Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Das Wunder der Heliane (1927)

As my dad noted, it would be a great trivia question: name a second composer named "Wolfgang." He really went all-out for this one; it was supposed to be his magnum opus, and...I suspect it is that. Don't get me wrong; Die tote Stadt remains very good. But THIS...is something else entirely.

It's based on a play by Hans Kaltneker, a little-known Austrian expressionist writer who died young of tuberculosis. It takes place in an unnamed dictatorship. There's a Stranger who's come to bring the people happiness and freedom, but he's condemned to death. The night before he's to be executed, the King's wife, Heliane (the only named character), comes to see him, and he falls in love with her. The King is tormented because he can't make her love him, but then he gets angry and orders his wife put in trial for sleeping with the Stranger (which she hasn't actually done). I could say more, but this is one of those rare instances with an opera where I genuinely had no idea where the story was going, so it's worth experiencing blind.

This is extremelyWagnerian, in terms of the ecstatic, mystical subject matter; the intensity of the music; and the eschewal of traditional arias in favor of an endless stream of melody. This production, from Komische Oper Berlin, is really terrific. It's fairly minimalistic, with just two sets--a prison and a courtroom--but somehow, that feels appropriate for the mythical nature of the story. And the performers are all just great. Brian Jagde as the stranger is actually the weak link, I feel; not that he's bad by any means, but I feel like he lacks the necessary presence for this charismatic, prophet-ish figure. But Josef Wagner is totally great as the King, bringing some pathos to this tormented, brutal figure and making him seem semi-sympathetic. And Sara Jakubiak is radiant as Heliane. She has a nude scene, but it's not gratuitous; it's right there in the libretto. I would imagine that most productions find some way to elide this--hard to picture your leading Met sopranos agreeing to it--but it DOES play a key role in the story, so I'm not sure how you square that circle. Anyway, I admire Jakubiak's bravery in just fucking going for it. It boggles my mind that people I have never heard of before who aren't superstars can still be so great.

Hmm. Other than this and Die tote Stadt, Korngold wrote two one-act operas and one more full-length one, Die Kathrin, which seems to suggest a reverse version of the Simpsons joke ("that's German for 'the Bart the'"). Alas, none of these are readily available on video. The man was such an arresting talent, you'd think he's be more performed. Well, hopefully he'll be further rediscovered in the future.

Daníel Bjarnason, Brothers (2017)

Gotta be thankful to Operavision; without them, I'd really have NO idea what's going on in contemporary opera. One such thing is this war drama. It takes place during, I think, our war in Afghanistan, but there's nothing specific here; it could be anywhen, really.

Whatever the war is, Michael goes off with a friend, Peter, to fight in it, leaving his wife Sarah and his young daughter Nadia. Also left behind is Peter's pregnant wife Anna. Everyone thinks Michael and Peter have died in a helicopter crash, and this obviously causes emotional conflict, especially as Michael's parents compare Michael, their "good" son, to their fuck-up son Jamie, a ne'r-do-well who's been in and out of jail. But then, surprise! It turns out Michael wasn't dead after all, and he comes home, which is great...but in addition to suffering from PTSD, he is harboring a Dark Secret regarding Peter.

This is based on a Danish film (though it's in English and takes place in the US as far as it's possible to tell), and the first thing to say about is that, probably due to the conversion, there are plotlines here that don't feel fully developed and go nowhere. Especially regarding Jamie: in spite of the opera's title, his relationship with Peter is very secondary and definitely NOT the heart of the piece, which seems odd. I suppose him having an affair with Sarah after Michael reveals himself to have changed and not for the better doesn't necessarily need any more attention than it gets, but what DOES stick out like a sore thumb is this one brief scene where we learn--per Michael--that he had been in jail for beating a woman half to death. This cuts against his otherwise sympathetic character, but it's never brought up again and doesn't seem to inform his character in any way, so...like, what? Why?

Well, anyway, these are ultimately nitpicks, because it's a powerful opera very dramatic and well-produced. Well-acted, too: the Icelandic baritone Oddur Arnþór Jónsson, with whom I was wholly unfamiliar gives a performance that can only be described as "bravura" as Michael: he does a great job of portraying a man under unbearable tension and ready to explode at any moment. One must also, no doubt, give all due credit to Selma Buch Ørum Villumsen as Nadia--a child able to sing that well is hella impressive, although it must be noted that unlike the adult singers, she's very visibly miked up--gotta learn to project, kid!

Anyway, really good. The more contemporary operas I see, the more I realize how this is still highly viable form as distinct from musicals. I shall watch more.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Kashchey the Deathless (1902)

Oh look, more Rimsky-Korsakov! Based on a fairy tale, so we're in extremely familiar territory. The story here is that the title character is an evil sorcerer who can never die because he's hidden his death in the tears of his daughter, Kashcheyevna, and she's very hard-hearted and never cries. He's holding a princess known only as "Tsarevna" captive in his realm, as she longs for Ivan, her prince; he's worried that Ivan might discover his secret, so he sends a captive storm spirit to see what's happening. Elsewhere, Ivan is searching for Tsarevna. Kashcheyevna (a sorceress in her own right) tries to kill him, but then she falls in love with him. The wind spirit reveals that Tsarevna is Kashchey's prisoner, so everyone traipses off there. Ultimately--this was pretty predictable--Kashcheyevna sheds tears for her unrequited love, causing her dad to croak and her to disappear (well, per the wikipedia entry, she turns into a willow tree, but here she just disappears--fairy tale logic). Tsarevna and Ivan are happy, and presumably so is the wind spirit, off doing wind-spirit-related activities.

It's an hour-long, one-act opera, but man, the music is so great. The wind spirit's perfectly evocative storm music, the "sword" song that Kashcheyevna sings as she works herself up to murder, the venemous "lullaby" that Tsarevna sings to her captor, and so much more. You can see it in a 1987 Soviet film version, which I find charming in its extreme low-budgetness. It's filmed in some random countryside, and the special effects are hilariously chintzy, but the singers are all very good--though confusingly, some but not all of the roles are lip-synced, meaning I'm not quite sure who to credit for them.

I also wanted to just note here, apropos of very little, that I also saw RK's opera The Tsar's Bride some time ago. I don't know why I never wrote about it. Atypically, it's a tragedy, but with the usual folk inflections, and extremely good music in general. Here, listen to the overture;it rules.

The grim fact is, though, that there are a full six Rimsky-Korsakov operas that have apparently never been filmed, like, anywhere. Come on, you friggin' Russians! Get on it!

George Frederic Handel, Teseo (1713)

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Antonín Dvořák, The Jacobin (1889)

Outside the Czech Republic, It sure isn't common to see any Dvořák operas other than Rusalka. For the opportunity to see this one, we must thank some awesome hero on youtube who uploaded a 1974 Czechoslovakian teleplay with--glory be!--English subs (I assume they were added after the fact by a fan, but it's not wholly clear to me).

Very different from Rusalka,this: as you know, that one's basically The Little Mermaid only a tragedy, but here we have a kind of romantic comedy/family drama, on subject matter that could be serious, but ultimately turns out lighthearted.

So it's round about the time of the French Revolution. Bohuš and his wife Julie return to their (Czech) hometown in disguise. Bohuš is the local count's son, but they've long been estranged, initially because the father didn't like the son's choice of wife (for reasons never explained), but then later because he's supposed to have become one of those awful Jacobins, or at least a Jacobin sympathizer (not, I should emphasize, a Jacobite; that would make for a very different and much weirder story). The count declares that his villainous nephew Adolf is his new heir (well, he doesn't declare him "villainous"--I cannot imagine that anyone named Adolf would ever do anything bad!). Oh no! Meanwhile, there's Benda, the music teacher and choirmaster. His daughter Terinka is in love with Jiří, a commoner, but he wants her to marry the officious Burgrave (some sort of administrator, only ever referred to by this title). But they're both important members on the choir, and they threaten to fuck up their roles if he doesn't let them marry and generally prevail on his good nature, so that's all right. Bohuš and Julie come to him for protection, which he grants when they tell him a woeful tale of their exile and how they're musicians who've only been able to remember their native land through song and their kids have never seen it &c (although we never actually see these alleged kids--are we sure this isn't a Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf situation?). Bohuš ends up being imprisoned by Alfred. The count is heartbroken because his son is gone and, he thinks, has joined a simply dreadful group, but Benda and Julie convince him otherwise and he's freed and gets reinstated as heir and everyone's happy except for Adolf and the Burgrave, which would be a good name for an artsy sort of musical duo.

I actually liked this a whole lot, notwithstanding the somewhat dated production. I got caught up in the drama, and hey, Dvořák. A lot of folk influences here, very fun. The Czech singers that no one has ever heard of are all fine. As far as Slavic composers go, I guess the difference between him and Rimsky-Korsakov is that Russia has enough cultural clout that even if the latter's operas aren't much performed abroad, they're still pretty readily available in video form, whereas most people don't think much about the Czech Republic. But this is good. I would LOVE to see more Dvořák operas.

Philip Glass, The Perfect American (2013)

It's an opera about Walt Disney, which is certainly an intersection of several of my interests. But...[sotto vote]I think that title might be...ironic.[/sotto voce]  We shall see what we shall see.

It takes place on and around Disney's sixty-fifth birthday, while he was in the process of dying of lung cancer. As expected, it's a non-linear presentation without any plot to speak of, alternating between flashback and present-day in surreal fashion. Other characters include Walt's brother Roy; his wife Lillian; and Wilhelm Dantine, an artist who was fired from the company, apparently for trying to unionize the animators. Also, Andy Warhol, because why not, if you're talking about the ways cultural icons like Disney are mythologized.

It's very musically interesting. Having watched my second Glass opera, I'm totally baffled by criticisms that his music is somehow boring. I mean, no, he's not Puccini, if that's your only frame of reference, but crikey, he's obviously not trying to be, and he's very interesting in his own right. Although, granted, his style probably doesn't serve this particular story quite as well as it does Akhnaten. Whatever; it's all good.

But the first question you would probably have is: what about the character of Disney itself? How is that treated? And I have to say...it's a little bit complicated. Right, so obviously he had his faults, and obviously the opera will dwell on them. I don't know quite how to evaluate the exact truth value of everything here, but it's certainly the case that he was anti-union, and I imagine he was culturally conservative, and generally right-wing. That's all easy to believe. It's NOT true, as far as I can discern, that he was personally racist (and yes, I am well aware of plenty of instances of racism in Disney product, probably more than you are, so don't start); the scene in which this is revealed consists of him having a dialogue with a malfunctioning animatronic Abraham Lincoln from the Hall of Presidents, which is kind of a brilliant idea, but the substance as far as I can tell is pure slander. So, you know, some of it seems reasonable, some kind of iffy, but I know that it's as much about myths we tell about ourselves as it is the man himself, so I'm not, like, super-outraged about it or anything. What it's hard not to take exception with on occasion is the tone, which is as subtle as a woodpecker dropping a giant camera on your head, and frequently rather on the hectoring side. The libretto is not all it could be.

However, what's maybe surprising is that the opera isn't actually completely unsympathetic to Disney. His nostalgic desire for a never-was past is clearly myopic, but also sort of poignant, and it's clear that he really does care about his work and his creations. Furthermore, his relationship with his family is presented in positive terms, as is the bonding he does with a boy in the next hospital room over. It's actually kind of moving, more so than it might be because of truly excellent work by Christopher Purves (whom I recently saw as the lead in Saul); he doesn't look anything like Disney, but he really does a bravura acting job, laying bare not only the character's prejudices, but his vulnerabilities and his ideals. The production as a whole is very good, too, mostly centering around the hospital bed and bringing in props and background images as needed. You might wonder how an opera like this would work from a legal standpoint, but the director threads that needle quite well: it's okay to name Disney characters (and beyond the obvious ones, here we have an opera where Scrooge, Gyro, and the Beagle Boys are mentioned by name, which can't help but tickle me pink), but as far as images...well, I'm pretty sure that using them would, or should, qualify as fair use, but when you're a massive megalithic corporation, it doesn't really matter what the law may technically be; you can still destroy any weaker entity who defies you. So there are some non-specific animations of animals, and pictures of a large ball with two smaller balls on top which is obviously suggestive but in a non-actionable way. It works fine.

Honestly, I wasn't necessarily expecting to be enamored of this ("the opera received mixed to negative reviews," wikipedia ominously tells us), but in spite of the somewhat clumsy libretto (based on a book which may or may not be similarly clumsy), I ended up liking it more than not. This production (the only production?) is freely available on youtube, which feels like it ought to be pretty blatantly illegal, but I dunno--EuroArts seems like an aboveboard outfit, so maybe there are licensing agreements. Well worth a look in any case. They should screen this at Disney theme parks.

George Frideric Handel, Saul (1739)

I'd already seen an opera based on the story of Saul, Carl Nielsen's Saul og David(though the Handel is really an oratorio). I must say, I don't find the story itself particularly dramatically compelling. Saul loves David but then when the people accuse him of only having slaughtered thousand whereas David has slaughtered tens of thousand, he gets upset and jealous and then dies after a dead prophet channeled by a witch tells him how much he sucks. Whee. Okay okay, that's a bit reductive, and you certainly could make something of this, but it would definitely need some work.

This doesn't do that work, really, but apparently Handel was really obsessed with this one (apparently, he had a bunch of specialized instruments commissioned just for it), and it very much shows. Lots of great music, choruses especially. It transcends its subject matter, and it's totally great, even if the title character is pretty cartoonish. Well, in fairness, this Glyndebourne production doesn't exactly make him any less so. He's kind of goofy-looking, and sort of flounders around the stage a lot. I mean, Christopher Purves is fine, and acts the role well, but it is what it is. It's a somewhat surreal production, mainly in costume contemporary to Handel's time, but with notable weirdness. Iestyn Davies is very good (GO COUNTERTENORS!) as David, even if he doesn't have the stage presence he might. Then again, that might be the fault of the oratorio itself, which doesn't necessarily give him the prominence he needs.

You (by which I mean "I") sort of feel like an oratorio staged as an opera ought to be instinguishable as anything else, but that's really not true. There's always going to be a level of abstraction that you don't normally find in operas. A chorus that doesn't necessarily correspond to any possible actual characters, people not really talking to each other...I still prefer them to be done as such; gives you something to look at. But still. That said, this production does an excellent job of feeling as opera-esque as it possibly could. My Handel fanboyism has not abated.

Samuel Barber, Vanessa (1958)

I want to watch more American operas. This is because--as is well-known--I am extremely patriotic, and it's interesting to see how my own dang country (RIGHT OR WRONG) has treated this artform that I love. So here's one of our better-known examples. Apparently it was neglected for a long time, but it's coming back into fashion a bit these days.

So it takes place in "a northern country" which seems like it has to be the UK, but which is not specified. In a manor house there live in seclusion Vanessa, her mother the baroness, and her niece Erika. She's been endlessly pining for her twenty-years-past lover, Anatol. It turns out he's dead, but never fear! His son, also named Anatol, shows up instead. He has a one-night stand with Erika but then starts a romance with Vanessa. What will be the fallout from this?

The characters are complicated, and somewhat opaque. It's often unclear what they're thinking or what they really want--which, to be clear, is the point; it's not a criticism. You really see how a good libretto can help bump an opera up a notch (though it's sometimes hard for me to tell how "good" a foreign-language libretto is, in literary terms). This one is by Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber's husband and a composer in his own right of numerous short operas that are still performed (probably the most notable being the charming Christmas piece Amahl and the Night Visitors). It's poetic and adds a lot of mystery and intrigue. This production imagines the opera's vague setting as a fifties-Hollywood-style thing (though there's stuff here that would never have flown in post-Code Hollywood) (All the female roles are played by statuesque blondes, eg.), which to me seems just perfect: even though there aren't any crimes here per se, it has that Hitchcock feel to it.

The music: I like it a lot. There are only a few parts that really stand out (most notably the last-act quintet ("To leave, to break," MY GOODNESS), but it all serves the story and thus works. I think this deserves to be performed more often. Alas, Barber only wrote two other operas: the even-rarelier-performed Antony and Cleopatra(which was considered a huge disaster at its premier) and the nine-minute A Hand of Bridge (which you can watch in a bunch of different performances on youtube--look it up; it's good).

Gioachino Rossini, Guillaume Tell (1829)

Rossini wrote this at the age of thirty-six, and even though he was at the height of his popularity and even though he lived another forty-odd years after that, he never wrote another opera. I gather he may have been suffering from mental illness, though he did rally and wrote some more music towards the end of his life.

Yeah, the one thing you know from this is the overture, or more accurately, the last two or three minutes of the overture. There's a lot of it that would be unrecognizable to you if you only know the doodoodoo doodoo doodoodoo doodoo, doodoodoo doodoo doodoodoo doodoo, doodoodoo doodoo doodoodoo doodoo, doo DOOOOO doodoodoodoo part. WOW trying to write out music phonetically like that DOES NOT WORK. You do have to wonder, though: did Rossini have any inkling at the time that he was writing one of the most iconic pieces of music ever? And it also makes me wonder, in a stoned-college-student kind of way: if he hadn't written it, would it still exist in potentia? It just seems unthinkable that this music shouldn't exist in some way. Duuuuuude. Of course, that raises even thornier philosophical questions, such as: if the William Tell Overture was inevitable, was "Two Princes" by the Spin Doctors likewise? That's a dark road to go down. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Well, anyway, that is a piece that goes on for several minutes; this is a three-and-a-half-hour opera, so obviously there has to be more to it? So what's it about? If someone had asked me that before I saw it, I'd've only been able to stammer out something vague about a guy shooting an apple off his kid's head? Or something? That is a thing that happens here, but it's not the entire thrust of the narrative. A long opera that was JUST about a single incident would seem positively avant-garde.

Well, what it's about is that the mean Austrians (all those goddamn Viennese waltzes I get SO MAD just thinking about it), led by the brutal Gesler, are oppressing the proud Swiss people, including ol' Billy Tell and his wife and son. So they're sad about that. Another Swiss guy, Arnold, is conflicted, because he's in love with an Austrian princess so he's going to fight for Austria but then his father is murdered by the Austrians what's he gonna DO?!? Anyway, Tell is captured and the sadistic Austrians make him shoot an apple on his son's head but he succeeds and escapes and murders Gesler and the princess decides to be on the Swiss side (it's extremely unclear how this works politically), so Arnold isn't conflicted anymore and...well, it wasn't clear to me quite whether they're actually supposed to have achieved liberty or whether they're just going to continue the glorious struggle, but at any rate, it's all very triumphant.

This is the first Rossini opera I've seen that isn't a goofy comedy. I don't think it's peformed that often (but then again, is any Rossini aside from Barbiere and maybe Cenerentola?), but...it should be, because it's pretty much all you could want. I find it sort of funny that it's an opera in French by an Italian about Swiss patriotism, but it's all good. I saw a Royal Opera House performance starring Gerald Finley; he's done all kinds of standard repertoire work, but for whatever reason I'd only seen him in contemporary operas, as the sleazy lawyer in Anna Nicoleand Robert Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic. I liked seeing him in a "normal" opera. He's good! I hope I will again! The production itself was a bit confusing, with everyone in twentieth-century dress (with the bad guys, perhaps inevitably, in nazi-recalling costumes) and one silent guy dressed in a traditional William-Tell-esque get-up meant, apparently, to symbolize the, you know, Swiss spirit or whatnot. I got used to it quickly enough; it was fine. Perform it more often, I say!

Philip Glass, Akhnaten (1984)

The first three Met Live in HD productions this year weren't of any great interest to me: they showed Turandot, Manon, and Madama Butterfly, all in productions that had already been in HD years prior. If you have a new production, then by all means show it, but I just can't get excited about repeats like this. Maybe they put asses in seats, but considering that there are only ten LiHD productions a year...do something a little more daring, dammit. Something like the Met premiere of a Philip Glass opera. Please. That's more like it.

Actually, I can't claim to have known all that much about Glass before this. I have seen Koyaanisqatsi, which he scored, but that's about all and it was a long time ago. All I know is that his music is supposed to be repetitive and hypnotic. As indeed such it is here. This is about a historical pharaoh who instituted monotheism (Sun worship) in Egypt before being overthrown by conservative forces who did not appreciate this sort of radicalism. Well, that's what they say. I suppose the truth is probably more complicated. But at any rate, that's the story of the opera.

Well, such story as it has. This is very abstract, very slow, very ritualistic. The story is basically the above: Akhnaten becomes pharaoh, is in love with his wife, overthrows the dominant religious order, declares the Sun's supremacy, and is in turn overthrown and killed. This is all on a mythic level, with character never becoming any more specific than that. The libretto consists mostly of ancient texts sung in the original languages, with some parts (notably Akhnaten's centerpiece hymn to the Sun) in English. This Met production isn't subtitled; there are just title cards between scenes briefly summarizing the action. It's not a problem; the specifics of the text are more or less beside the point.

It's an amazing spectacle, perfectly stylized. Words I feel can scarcely do it justice...which is why I'm sticking a bunch of images here what I found on the internet. One will notice that it involves juggling; this is a visually striking element that serves as a great counterpoint to the music.  According to one of the backstage interviews, Glass himself liked it enough that he declared it was now an integral part of the opera. So there you go.

The two most striking pieces are a love duet between Akhnaten and his wife Nefertiti and the scene of his final downfall and death. As noted, the music is very repetitive, and the production is filled with slow motion and it works beautifully. This is seriously one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Totally mesmerising. I am on the fence about whether or not I would like it if I just listened to the score (well, I'm sure I would if I were stoned to the gills, but that's kind of a given), but as an audiovisual piece it has few peers. All the performers are great, notable countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo in the title role and J'Nai Bridges (in her Met debut--what a way to kick things off) as Nefertiti. A huge triumph. The Met needs more stuff like this. I know a lot of critics really hate Glass, but I've gotta say, I'm a newly-minted fan.

George Frideric Handel, Tamerlano (1724)

Well, Tamerlano's the Timurid emperor. He's captured the Ottoman emperor, Bajazet, and also his daughter, Asteria. There's also some sort of Greek guy, Andronico, whose status is extremely unclear hanging around. Andronico and Asteria are in love, but Tamerlano wants to marry her even though he's already engaged, the cad. A certain amount of angst ensues, there are murder plots, things aren't quite clear about who's in love with whom, Bajazet ends up committing suicide, but Tamerlano repents and everyone else is happy. The end.

When I was writing about Orlando, I remarked that I feel like I have a tendency to lose critical distance with Handel operas, and to automatically declare the most recent one I've seen as my favorite. Well, it is with mixed feelings that I must declare that we now see that this isn't necessarily the case. "Mixed" because on the one hand I'm glad to see tangible evidence that I do in fact have critical faculties, and on the other I'm sad because I didn't like this one very much, for both story and, more importantly, musical reasons. First: the story is really pointlessly convoluted, and just not that interesting (the subtitles for whatever reason suffer from consistent bizarrely tortured syntax--you don't want to have to take time to parse their meaning, but you do--but I don't think that's really the main problem). This could be partially the production I suppose, but I kind of doubt it. The motives for Bajazet's suicide are kind of murky and don't have the emotional impact that you'd hope for, especially given how rare it is to see a good guy die in a Handel opera (is this the first I've seen? Well...do you count Semele as an opera, and do you count the title character as a "good guy"?). Also, while it's common to see bad guys reform in Handel operas--which is something I approve of!--I must say that the title character here is an unbelievable prick throughout, and his abrupt turn is neither believable nor satisfying. Bah.

Of course, if the music were good, all of this would be of relative unimportance, but, well...it's kind of weird how unengaging it it, given how good we know Handel was. There's a distressingly high recitative-to-aria ratio--and, as noted above, not in the service of a particularly engaging story! SO OFTEN it feels like a character is going to break into song and then just...doesn't, or does so so briefly that you barely notice. It genuinely feels like Handel wasn't really trying here. Of course it has its moments, but they're much fewer and further between than they ought to be. It was written in the same year as Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda,but it seems like a disservice to compare it to either of those.

This production is...fine. They got Plácido Domingo as Bajazet, which of course they really play up, even though he's only the fourth-most-significant character. He's fine, but honestly, nothing that special. Probably more than anything because neither is the character. It's a fairly sparse, abstract production that I basically like. There's a giant blue elephant at one point, so what the hey. I don't know; I could be wrong. Maybe if I saw another version everything would snap into focus and the opera would take its place among my favorites. But for now, I remain underwhelmed. Even Homer nods.

Aaron Copland, The Tender Land (1954)

Wait, Aaron Copland wrote operas? Since when? Why was I not aware of this?  Maybe because I haven't paid attention at all.  Hard to say.  Well, in fairness, he only wrote two of them, and they don't exactly occupy a central place in his ouevre, but still. I guess I'm a pretty casual Copland fan; I've always enjoyed Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid, very evocative, but I can't claim to be super-familiar with his work.

Still, there's this. It's not very widely performed, but you can find a reasonable production by the Lyric Opera of Melbourne in two parts here (with a significant caveat that I will get to later). I don't know anything about them, but I'm favorably inclined because their youtube page includes this, a pro-marriage-equality jazz number from when that was an issue in Australia.

So what's the story here? Well, it takes place in the Midwest, apparently during the depression, though it's not exactly explicit. There are two sisters, Beth and Laurie Moss, who live with their mother and grandfather. Beth is generally more conventional, whereas Laurie is more the there-must-be-more-than-this-provincial-life type. Laurie's going to graduate from high school the next day, so they're having a party, even though there are stories of a couple of strange men in the area causing trouble. As it happens, two itinerant dudes, Top and Martin show up looking for work, and in spite of his initial skepticism, Grandpa Moss agrees to hire them. At the party, Laurie and Martin make eyes at each other and decide that they're in love. But Grandpa, naturally, is PISSED OFF when he see this, especially since, omg, Top and Martin are obviously the guys who've been causing trouble. Then it turns out they're not, those guys were arrested, but STILL, he orders them to leave in the morning. Laurie and Martin agree to elope, but then Top convinces him that that's a bad idea and they should just leave. So they do, and Laurie is sad, but she's going to leave to, I dunno, seek her fortune, I guess, because that's just the kind of person she is. End.

The thing I have no note is that the dumb ol' Melbourne Opera screwed up: the second part isn't complete. It shuts off in the middle of a duet, probably fifteen or twenty minutes before the end. And they have comments disabled, so I can't even yell at them about it! I found another production of the final scene here,but that still means I missed the end of the scene where they plan to elope and the whole of the one where Martin is convinced not to. Bah!

Still, I've seen almost the whole thing; I think I get the picture. It counts. So...well, it's an opera scored to unmistakably Coplandian music. As you'd expect, with some country/folk elements, especially in the dance scene, though not as much as you might expect. But hell, it's fine; I like the music, so I liked that. But I have to say, it's pretty limp in the story department. We don't really get a good idea of who Laurie is or why she wants what she wants (or even what she wants, in any concrete way), and Top and Martin just come across as buffoons. I'm not sure if the romance is supposedto be as totally unconvincing as it is (I mean, it could be), but either way, I don't feel it really adds much. Although, to be fair, I can see how these problems might be papered over with a better production; not that this is bad, but it's pretty amateur-feeling, and while I think amateurs are great, they don't necessarily do the piece any favors. Oh well!

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Die tote Stadt (1920)

Korngold was known as a child prodigy; he wrote this opera at the age of twenty-three. Like Franz Schreker, his life was disrupted by the nazis, but he was more fortunate than Schreker: he moved to the US in 1934 and reinvented himself as a composer of scores for Hollywood films, for which he won several Academy Awards. Good for him.

It's based on a symbolist novel called Bruges-la-Morte. It concerns Paul, who's just some guy except that his young wife Marie recently died, and he's set up a sort of shrine to her in his house, in spite of his friend pointing out that this might not be healthy. He gets another woman, Marietta, to dress up as Marie for him (shades of Vertigo?). He's sort of torn between his attachment to Marie and being in love/lust with this new woman, and to what extent are these two attachments different? He starts to go somewhat crazy. He imagines himself bringing Marietta back to his house and arguing with her because she wants to get rid of all the signs of his dead wife, until finally, he kills her. When he realizes how deranged this vision is, he resolves to try to move on with his life. The end.

I have to note that in the Operavision performance I saw--no longer online--it is not even a tiny bit clear that the bit with Marietta and her murder is supposed to only be in his head. The traditional-style staging is for the most part good, but boy. I think the problem is that in the last scene it leaves her corpse onstage. If they'd gotten rid of it, it would've been easier to realize that this was all a hallucination. "So what did you thinkwas actually happening?" Excellent question, for which I don't have an answer. I suppose I just thought it was kind of weird and inscrutable. Still, once you realize what's going on, it's certainly more psychologically subtle than most operas.

As for the music...well, it's easy to see why Korngold was able to find success in Hollywood. It's very lush, melodic stuff, that can be meltingly lovely and/or really tense and dramatic with none of the atonal quality of a Berg that you might expect. Here, listento Renée Fleming singing one of Marietta's arias. Kind of stunning. Korngold only wrote five operas; wikipedia says he was working on a new one at the time of his early-ish death in 1957. Am I an elitist for thinking that operas are just kind of...better than film scores, and wishing he'd written more of the former. Ah well. My horizons are expanded, at any rate.

Franz Schreker, Der ferne Klang (1912)

Schreker is largely unknown today, but he was huge in his time. According to wikipedia, at his peak he was the second-most-performed living opera composer in the Weimar Republic, after Richard Strauss. Unfortunately, the rise of naziism was the end of all that; he wasn't directly murdered, but the rise of anti-Semitism and the increased supression of his work undoubtedly led to the stroke that killed him in 1934 at the age of 56. I feel like we don't spend enough time remembering what total worthless shitheads nazis were and are.

Well...be that as it may, let's go back to his breakthrough work. Appreciate the good times. The title means "A distant sound," but I think it's better to translate Klang as "clang," on the basis that it's much funnier-sounding. A distant CLANG! That's really the only comical thing here, though. Fritz and Greta are in love, but he's a composer, and before he marries her he wants to go off to find this mysterious distant CLANG that he senses. Unfortunately, her mother is abusive and her father is abusive and alcoholic, so she runs off and allows herself to be taken to a brothel by a procuress. Skip ahead some years and she's a star courtesan with whom everyone's in love. She's going to marry whoever can sing the most moving song, which several of them do, but then Fritz (not having found the CLANG he was looking for) appears and she agrees to marry him, but he rejects her when he realizes she's a prostitute. More time passes. Fritz's opera is a failure because he just can't find that elusive sound. He and Greta meet again and this time they're really going to marry and he finally hears the sound but dies before he can write it down. Finis.

This stuff with love and music may remind one of Tannhäuser; the music and general aesthetic of the piece will definitely remind one of Lulu(though this is somewhat less grim--a lot of the secondary characters are more sympathetic than expected). I don't think it's ever going to be my all-time favorite sort of music, but I nonetheless like this a lot--more of that good ol' German expressionism. The second act in the brothel is especially effective. Schreker wrote his own libretti; it seems that he had a very distinct artistic vision, and I'd love to see more of his work. This production from the Royal Swedish Opera is I believe the only video recording of any of Schreker's operas. That's a shame, and I hope it's rectified in the future, but at any rate, it's a very good one, one of the best I've seen from Operavision. A handsome traditional production that anyone should like, and Agneta Eichenholz is an excellent Greta,which is a larger role than Fritz--Daniel Johansson is basically fine in that role, even if he doesn't quite have the same stage presence. I am again grateful to Operavision for providing.

George Frideric Handel, Orlando (1733)

I feel like I lose all perspective when it comes to Handel operas. I subjectively feel that I like some more than others, but that may be more a function of my mood and other external factors when I'm watching them than on the operas themselves. Which one is best? Well, at this exact moment, I feel it may be this one, which fucking owns bones. But I may feel differently after seeing the next one!

More interesting to talk about is the story. As much as it's true that almost every opera is based on Orlando Furioso, it's also true that Handal actually only wrote three such (this along with Alcinaand Ariodante; this was the first, but they were all written in a three-year period--was Ariosto-mania sweeping the nation at the time?). And this one is by far the least faithful to the original text. Okay, you think, it's probably gonna be an Orlando/Angelica/Medoro thing, and indeed it is--but of the five singing roles, the other two are made up out of whole cloth: you have Zoroastro, a sorcerer looking after things and fixing problems (they could've just used Malagigi, an actual good sorcerer in Ariosto); and Dorinda, a shepherdess with whom Medoro was involved before Angelica, and in whom he's still ambiguously interested--there's some mention of shepherds in the part of the poem where Medoro and Angelica get together, but no named characters, and nothing like this. Also--this is a small thing and I have no idea why it's here or what to make of it--we are told that Angelica and Medoro are cousins. Why?

Regardless: love it. Love it love it love it. We've got this production here, which is a bit weird, as productions of baroque operas tend to be, but pretty good. It take place in a somewhat abstract modernday setting. Zoroastro is a scientist in a lab coat, drawing diagrams about Orlando's mental state on a chalkboard (including both "Orlando Furioso" and "Orlando Innamorato," a fun callback to the poem of which Ariosto's is a continuation). I was at first slightly disappointed that there were no countertenors--Konstantin Wolff as Zoroastro, in the opera's baritone role, is the only male singer--but I got used to it quite fast (and it shows how much tastes change--can you imagine a post-baroque opera with no tenors?  Is there such a thing?  I mean, okay Puccini's Suor Angelica, but one that has male singers at all?). I especially liked Christina Clark as Dorinda. She's African American, which is great; there need to be more black singers, but unfortunately, there's next to no information about her available online. The one thing in this production I wasn't a big fan of was the decision to make Medoro kind of handsy with her--making him seem like more of a creep than the libretto necessarily mandated. C'mon.

Still and all, GREAT. I think Handel's pretty definitively my favorite composer at this point. GIVE ME MORE.

Kevin Floyd

I first met Kevin when I took his gender theory class as a graduate student (what we call "queer theory" when we want to sound like radicals). I had previously been extremely phobic about critical theory as a general concept, but I'd taken a class in semiotics the semester before and I was kinda warming to it. It was a transformative class: one of those things that really, really influences how you perceive the world. I was honestly a little intimidated by the intensity of his intellect and, let's face it, by his being way more handsome than any English professor has any business being; nonetheless, later when I need a director for my dissertation, he was the obvious choice. We had some very heavy theoretical discussions, and O how he put me through the wringer with regard to my writing, which he perceived--obviously correctly--was not as clear or focused or scholarly as it needed to be. There were times when I really seriously thought I wasn't going to have what it took to do it. But somehow I did, and even if I didn't follow the sort of academic trajectory that he had, I was still lastingly grateful. Mine was the first doctoral dissertation he ever directed, as it happened, but he did not miss a beat.

I wish I'd had more of a relationship with him, honestly, but there was something about him and about my general social awkwardness such that that never happened (okay, we might as well be brutally honest, it was obviously in large part because I felt self-conscious that I had failed as an academic, and I didn't want to feel like I was secretly being judged which again I do because I'm kind of ludicrous). The only subsequent contact I had with him was requesting letters of recommendation (with which he was always extremely conscientious). Well, so it goes.

Anyway, I suppose it's probably pretty obvious where this is going, at least in outline: a year ago or a little less I learned from another of his students that he'd been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor (I did send him a note of general appreciation when I learned the news; no idea if he read it), and today I learned that he'd died on Thursday. He must've been in his fifties; I don't know exactly.  I know the above photo isn't great, but he was extremely not-online, and it's the only one I could find.  Talking about "fairness" when it comes to things like this isn't very helpful or meaningful, but I can only record my subjective reaction, which is that BOY is this ever unfair. Sure it's universal, but the idea that this stupid, random brain malfunction could silence such a strong voice...goddammit. Don't really have much to say here; just felt that I shouldn't let this go by unremarked. Rest in power.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Golden Cockerel (1909)

This was Rimsky-Korsakov's last opera. Appropriately, I guess, it's based on a Pushkin poem. It's another fairy/folktale kind of thing--the most mysterious I've seen yet.

So we start with a magician or astrologer who tells us that even though the story is remote, it has an important moral for us to learn. Then, we go to the court of this Tsar (the fact that he's a tsar makes you assume Russia, but a lot of the music has a vaguely "Arabic" sounding theme). He's not happy because he worries the tsardom will be attacked, and his bumbling idiot sons are no help. Fortunately(?), the magician gives the tsar a golden cockerel which will tell whether the land is safe or not (the cockerel is an actual singing role for a soprano). In return, the tsar promises him his heart's desire, to be named later.

So the cockerel convinces them that there will be war, so they decide to preëmptively attack their neighbor. The idiot sons manage to get themselves killed, but the tsar falls in love with the beautiful tsaritsa of the enemy kingdom. There's a lot of abstruse singing. The two decide to get married. There's a very spectacular ceremony back at the court, but then the magician appears and says that he wants the tsaritsa, and will not be convinced otherwise. The tsar tries to kill him, but is himself killed in an unclear way (the wikipedia description says the cockerel does it, but that wasn't clear in the production I saw). The entire court disappears and the magician reveals the shocking (?) truth (?): that the whole thing was an illusion, and only he and the tsaritsa were real people.

Well, if you can pick the moral out of this, you're welcome to it. The music's frequently glorious, though (especially the wedding celebration holy shit), so what else do you need? Well, maybe you would like characters with more of an internal existence, but it's a fairy tale, so it's all good. It wasn't performed 'til after Rimsky-Korsakov's death because the censors didn't like it: supposedly, the stuff with the ill-advised military action was a satire of Russian policies of the time, or at least that's how they saw it. Of course, it was based on a poem from years before, which doesn't preclude that per se, but I dunno.

I have never seen a Mariinsky Theatre production that failed to deliver on the spectacle, and this one continues the tradition. It's also the only one I've seen that includes weird, contemporary touches, however, so some may kvetch based on that. The biggest one here is the cockerel itself: here, she's a modern-day tourist with a chicken-shaped backpack, first seen taking selfies in front of ancient ruins. This works fine, and the body of the thing itself is basically in fairie tale mode, although there is a certain amount of action that's just confusing. Well, it's fine, as are the singers. My favorite is Andrei Popov as the magician; it's possible that he doesn't quitehave the voice for the role, but he makes up for it with stage presence: all very deliberate movements in a very dapper suit. It was wondering why his name sounded vaguely familiar, and then I realized it was because he likewise stood out as the holy fool in Boris Godunov. Nice. I'm glad he's gotten to perform at the Met.

Ivan Zajc, Nikola Šubić Zrinski (1876)

Never thought I'd see another Croatian opera, but with Operavision, all things are possible. This is my religious credo. According to wikipedia, Zajc "is often called the Croatian Verdi." Is he, wikipedia? Is he REALLY? Is he "often" called anything, at least outside of his home country? Hmm. Well. Be that as it may, he wrote a bunch of operas, of which this seems to be considered the best.

So here's what happened in 1566: Ottoman forces led by Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to invade Vienna, but first they had to get through a fortress in Hungary called Szigeth. And to do that, they had to get past a force of Croatians commanded by Zrinski (it's not quite clear to me why you had Croatians fighting in Hungary, but apparently these events are celebrated in both countries). They were badly outnumbered, but they managed to hold off the Ottomans for over a month; Suleiman himself died, albeit of natural causes (well, presumably stress-induced also, but still, a bit anti-climactic); the Ottomans won the final battle and Zrinski was killed, but it was a Phyrric victory, and they turned back without reaching Vienna.

It's certainly an irresistable subject for a patriotic opera. This is kind of what you'd expect: a lot of boilerplate about the unstoppable Croatian spirit, which doesn't exactly speak to me in itself; nonetheless, there are some very rousing choruses here that make me want to shout CROATIA FUCK YEAH! I enjoyed this quite a bit more than Ero the Joker,the other Croatian opera I've seen. The singing was maybe not quite world-class, but it seemed better to me (although in both of them, the really obvious microphones the singers are wearing distract). This actually features two singers in common with that one: Stjepan Franetović, who played the title role in Ero, as Suleiman's second-in-command; and Ljubomir Pušarić (whom I singled out for lukewarm praise in Ero) as the title role here. They both seem better to me, somehow. Maybe it's just a better opera. It is kind of notable that the singer playing Zrinski's wife is extremely blatantly younger than the one playing his daughter, but what the hey!

One weird, notable thing is that, per wikipedia, the rousing climactic chorus--which apparently remains popular in Croatia--is also a fixture of Japanese glee clubs.  You can read all about it in an article entitled "Jedan odlomak iz povijesti suradnje Japana i Hrvatske: Hrvatska pjesma "U boj" i japanski muški zbor," or "An Episode from the History of Cooperation Between Japan and Croatia: Croatian Song "U Boj" and Japanese Male Choirs."  How many episodes are there, do you think?

The Croatian Verdi? Well, I don't know about that. I was more reminded of Rimsky-Korsakov, especially in the lengthy dance sequence that opens the second act. But that is NO. BAD. THING. I'd be happy to see more of his work should the chance arise. This is what Operavision is good for. The standard-repertoire stuff they put on is all well and good, but it's, you know...standard. You can see it anywhere. Things like this are why I like them.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart and Salieri (1897)

This sticks out pretty jarringly among Rimsky-Korsakov's operas: you have all these pieces based on Russian fairie and folk tales, and then, BOOM, this one that has absolutely nothing to do with any Slavic themes. Of course, the reason is that it's based on a play by Pushkin, so I suppose in that sense it's indirectly Russian, but still...

Anyway, actually, when you think about it, it is based on a fairie tale: the wholly fake idea that Salieri had this bitter rivalry with Mozart. BOOM. In fact, this--and the source material--are mostly where this stuff comes from, I think. So I don't love that, but if we can ignore the fakeness on display here, this still works pretty well as a drama and an opera.

The idea is that Salieri is really obsessed with art and being an artist and he's worked his whole life to gain respect for himself and his work and he's done it even if it's kind of clinical and not exactly transcendent. And he was cool with that until this pipsqeak Mozart came along, who has the divine spark in spite of being, in Salieri's opinion, frivolous and unappreciative of his gift. So they're friends in theory only it's eating Salieri up inside until finally he determines that the only thing he can do is poison the kid (well, only six years younger than him, but whatevs). And that is that. It's a short piece; only one act in two scenes; over in forty-ish minutes.

It's really good, though the music takes a fairly inconspicuous backseat. Salieri and Mozart are the only two characters, the former having a much bigger role than the latter. You can really feel his angst, although I do have to say, as depicted, it's a little hard to really feel that it would be quite so murderous. This production (released as a double feature with The Stone Guest) from 1981 is quite good, notwithstanding the shaky video quality, although I somehow feel like Mozart should be depicted as younger than he is. Yes, their ages were close in real life, but the drama seems predicated on there being a bigger difference, and they're both late-middle-agish here. Small complaint, though. Good singing. Predictably, Salieri's a baritone and Mozart a tenor, and Artur Eizen and Alexei Maslennikov are both effective in the roles, though the former feels more like a real character. Mozart's mostly viewed from Salieri's perspective, at a remove.

Ironically (is this ironic? Probably not? Whatever), it makes me want to listen to more Mozart and more Salieri. 'Cause the former is great and the latter is pretty darned good (to be fair, the opera does nothing to indicate that the latter isn't as true as the former--Mozart even positively references Salieri's Tarare). But then...so is Rimsky-Korsakov. There was a time when I naively thought that I could at some point see all the operas that are available to see. Now...well, it's more plausible than seeing every available movie, but it's still a hell of daunting task.

Alexander Dargomyzhsky, The Stone Guest (1872)

You gotta have a lotta nerve to write an opera based on the Don Juan legend, given that it makes comparisons with one of the most famous and best operas ever written unavoidable. But I can tell you why it happened: it's because the libretto here is a play by Pushkin. If there's one thing I know about Russians, it's that they like composing operas based on Pushkin material. It couldn't have been avoided.

Like Borodin's Prince Igorand Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, this was completed after the composer's death by Rimsky-Korsakov. Don't you think there's something a little suspicious about all this posthumous opera-completion? Am I saying that he was in the habit of bumping off composers so he could have his way with their unfinished works? Well...I'm not not saying that. It's just something to keep in mind.

Yes well so. It's not exactly fair to compare this to Don Giovanni,but at least for the non-Russians among us, it's pretty inevitable that the whole thing will come across as a distorted, fun-house-mirror version thereof. There are plenty of similarities: there's a Leporello, a Donna Anna, and a Commendatore who wreaks his vengeance (though here, he's Donna Anna's husband instead of her father--no Don Ottavio is in evidence). It's kind of interesting to see, really, but...I dunno. I think the differences between the story here and in Mozart are kind of universally for the worse. Take--just as one example--the climax, which, in Don Giovanni, is probably the single most dramatic moment in opera. And part of what gives it so much power is that, even after everything, he's still given multiple opportunities to repent before it's too late. But there's nothing like that here; the statue just takes him by the hand and HUUUUGH! DEAD! And it's not even clear here whether he "deserves" this death, or whether he's supposed, in fact, to have been shown to be redeemed by love for Donna Anna, which is kind of glurgh compared to the other version. OH WELL.

The music: there are a fewpretty good dramatic crescendos, but...I mean, in general it's nothing to get that excited about. Almost the entirety of the singing is recitative, which gets a bit monotonous and, I think, precludes dramatic possibilities. Apparently this was considered to have had a strong influence on Russian opera, but as an amateur, I don't really see it. If you want to see it outside of Russia, you're pretty much limited to this,a 1979 recording from the Bolshoi Theatre that I think was produced for Soviet television. As such, the video quality isn't brilliant, but I think it's fine. Plenty good enough to give you the idea. I'd say the same thing about the cast, honestly (that probably sounds meaner than I intended it). But really, Vladimir Atlantov is, you know, fine in the title role, but he certainly doesn't project much in the way of power or menace. Well, that might be down to the opera itself as much as the singer. As I say, IT'S FINE. It's just...probably more of academic than popular interest.

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Les Boréades (1764)

Rameau's last opera, only performed posthumously for reasons people don't seem to be quite sure of. At any rate, we can be grateful that it survived to be performed.

The plot is that Alphise, the queen, wants to marry Abaris, but unfortunately he's a commoner and she's only supposed to marry one of les Boréades, decendents of the god. Her determination angers them and Boreas too, so they abduct her, but then it turns out that by a lucky break, Abaris was secretly a Boréade all along. Phew! Of course, saying that the opera has an overall "plot" might be pushing it a bit; it's a jumble, perhaps even more than these things usually are. Lots of things that aren't much more than excuses for some dubiously on-topic singing and dancing about. Still and all, though, the central romance is probably the most dramatically compelling thing in any Rameau I've seen. Naturally, our contemporary sensibilities would prefer that Boreas & Co just get over Abaris being a commoner, rather than oh wait he's secretly not, but that's just not the way these things worked, and it's fine.

The music is gorgeous and inventive; it's gratifying to know that the old man still had it in him. This is a fine production. It's fairly bare-bones set-wise; most of it centers on seasonal weather effects: flowers, leaves, snow, rain. It's frequently visually striking, although I sort of wish it had committed more deeply to the concept. A lot more could be done with it, I feel, and the bit where there's a big ol' table in the middle of the stage doesn't seem really on-point. The dancing...mmm, it's not necessarily my favorite thing, and it doesn't necessarily go with the music as well as one would like, but it's good enough. I like Paul Agnew a lot as Abaris. Very humane, and he has good chemistry with Barbara Bonney as Alphise, which is important for the drama to work. You probably would not guess that he also played the title role in Platée! Also, there's a very nice grace note at the end that I won't spoil even though you're unlikely to see this. You'll never know! It'll haunt you to your grave!

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mlada (1890)

This is not to be confused with the 1872 opera Mlada, which was an abortive collaborative project with Rimsky-Korsakov along with some other Russian composers, including Mussorgsky and Borodin (certainly an impressive array of talent). This apparently uses the same libretto but is completely different musically.

I have no idea whether this is based on actual mythology or if it's an original story; the internet does not make that clear. But the story, such as it is: Princess Mlada and Prince Yaromir were in love, but before the opera opens, Mlada has been murdered by Princess Voyslava (with the help of her father), who wants to marry Yaromir herself. To this end, she enlists the help of the goddess of death, Morena, but ultimately it's no dice: Yaromir remains faithful to Mlada, and the two are united in Heaven.

I say "such as it is" because this is an extremely non-plot-heavy opera--actually more accurately classified as an opera-ballet. That plot is mostly sort of bunched together at the beginning and end, with a lot of excuses for song and dance in between. There is a lot of invoking of various gods, both good and evil, as well as a somewhat undercooked thing involving different ethnicities, and in particular the Czechs who are trying to avoid persecution by the Germans. This goes nowhere and I'm not sure why it's there.

That is unimportant, however, because this thing cooks. Rimsky-Korsakov is fast becoming one of my favorite composers, and here we see the versatility of his talent, with music ranging from boistrous folk dances to eerie evocations of the supernatural. There's an especially striking part where, because the forces of darkness need Yaromir to forget about Mlada for their magic to work, they summon the shade of Cleopatra (yes, in a medieval Slavic setting--just go with it), leading to some appropriately spellbinding song and dance.

Unsurprisingly, there is only one video recording of this, from the Bolshoi Ballet in 1992. Fortunately, it's a pretty good one! It does suffer a little from the aesthetics of the time (in particular, Maria Gavrilowa as Voyslava has this "too much hairspray" eighties hangover thing), but it's generally sumptuously produced and lovely to watch. As usual with Rimsky-Korsakov, a lot of the singing seems like sort of an afterthought, but it's all fine. Oddly, the highlight may be a silent one, with Nina Ananiashvili (currently the artistic director of the State Ballet of Georgia) in a dual role as Mlada and Cleopatra. She may not sing, but she sure can dance, and she has the appropriate unearthly beauty for these roles.

Rimsky-Korsakov rules. Only about half his operas have been filmed, but I intend to see every one that I can.

George Frideric Handel, Rinaldo (1711)

Blah blah, another opera based on Orlan--HA! THIS ONE IS BASED ON TASSO'S GERUSALEMME LIBERATA! JOKE'S ON YOU! Hmm. That was probably too much capitalization. But anyway. It's still the same character, more or less. So if Rinaldo got short-changed by Ariodante, never fear; he still gets his own Handel opera.

So Gottfredo is laying siege to Jerusalem with his brother Eustazio and of course Rinaldo, who is also in love with Almirena (a new character, I believe). The leader of the Saracen forces is Agrante, who conspires with his consort Armida to seduce Rinaldo away from the good-guy team, though things get complicated when she falls in love with Rinaldo and he with Almirena. Anyway, the Christians win and the Saracens convert and are forgiven, which is defintely a far cry from Tasso's puritanical source material.

So here's the thing: in the eighteen hundreds, many of the roles were castrati, and further, Handel was constantly reworking his operas and changing around parts to suit particular singers or fashions of the time. What this means is it's kind of impossible to come up with a "definitive" version of the opera. You've gotta just give it your best shot. This production goes in very heavily on the countertenors, and I could not be more pleased about that. According to this article from 2001, it wasn't really until the 1960s that countertenor was taken seriously as a voice type, and I'm glad it was. When I first saw Giulio Cesare, I found the visual of these big burly dudes with these super-high voices a bit incongruous, but at this point, I can honestly say: I'm completely used to it. I don't bat an eye anymore, and indeed it may well be my favorite vocal type. I can understand why those old Italians were so crazy for high voices, and even though I know it's a sin, I'm desperately curious as to what the superstar castrati of the time sounded like.

Anyway, here we get four of them, which I think is more than I've ever seen in one production: Rinaldo himself (David Daniels), Gottfredo (David Walker), Eustazio (Axel Köhler), and a small dual-role as "a herald" and "a Christian magician" (Charles Maxwell). In fact, Agrante is the only non-countertenor male in the opera, and while Egils Sinins is fine, as far as it goes, he's also to be the least interesting singer here. All of the countertenors are great, with my favorite being--somewhat arbitrarily, probably-- Köhler, who really brings it. Then again, there's also everyone's favorite (ALLEGED!) sex offender, David Daniels, who, tragically, is also one hell of a singer. Obviously, Plácido Domingo is getting more press, but let's face it, he was near the end of his career anyway; Daniels is definitely more of a blow to me (if you google him these days, the first thing you'll see is a really seedy-looking mugshot). Still, for what it's worth, I found I was entirely able to dissociate his performance from his sins, and it remains really great. I realize I've given the women short shrift here, so let me briefly note that Noëmi Nadelmann tears it up as Armida, and Deborah York--in an admittedly less interesting role--is fine as Almirena. And the music is the usual Handel magic.

So that's all good. As for the production itself...well, I kind of sneer at people who are all "OH THIS PRODUCTION OF MACBETH HAS GUNS IN IT IT'S TERRIBLE." That level of purism just seems tedious and dumb to me. However, I wouldn't exactly blame anyone who wasn't feeling this, which veers hard into out-and-out surrealism, featuring truly bizarre sets and a giant doll on wheels for no reason and so much other nonsense I hardly know how to describe it. Still, that's other people. I got used to it quickly enough and found it perfectly fun, even if I couldn't tell you what if anything the director was trying to get at. There are other versions available (including thistotally fascinating-looking version of a weird, eighteenth-century bootleg version of the opera), but this one--which I believe I got just because it was an ex-library version going dirt-cheap--is perfectly acceptable to my eye.

"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed hundreds of thousands of who!"

When people call trump our worst president ever, other people are always quick to remind us that for all his loathesomeness, he has yet to lie us into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and immiserated countless more (I mean, in addition to everything else, but for the sake of argument, let's stay focused here). Which is true, though obviously not because trump would have any scruples about that if he saw the opportunity and thought it would lead to his greater glory, but I think the point is that when people look at george w bush, they see, like, a person, who is capable of liking other people. Who, it's easy to believe, authentically loved Barney the dog and was sad when he died. Whereas it's impossible to imagine trump even feeling sad if one of his children died (regret at having lost any possible opportunity to fuck his daughter doesn't count). Trump just seems fundamentally less-than-human in a way that gwb didn't.  I mean, gwb is someone who would be capable of having friends.

Still. The fact remains, he lied us into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and immiserated countless more (side note: for some bizarre reason, blogger's spellcheck recognizes "immiserate" as a word, but flags both "immiserated" and "immiserates" with its red underline). The magnitude of this is so great it's difficult to conceptualize. There is--I have heard said--a good argument to be made that, if you want to be technicalabout it, every President in living memory has been a war criminal, and I can easily believe this, but gwb is pretty damned unambiguous in this regard.

Still, if Ellen Degeneres or any other nominally liberal member of our cultural elite wants to be friends with him, whatever. When you're rich enough, in most ways that matter you live in a completely different world than us common rabble, and questions like this fade into insignificance.

Still. If you're going to do it, just do it. Don't address it; don't try to justify it. Because the airy platitudes about us getting along in spite of our differences are the really nauseating thing here. If you're going to talk about it at all, it's dishonest on a hideous level to not just come out and say "yes, he's responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, but that's irrelevant to the fact that I find him personally charming." But you won't say that, because it would make you look like a monster, and you know it would.  So knowing that, how can you still be friends?  That's a big ol' "this program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down," so instead, let's not willfully not think about it; let's just be vague and act like none of it happened.

I suppose this is just the sort of thing that happens when you let war crimes go unpunished because it would be bad for national unity (this is the place for a rare unironic "thanks Obama"). But it's still fucking gross. As I say, do what you want, and if your audience accepts it, then I guess The Market Has Spoken. But don't expect people with functioning moral compasses to accept it or forgive you for it.

Ariosto vs Handel

So I've been prompted to reread Orlando Furioso, for perhaps obvious reasons. Notwithstanding the somewhat tedious (okay, very tedious) bits where Ariosto feels the need to flatter his partrons by going on about how illustrious their ancestors were, it remains highly entertaining, and Barbara Reynolds' verse translation a marvel. The episode from whence Handel's Ariodante comes is early on in the text, so I thought it might be interesting to look at the differences between poem and opera.

The biggest difference is that in the poem, Rinaldo is involved in the story. It's easy to see why you'd want to remove what seems like a somewhat extraneous character to streamline things, but for better or worse, it definitely leads to other big differences. The idea is that he's been sent to England to find military aid, and while he's there he wants to do some knight-type chivalry, so he asks around and some monks tell him about the situation with Ginevra and her impending execution. The opera is sort of vague on this point, but the poem makes it explicit: the law says that if a woman is found with a lover, she'll be burned at the stake unless a knight comes along to defend her in combat. The opera makes you infer this, presumably because such an insane-sounding thing would derail the narrative (or maybe that's just my twenty-first-century perspective). But Ariosto faces it straight on: Rinaldo's first reaction to hearing about it is "fuck this garbage law" (not an exact quote), and then we get this famous, shockingly forward-thinking bit:

'If the same ardour, if an equal fire

Draws and compels two people ever more

To the sweet consummation of desire

(Which many ignoramuses deplore),

Why should a woman by a fate so dire

Be punished who has done what men a score

Of times will do and never will be blamed,

Nay, rather, will be praised for it and famed?

Right on.  Possibly being raised with his sister as a peer makes him especially sensitive to these things.  So he decides he's gonna defend her whether or not she's "innocent," and the story has a slightly different conclusion: in the opera, Polinesso (the villain who got Ginevra in trouble in the first place) is defending her against Ariondante's brother Lurcanio (who is angry at Ginevra because he thinks her unfaithfulness caused his brother's suicide); he kills him, and then Ariodante just sort of shows up. But the poem kind of makes more sense in this regard. It's not clear why Polinesso would be defending Ginevra; that suggests a depth of character that isn't otherwise there. Also, it makes Ariodante himself less of a bystander to his own story. So here, Rinaldo comes by and sees Lurcanio fighting against the disguised Ariodante, who, having decided that maybe Ginevra isn't guilty after all and besides he still loves her, is there to defend her. He knows the real story from Ginevra's maid Dalinda, so he gets them to call off their battle and challenges Polinesso to fight and when he wins everyone's happy, except the dead Polinesso.

Another significant difference is that the opera makes it very clear that Dalinda and Polinesso are not actually lovers: it specifically states this, and Polinesso declares that he'll respect her honor when they pretend to be as part of his scheme to trick Ariodante. Whereas in the poem they've been sleeping together for some time. It's not totally clear in the opera why Dalinda would accede to Polinesso's weird request with no question (okay, because her brain is scrambled by love, but still...), but in the poem it's both more realistic and sigificantly more twisted: he convinces her that he's in love with both her and Ginevra, but he's sad because he can't have the latter, so he instructs her to...well:

"Notice her ornaments and style of hair,

And, taking every detail in your scope,

All her appearances imitate with care.

Then from the balcony let down the rope,

Which I, pretending to be unaware

Of your disguise, will climb, for thus I hope

By self-deception to assuage my pain

And from my longing some relief to gain.

Cool. Cool, cool. It's maybe no surprise that the secondary romance between Dalinda and Lurcanio was made up out of whole cloth for the opera; in the poem, she goes off to join a nunnery after the skulduggery is revealed.

Okay, one more thing which is small but nonetheless I think illuminating about the differences in sensibility between sixteenth-century Italians and eighteenth-century Brits (Handel was writing for an English audience, remember): in the opera, after Ariodante fails to drown himself, he sort of bemoans the fates that have made him live on. But in the poem, he realizes, after having thrown himself in the ocean, that maybe there's something to be said for not drowning and swims to shore. I think this is probably more psychologically realistic, and also makes him a more appealing, assertive character. However, the opera seems to be illustrative of a somewhat different aesthetic, where being willing and eager to die for love would seem the height of romance. Or so I, a non-expert in the field, perceive.

Anyway, I'm not trying to judge these, to decide which is "better." They're both great. I will concede, however, that the story alterations do raise more plot questions than they answer.

George Frideric Handel, Alcina (1735)

HEY GUESS WHAT POEM THIS IS BASED ON. I bet you would not get it right if you had one million guesses.

What's odd is that even though the overall story here is very familiar--it's basically the same stuff as La liberazione di Ruggiero, albeit at greater length: he's enchanted by Alcina and it's up to the other knights to convince him to leave her and return to murder-related feats, as well as his fiancée Bradamante--the opera remains sort of confusing: so for instance, in addition to Alcina, there's another enchantress, Morgana (Le Fey?). Who is this? What's her purpose? Is she Alcina's subordinate enchantress or are they just pals or what (okay, wikipedia says they're sisters, but that, as far as I could see, is never disclosed in the opera itself). And these other dudes wandering around: it's hard to keep them straight or remember what they're meant to be doing here.

But none of that really matters. You can follow it well enough, and it does a good job making Alcina a somewhat sympathetic character in spite of everything--sure, she turns former lovers into wild animals and inanimate objects, but hey, he who is without sin and so on. This actually features Bradamante as a character, and she kind of makes Alcina look better, because she kind of just represents dull rectitude, which isn't that fascinating--which is too bad, because as you recall, in the poem she's a cool-ass lady knight, Rinaldo's sister, "held in no less honor than her brother/For they are known to equal each the other."

Anyway, that was a tangent. But the REAL points to be made are: the music is terrific, and Opera McGill really outdid themselves with this production. Alas, I do not have the critical context or vocabulary to compare Handel operas in any cogent way, so I'm left saying unhelpful things like "this music fuckin' rules," and "this must be one of the best scores he ever composed." Why? Quick, look over there! *smoke bomb*

Still, it is what it is. The production is a Chinese-themed thing, which seems a little weird at first but which one quickly gets used to. The set is fairly minimalistic, featuring just a giant coin with one of those square holes in the middle, and Chinese characters on each side. It's all fine. One of the first things you note is that the singer playing Ruggiero (Simone McIntosh) is physically smaller than the one playing Alcina (Anna-Sophie Neher), which looks a little weird, and you think, hmm, was this the best casting? But then she opens her mouth and one's doubts are allayed. Don't get me wrong, everyone's great here, but she McIntosh really take the cake. And she has a website! So you KNOW she's good.

According to wikipedia, this quickly fell out of fashion, being performed in 1738 and then no more until almost two hundred years later in 1928. That's NUTS; this rules. Handel, man. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I thinkthis kid is going places.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan (1900)

That's a mouthful of a title, innit?  This is a somewhat surreal fairy tale thing, similar to Sadko, although this one is from a story by Pushkin. We have three sisters, all of whom want to marry the tsar; he chooses the youngest, Militrisa, as you do, and the jealous older two along with their mother plot their revenge: when the tsar is away at The Wars, they devise a scheme whereby Militrisa and her young son, Gvidon, are sealed in a barrel and thrown into the sea. However, the two of them survive, washing up on an island. Gvidon saves a swan from being eaten by a kite and in gratitude it makes a city appear on the island of which he becomes prince. Ultimately the swan becomes a woman, and they're going to get married. They return to the tsar's kingdom, and there is general rejoicing; everyone's so happy that they even forgive the schemers. Hurray!

Rimsky-Korsakov's music, goddamn, man. This is the one where we get "Flight of the Bumblebee," but there's plenty more great stuff where that came from, some of it so Russian-sounding that it feels as though someone should be playing Tetris over it. I suppose Rimsky-Korsakov played a big part in creating our impression of what traditional Russian music is. Good for him. There aren't exactly any show-stopping vocal numbers, but everyone here acquitted themselves well. I especially liked Svetlana Aksenova as Militrisa. She's got plenty of vocal power and uses it well.

Still, I must talk about this production, which is definitely...polarizing. See, the idea here is that Militrisa is actually a contemporary woman with an autistic son, and she interacts with him through fairy tales, of which this opera is one. I saw some good reviews, but I was extremely skeptical about this concept going in. I must admit, though, I did start warming to it considerably, somewhat to my surprise. In the first act, we have most of the character dressed in exaggerated fairy-tale costumes, while Militrisa herself is dressed in a sober skirt/sweater combo. Her son (Bogdan Volkov, who--though I'm certainly not an expert--certainly seems to capture the mannerisms of an autistic person extremely well) just sort of hovers in the background, looking on.

But things really take off in the second act, where Gvidon is actually a character (and it comes as a bit of a shock when he first starts singing). There are very striking animated ink drawings of the fairy-tale action, as he starts to participate in the fantasy, and I have to say, I thought this was all pretty darned inspired and actually kind of moving. It's obviously not anything that Rimsky-Korsakov would have intended, but it does not, it seems to me clash with the work itself. It seems to complement it very well, and there's nothing there that makes nonsense of the libretto, as oft happens in these reinterpretations.

Well, I say that, but unfortunately, it all kind of implodes in the last act, which takes place in the "real" world, and the on-stage action just makes less and less sense in the context of the piece. Even so, though, I think this probably could have been at least somewhat acceptable, except for the ending: it's meant to be triumphant and joyful, but for whatever fucking reason, the director (Dmitri Tcherniakov, who is apparently notorious for this sort of thing) decided that we needed a downbeat conclusion, so we end with Gvidon just not being able to deal with all the noise and commotion frantically clawing at the back wall. This doesn't work with the music or libretto or really ANYTHING about the opera, and it really downgrades the whole thing.

It kind of makes me angry--I hope to see a traditional production in the future, because the opera itself rules--but my anger is as nothing compared to that of a number of irate Russians in the youtube comments section. Some of them rant at length in Russian, but there are a few comments in English, such as:

"Wonderful music and wonderful execution, what a pity that the director has destroyed everything with his madness."

and

"To a Russian person to see this and listen to this disgusting singing with disgusting diction is simply unbearable and humiliating!"

and my favorite:

"There is no Russian opera left that the bastard dog Dima Chernyakov would not have marked with the fetid urine of his talent."

"The fetid urine of his talent." Okay you don't like the production, fair enough. It is just very, very hard for me to imagine unironically making comments like these. It's definitely a nationalism thing, and obviously nationalism is real, but I just cannot conceive of being prompted to write things like this as a reaction to any sort of perceived degradation of an American culural artifact. Probably chilling out a bit would be a good thing to do.