opera today relies on a flexibility in actors to be both nuanced and earnest in an almost cinematic style (altered of course for a room full of some 2000 rich old people), and a physical readiness to move purposefully and sometimes tackle the most acrobatic or unpleasant of tasks while singing. Our Laca in Jenufa, for instance, loads a forklift wagon full of clothing sacks while nailing high Bs. This is expected of today’s opera singer.

Exactly these things, however, are perceived as anathema by performers trained in the “Bolshoischeisse” tradition.

My two singers, for instance. Both are excellent singers and effective stage presences. They both seem, however, to be inexorably drawn to the very downstage tip of the stage, dead center. The situation is not helped by a set that features, well, nothing. It’s not like I can say. “No, dear, you have to stand next to the table.” or “Go sit on that couch”. Its just 18 meters by 18 meters of flat space. Since no such guidelines can be given, it is my task to sit there and simmer while the two float from their intended positions to the lip of the stage.

The idea of “cheating” is familiar to most people who have ever done a musical at summer camp. It is the practice by which one “sings out” while also appearing to communicate his or her thoughts with someone else on stage. Rather than sing directly at each other (or toward the front), one “cheats” a diagonal position. This is difficult to communicate in the world of Bolshoischeisse. Singers are somehow instructed only to sing straight out into the audience—regardless if they’re professing their undying love to someone, condemning someone to a painful death, etc.

And monitors…what are monitors? Eyes trained on the conductor, baby.

Violent scenes are also especially difficult to refine when working with people trained in this manner. In the third act, one of my singers must slap the other, causing her to fall. Pretty easy, eh? Slap and fall. The first time we tried it, the slapper missed the slappees face by about two feet, and then recoiled in horror at his act, one arm extended in a “keep away” gesture, and the other curled in a rueful fist at this temple. The slappee, for her part, waited the seven seconds until end of her phrase to react to the slap, and then fluttered to the ground like a drowsy butterfly. Where did she land? You got it. Downstage center. We have worked the tits off of this scene. It actually looked pretty great in a rehearsal we had earlier today. Still, there is the old rule…

During a performance…singers will invariable do what they’re convinced of. Not what they want to do, as many of my cynical colleagues may think. That’s really my job, to convince. The thing is, in the Bolshoiworld…I lost that battle before I even began.

The afore mentioned scene ends with a simulated rape. It looks like Peter Pan wrangling a wayward fairy. Anyway…

Singers with limited acting chops (which is referred to as Amischeisse (Ami meaning American, flatteringly enough)) can be forced and finagled into stronger performances on stage. When such forcing and finagling is done with some grace and patience, the results can be quite startling.

Bolshoischeisse is actually a chosen style. Because it’s perceived as more flattering to the voice and singer (and proves a tacit resistance to the bolder theatrical style more commonly practiced in Europe), it is nearly impossible to shake. It’s difficult to “motivate it out”, because when you use terms like “you’ve already condemned her, she’s already dead to you”, it comes out looking like a more strident version of the Sherrill Milnes “claw” gesture you’ve just tried to correct. When I try to explain that the hard lines and stark lighting of the opera call for a more cinematic approach to the opera, any Bolshoi-school soprano will just look you in the face, nod, and proceed to perform her keynote aria kneeling and flailing. Downstage center.

Shit, I like to get gay on old Joan Sutherland and Maria Callas videos on YouTube as much as the next guy. I actually love Bolshoischeisse. In context. Still, in this bizarre, misshapen world of European Regietheater…it kind of doesn’t fit.

Oh well. Upwards and onwards.

On Saturday I have six horses to audition for our next production.