A Clarification to my review of ELEKTRA

by Lynn on February 5, 2019

in The Passionate Playgoer

In my review of the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Elektra I take exception to Derek McLane’s design of the “singer-unfriendly” raked set and other odd bits about it. Rather than the criticism be specific to him (and his director James Robinson) I made the following general comment:

“Then of course it dawns on me, as in theatre, often the ‘talent’ is the last thing a designer thinks about. And sometimes even the director joins that kind of thinking about the talent less than about the director’s vision.”

Phillip Silver, an excellent designer and faithful reader of my blog, took exception to the generality in an eloquent email and requested I clarify my criticism to be specific to this design and not as a general criticism of designers as a whole.

He’s right. I hope this clarifies the matter.

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