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Scandal because of a kiss between men

11 March 2009 / 08:03:33  GRReporter
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The Greek audience was left shocked because of a kiss between two men in a play in the National Opera. The “scandalous” scene is part of the play “Mermaid” based on music by Dvořák and directed by the young Frenchwoman Marion Waserman.


Everything happened one day before the premiere, when Wasserman was asked to change the “kiss” scene or to completely take it out. She thought about the offer but later realized that her interpretation of the play is whatever she has already made it and she will not bend when people try to censor her.


Later, members of the orchestra sign a petition against the kiss! They start giving out the paper to all people who have come to see the play even before they enter the hall. After the end of the opera, the audience explodes – some are angrily whistling and yelling and others are happily clapping. It is a fact that the director gets on stage, so she can give an explanation but she cannot say even a word because of the screaming audience.


On the next day, before the start of “Mermaid,” members of the gay organization in Athens enter the opera with colorful flags and provoke another wave of violent reactions. Some women even stood up and screamed: “Out! Out!”


“The pressure was intense,” admits Wasserman, “because it was very hard for the actors to enact the scene with the kiss in the second act. But I am happy from the results and the performances. I can assure you that my work and my opinion was now influenced by the reaction.” And thank God…


The directors had to return to Paris. She modestly said that nothing like this has ever happened to her and she cannot understand what made the audience so mad. Marion Wasserman has worked in the Avignon Opera, National Bordeaux opera, National Nancy Opera, National Paris opera, the Bon opera and has received first prize on the international competition “Ring Award” in Freiburg for Offenbach’s “Hoffman stories.”


“I adore the opera and I cannot live without music and theatre…The audience is free to react in any way, just as I am free to offer one contemporary presentation of the opera,” adds Wasserman. “The question is not whether the prince is a homosexual or not. We were inspired by the life of Louis II Bavarian. We represent the prince as sad – he is not satisfied with his responsibilities or his life. This is why he runs off to a fantastic world, where the Mermaid is his other side, his woman nature. That is all!”


The opera “Mermaid,” which is a coproduction between the National Greek opera and the Opera in Nice will be presented in France during March 2010. “Then we will see the reaction of the French audience,” says Wasserman. “But I will not change anything in my work, because they are trying to censor me because of conservative reactions.”

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