arts journal

The arts journal is a wonderful publication, putting together articles about the arts throughout the world (see links on the right). Clicking today on 'come on, smell the noise' I come across an article about the use of puppets in opera, not least the ones used by Anthony Minghella in his production of 'Madame Butterfly', as seen in Vilnius in March - and later, LATER, at the New York Met. He used a puppet for the child seeing it was difficult to get young children to act 'naturally'. Indeed, the Japanese puppetry technique he used, where about 6 people in black manipulated the puppet, was awesome. The bad news, Mr Minghella, is that this is as distracting as the presence of a small child on the stage - I had seen a concert performance of the opera in Yerevan with a gorgeous little Armenian boy taking that role. While generally he was quiet (and possibly really fell asleep at one stage), by the time he had called 'Mama' across the stage to his 'mum' there was not a dry eye in the house. Don't ask me how the singing was after that.