Saturday, October 11, 2008

Parody Ophelia



I wish I could understand French, but forget the language, it's pretty funny to see Ophelia performed by a man, entering the stage with a danish pastry in his hand.
Someone translate..?

1 comment:

Bernard said...

Well, I can tell you this: It's an aria from Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet, the only really successful opera version of the play--mid-neneteenth-century, maybe? It's kind of famous for ending with Hamlet crowned king instead of dying; when it played London, they had to rewrite it ending with Hamlet's death to avoid ridicule. I can't make out much of anything that Ophelia's singing in this clip, but that's not too unusual in opera. I assume it's her "mad scene": those are very popular among opera lovers.
Gran Scena has been around for a while, using real, trained opera singers to do parody. If this interest you, check out Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-male, partly drag ballet troupe that performs favorites like Swan Lake. They are largely comic, but the thing is, they have male dancers who perform female parts superbly--on pointe, etc. Their performances might suggest something of what Elizabethan audiences felt when they saw boys play female roles--not so much comedy as admiration for unusual facility. (Kabuki performance in Japan is much the same.)