Leon Cooke - a future star
In the evening to La Monnaie to see a superb production of Death in Venice. The tenor role of Gustav von Aschenbach requires a continuous presence on stage. Ian Bostridge acted and sung the writer’s passionate decline convincingly. But this strength in the production was compounded by two others. The first was the combination of Deborah Warner’s staging and Jean Kalman’s lighting. With a few sparing details, Warner was able to create the atmosphere of Venice, its Lido, its canals and San Marco whilst the Adriatic light on sand and sea was also faithfully reproduced. The second was the dancing and, in particular, the part of Tadzio, played with great aplomb by Leon Cooke. My family saw him in the West End in Billy Elliot and were impressed with him then. We will see much more of this talented teenager, I am sure. The boys’ games and fights in the sand were excellently choreographed. All-in-all, quite a treat.
I was there too, and I was really impressed by they way to change the same scene into many different places. And also the way the actors could show so many feelings without saying anything(Tadzio!) or with songs(Aschenbach! and all the other singers!).
We should do the same in this world…..People use to show their feelings with movements. It usually end bad…..I´m thinking about what happens out of Europe and sometimes also in Europe….
I´m not saying that we should sing or be quiet to let the others understand our feelings, no….but just by using our mouth instead of the rest(arms, legs….)With that little easy thing we have on our face, we can express lot of things without making kaos, of course by using the right words. Let us all try to do that to make the world understand that differences and peace fits good together!
K. ; D
Entièrement d’accord avec toute votre appréciation sur “Mort à Venise” ! Un spectable d’une très grande beauté. Le soir où j’ai été à la Monnaie, le rôle de von Aschenbach a été interprété par John Graham-Hall, un ténor et acteur extraordinaire ! Ian Bostrige est aussi excellent, je l’ai déjà vu dans un autre opéra de Britten.