Kasper Holten has kindly spared the time to make a lengthy and constructive comment addressing some of the criticism of La donna del lago and the more general issues raised. You can read it on the post itself, or below:
La donna del lago
20 May 2013
Does this man smell? Bollocks!
Scots are fuming over their haggis at John Fulljames's portrayal of Highlanders in La donna del lago reports the Herald. The director shows them as kilted thugs with matted hair and filthy clothes, going round raping and disembowelling everything in their path in between 21/2 octave coloratura runs.
"Turning Highlanders into savages is the clear choice of an author; that's what Rossini and Scott are saying," he claims. "If you look at those films [like Highlander and Braveheart], the Highlanders are hairy. You do imagine they'd be smelly."
But Professor David Purdie, the chairman of the Sir Walter Scott Club, dismisses that interpretation as "bollocks".
"Scott was a great admirer of the courage and characteristics of the Highlanders and lamented the fact they had been separated for so long from southern Scotland by geography, language, politics and religion. Scott more than anybody else helped to unite the Highlands and Lowlands. His great aim in life was the promotion of Scotland as a unity within the United Kingdom."
19 May 2013
La donna del lago, Royal Opera House
La donna del lago - Royal Opera House, 17 May 2013 (first night)
The Royal Opera House has pulled together the most perfect cast imaginable for this new production. They more than lived up to expectations, with line after line of the most thrillingly spectacular Rossini singing I've ever heard. Even a production that rivals the recent Nabucco for sheer ineptness couldn't dim their brilliance.
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