The English National Opera has released a trailer for Nico Muhly’s upcoming opera, Two Boys. Unlike the unmitigated disaster that is the New York Phil’s current The Cunning Little Vixen campaign (see previous blog post), the ENO’s video is clever, teasing and actually meaningful. And I’ll be damned: they’re actually playing the composer’s music in it!
Now let’s check in with Vix. Did I ever think the New York Philharmonic would send me a video with bras in it? No I did not.
Just as videos, not adverts for anything, I agree that the ENO example is so much wittier. The two vixnyc videos above are almost unwatchably amateurish.
However, as adverts for operas, I’m undecided. The ENO vid goes heavy on the concept behind Muhly’s opera (and – big thumbs up – actually includes some of his music, unlike their promo for Turnage’s Anna Nicole, eg), but I get almost no sense of character from any of this. And it’s the characters, on stage, singing, that are the point of opera. (I think, anyway.) I was really with the video until the idea of an opera was introduced (late late on, almost as an embarrassed afterthought). From then on I just wondered how the two things could possibly fit together.
The Vix campaign does at least have this in its favour – it’s character-driven. Its disastrous execution may have ended any chance of a similar campaign succeeding in the future, but the basic idea – of populating social media with characters derived from the opera – was actually a pretty good one. Shame they got everything else about it so wrong.
I just watched the video to the end and see that it is indeed an advertisement of sorts for Muhly’s opera premiere at the ENO. That one can’t even tell until the end credits hardly speaks for the video’s effectiveness. And at the risk of being partial and uncollegial, I found the music so banal and innocuous that I got no clue this was supposed to be about some sort of art work by a serious composer to be premiered at the ENO. And the video doesn’t seem to be anything special either – little more than silly word-play using facebook terms. Surely I am missing something here?
Thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated this on all levels. (Like)