Those awesome avant-scammers of La Fura dels Baus have done it again, proving themselves to be the smartest con artists in the world of opera (with the exception, of course, of the canny musicologists who turned their technical inability to conduct an orchestra into an asset by calling themselves conductors of "historically informed performances", the lamer the better).
La Fura has created another incredulous spectacle -- this time, sadly lacking, from what we read, in bestiality and cannibalism...but there's always a first time I guess.
Below are a few photos of the La Fura del Baus-directed Das Rheingold, currently showing in Valencia, at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and conducted by Zubin Mehta (la prima was this past Saturday).
The Rhinemaidens are transformed into s&m cage dancers (with water??), robots lurk in the background, and it all seems like a very demented nightmare...all an experiment in turning Wagner into Arthur C. Clarke -- Das Rheingold as 2001 Space Odyssey ( + Time Bandits + Space Pirates). It looks like a bunch of kids got into their crazy ex-vaudeville grandmother's closet and played dress-up with her old costumes after watching too many episodes of Doctor Who. Here are a few images from the production:
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(above: OMG HES ON A SEGWAY! WHAT A NERD!)
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ummmm, what?! Listen, OC witnessed a production of Die Entführung last year at Teatro Regio in Torino that was set entirely ON THE MOON, complete with costumes taken str8 outta Fifth Element, and it was such a disaster, that you actually had an affinity towards it, a strange sympathy...because hey, anything in space is kewl am i rite? Someday when you guys are old enough, I'll sit you on my lap and tell you aaaaaaall about it.
