Setting limits

While the ENO Ring was in preparation, and we were seeing semi-staged performances of the dramas at the old Coliseum and the Barbican, there were plenty of grounds for hope. With action reduced to almost a minimum, we could concentrate on the real action, which needs, I have increasingly come to feel, very little in the way of setting and movement to make its crucial points. That view is starkly opposed to contemporary dramaturgical dogma, which is that the production of dramatic works, especially those of Wagner (for assorted reasons), should contain within itself a critique of the work, just in case we get carried away by what is ideologically objectionable, or allow ourselves to wallow instead of thinking as well as experiencing. The tendency of audiences, perhaps especially Wagnerian audiences, to treat performances as ritual is undeniable and regrettable; but the means taken to counter that tendency often seem to be far worse than the disease.