Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, La clemenza di Tito (1791)

Possibly Mozart's last opera, depending on how you count: he completed Die Zauberflötelast, but this is the last one he started. What happened was, in the summer of 1791 he was busy with Zauberflöte when he was commissioned to write an opera seria to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II of Bohemia. The money was good, and he couldn't refuse, so he dashed this out in two and a half weeks. Let that sink in. By this time, opera seria--the dominant form of the eighteenth century--was more or less dead, and starting to seem very old-fashioned, but that's apparently what ol' Leo liked, so that's what he got. It's not a form that's had a lot of staying power, apart from the odd Handel and Vivaldi, but Mozart is of course Mozart. He has another earlier example of the form, Idomeneo, which I haven't yet seen.

Anyway, the plot to this seems complicated at first glance, but it's not, really. So Tito is the emperor of Rome. His friend Sesto is in love with a woman, Vitellia, who is in turn in love with him, Tito. But pissed off at having been scorned, she uses his, Sesto's, love for her (which she also sort of returns) to get him reluctantly to participate in a plot to murder Tito. He ends up in chains after the plot fails, full of remorse, and the drama is what Tito'll do with him, but the title may provide a hint. There's also another couple, Annio and Servilia, but they don't do much plotwise. And that's it.

I actually found it really moving. Obviously, given the circumstances of its commission, it's meant to flatter the audience by showing a ruler who's a super-swell guy, but it works really well in any context. You can be cynical about such things, but I'd like to quote this piece regarding our politics:

...there are blunders, crimes, abuses, and atrocities enough to find in the record of every American president. But all those presidents put forward a public rhetorical face that was better than their worst acts. This inevitably drives political opponents crazy: they despise the hypocrisy and the halo that good speeches put on undeserving heads. I’ve had that reaction to, well, every previous president in my living memory, at one time or another. But there’s something important and valuable in the fact that they felt the need to talk about loftier ideal than they actually governed by. They kept the public aspirations of American political culture pointed toward Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.” In words, even if not in deeds, they championed a free and fair liberal democratic order, the protection of civil liberties, openness toward the world, rejection of racism at home, and defiance against tyranny abroad.

This, obviously, in stark contrast to our current despot, who doesn't feel the need to even make a pretense at basic decency. You may not believe in absolute monarchy (though damned if I'm not kinda feeling it now, as long as we can have a ruler like Tito), but the decency and charity is aspirational. I like it.

It's a very traditional production. Well, I say "traditional" in the sense that it looks like the eighteenth century, not that it resembles ancient Rome in any way. I don't know if I have that much to say about the cast, but it's all strong, as you'd anticipate. I don't think I'd ever before seen Giuseppe Filianoti, who sings Tito, but he's very good. Elīna Garanča, whom I think I last saw in Rosenkavalier, is a powerful Sesto, though there's a part of me that kinda would've liked to see a countertenor in what was originally a castrato role--there's already a woman en travesti in the person of Annio (Kate Lindsey, whom I just recently saw in Hoffmann). OH WELL. Barbara Frittoli is also good as Vitellia, the villain-only-not-really. I don't know. There's something, in this day and age, about a show that's about good people making mistakes, sure, but basically being good. More along these lines, please.

Giuseppe Verdi, Don Carlos (1867)

...or just "Don Carlo," if you're watching it in the Italian translation, as I was, though as I understand it both French and Italian are commonly performed.

It takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. Carlos or Carlo is a Spanish prince who falls in love with a French princess, Elisabeth. They're happy, but unfortunately only for several seconds, as his father Philippe II wants to marry her to cement peace between the two countries. She goes along with this out of a sense of duty, and everyone is sad. There are many more details, but that, in essence, is that.

I liked this one a lot, and I'll say one thing for it in particular: it has one of the better love stories I've seen in an opera. I refer not to Carlo and Elisabeth, whose relationship is somewhat half-baked, as these things tend to be (though they do have a very passionate love duet in their first scene), but Carlo and his loyal friend Rodrigo, whose love for each other is truly vivid and affecting. Thiseffectively minimalistic Met production is excellent, and brilliantly cast. I'm not sure I've ever seen Roberto Alagna as good as he is here, and Simon Keenlyside (there's the most British-ass name in the world) and Marina Poplavskaya are both great as Rodrigo and Elisabeth. It's a small part, but I also want to give big ups to Eric Halvarson as the terrifying Grand Inquisitor, made up to look like the oldest man in the world. However, I'm actually going to give pride of place here to Ferruccio Furlanetto as Philippe II (though as oft happens, I wonder if I'm actually doing that because he's the best singer, or just because it's the best role) But he is VERY powerful as the doubt-wracked king, and man, if nothing else, you've GOTTA listen to his awesome, pathos-ridden aria ("Ella giammai m'amò) that opens Act IV.

So I really liked this a lot. However...I have to admit, it turns out a littlewonky at the end. So the idea (which I don't think is introduced as clearly as it could've been) is that the people of Flanders are suffering due to France's oppression, and when Carlo and others beg him to forgive them for whatever they've done, he won't. So Carlo is going to be their savior, and Act V is largely taken up by this whole long thing about how he and Elisabeth love each other but they know they can't be together, it turns out honor is more important than love, they'll be united in Heaven, and so on. But then--like, seriously, in the last two minutes of the opera--the King and Grand Inquisitor and a bunch of guards storm onto the stage. Carlo is wounded and then, boom, the ghost of the previous king, Charles V, appears, and everyone's freaked out. Um...the end. Different sources describe this differently; per wikipedia, it's not actually a ghost, and it "drags Carlos into the tomb and closes the entrance;" according to this, the ghost "appears and leads [Carlos] to safety." I feel like people should be able to get their story straight, but regardless, it is REALLY WEIRD, and even if it weren't, fercryinoutloud, you need to BUILD UP to a tragedy; you can't just have ghosts suddenly appearing for no reason. The stuff with Carlo and Elisabeth seems very clearly to be how the opera is going to end, but then it goes a bit pear-shaped. Still liked it, though.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, La serva padrona (1733)

This is a short opera buffa--one of the first of such--that was originally written as an intermezzo for a longer opera seria, Il prigionier superbo. That was considered a failure and kind of sank into obscurity (though you CAN get it on disc if you're so inclined), but the intermezzo took on a life of its own and--according to wikipedia, at least, I dunno--bridges the gap between baroque and classical music, and as such would have outsized influence on the future history of opera.

It's only forty-two minutes, so you might as well watch it, especially given this excellent performance, from 1998. It's a simple story, as you'd expect: Umberto (bass) is a rich guy who's irked because his maidservant Serpina (soprano) is refusing to carry out his orders and being generally obstreperous, but then she uses goofy trickery to get him to marry her. Um...the end. Serpina, I have to admit, did sort of annoy me at first, but I got into it pretty quickly, and it was all good. The music and especially the singing here, BOY is it ever great. Hella delightful stuff, and Donato Di Stefano and Patrizia Biccirè (the only characters, aside from a non-speaking manservant), are more than up to the task. Under normal circumstances, I would have my doubts about whether this marriage will be a happy one, but...really. Under the circumstances, who would even think about that?

Huh. Do I have anything else to say? It sort of makes me want to see some of Pergolesi's operas (how would I pluralize that?). I do have the feeling that I would discover that there's a reason this is the one that's still known, but hell, man, he has a few other comic pieces that probably wouldn't be too painful to sit through. In any event, it's pretty brutal that he died (of tuberculosis) at the age of twenty-six. Hmm.

Luigi Cherubini, Medea (1797)

"Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries." This is what his wikipedia entry claims. I guess Mozart is probably a little too early to count as one of his contemporaries. Anyway. This is his best-known opera these days, largely because Maria Callas used it as a star vehicle. I saw a production from Moscow's Stanislavsky Music Theatre that was on Operavision; it's not there anymore, but I download these things for consumption at my leisure, so I had it just sitting around.

Really, all I can say is, dagnabbit. The story here is basically that of Euripides' play, with the title character wreaking what some might consider disproportionate vengeance on Jason for abandoning her And taking their sons away (though Jason, it has to be said, is kind of a douchebag).

So is it good? Yeah it's good. It's the best Operavision performance I've seen, I'll tell you that much. The production itself is a bit strange; the stage is dominated by these giant concrete tetrapods. It actually feels kind of appropriate, but I couldn't begin to tell you why. It certainly doesn't detract in any way. The opera is great in itself; the Medea here clearly ranks up there with Strauss' Salome and Elektra in terms of violent, obsessive antiheroines. And the performance here, my goodness.

Khibla Gerzmava. WHY had I never heard of or seen her before? Is it just that there was only one slot for an internationally-famous Russian soprano, and Netrebko had already taken it? Unfair. I really couldn't say how she compares to Callas, but she sings the shit out of this role, and she is intense as hell. I remember seeing Nina Stemme as Elektra and thinking, damn. This is the most impressive operatic acting I've seen (am I confusing "flashy" with "impressive," due to my low-level thinking? Maybe. Leave me alone.), but this is about on that level.  I want to see her in many more roles.  Ksenia Dudnikova as Medea's maid Neris (the opera's moral center to the extent that it has one) is also very impressive. This can't be a very satisfying opera for a male singer; Creon and Jason don't get to do much. But everyone's fine. I did think...well, it might just be my equipment, but I felt that maybe the audio was not quite properly recorded, resulting in a certain amount of distracting feedback. But it wasn't a big deal once I'd gotten into it.

Yeah. I strongly recommend this one.

Gottfried von Einem, Dantons Tod (1947)

Here'san obscure one. It's based on an 1835 play by Georg Büchner (also the writer of Woyzeck, upon which Herzog's film and Berg's opera are based). According to wikipedia, this opera was instrumental in a post-war artistic rebirth, written by a young composer who wasn't implicated in any way in the nazi regime. Is it still performed? Seems so, though I doubt it's ever been done outside Austria or Germany.

As one might guess, it's about events leading up to the execution of Georges Danton, one of the early leaders of revolutionary France, along with his friend and ally Camille Desmoulins, because of...well, hard to say. Reasons, I suppose. Putatively having to do with some corruption or other, but probably really more just for perceived lack of appropriate revolutionary zeal. I feel like I may have mentioned this elsewhere but just TRY to find a figure of any significance in the really revolutionary days who survived 1794--it's not easy. It's grim but also blackly comical--how long do you have to keep executing your leaders before it occurs to you that there might be more fundamental problems here?

So a few caveats with this particular recording: it's from 1963, and the video quality is not fantastic. The sound is better, but there IS a persistent hissing in the background. Furthermore, the subtitles are in fact fansubs; it's cool that anyone would care enough about this to make them, but they could have used some revision: the fact that these revolutionary figures are all speaking in this high-minded, elevated language, along with the fact that most of us may not be aware of the ins and outs of revolutionary politics, ALONG ALSO WITH the fact that it seems to have been translated in an excessively literal and often unidiomatic way...well, it can be difficult to follow. Still, this is almost certainly the only time it's been translated in any way, so what are you going to do?

Well, I suppose you could just not watch it. But it's actually pretty good. I needed something short-ish to watch, and this filled the bill nicely. The Modern-ish music and singing get VERY dramatic, especially during the trial and execution scenes. I have no idea what Danton was actually like, but it's a sympathetic role, and Eberhard Wachter is commanding in it. I mean, I think so. I could probably judge better if the quality were better. I would love to have had the opportunity to see the above-linked Austrian production, but I'm still glad to have seen it period.

Jacques Offenbach, Les contes d'Hoffman (1880)

I'd been wanting to see this one for a while now, but somehow never got around to it. Hey, did you know that Offenbach wrote ninety-eight operettas? Or opéras comiques? These classifications somewhat elude me. Staggering in any event. He clearly knew how to write a crowd-pleaser. Certainly, he did based on this opera, not staged 'til after his death. It certainly pleased me.

This is based on three stories by the German Romantic author Estimated Time of Arrival Hoffman (that is SUCH A DUMB JOKE, and I'm sure it's been made many many times before, but I just couldn't avoid it), in three acts with a framing narrative in the form of a prologue and epilogue. The frame is in a tavern; Hoffman comes in and tells everyone the stories of his three failed love affairs (clearly substantially tall-tale-ish), each of which also involves A Villain, each of whom is sung by the same singer. He's also accompanied by his muse, who takes the form of his friend Nicklausse. In the first act, it turns out the woman he loves, Olympia, is actually just a wind-up doll (give Hoffman credit--he's not afraid to make himself look kinda dumb). In the second, he love a woman, Antonia, who loves to sing, but she has a mysterious illness that will kill her if she sings too much. She's going to give up singing, but the evil Dr. Miracle convinces her that she must follow her dreams, and she dies. In the third, he is seduced by a courtesan, Giulietta, at the behest of Captain Capertutto, who wants her to steal his reflection from him (which seduction doesn't seem to take much skill; he gives in almost instantly). Then at the end Hoffman's drunken and lachrymose, and the muse encourages him to find artistic inspiration from his pain. So there you go.

Seriously, Offenbach has some killer music. Be sure to listen to the "Kleinzach" aria if nothing else. Very good Met production, also. The three stories are significantly dissimilar, such that I feel like it would be a little hard to achieve real unity between them: "Olympia" is significantly the zaniest, and the production matches it with a crazy faerie-tale burlesque that is just plain great. "Antonia" is significantly more restrained; there's no chorus and just a handful of characters, while "Giulietta," while the most "realistic" (except, you know, for the whole reflection-stealing thing), like "Olympia," has a lot more opportunity for extravagance. At any rate, I think this production does about as well as you could hope.

No problem with any of my singers. For me, the highlights were Kate Lindsey en travestie as Nicklausse, who brings an amusingly ironical attitude to Hoffman's misfortunes; and Thomas Hampton as "4 Villains" (as he's credited), bringing appropriate menace to them all. I also really liked Erin Morley as Olympia; she was incredibly charming as Nannetta in Falstaff,and here, completely different obviously, she does the "robotic" thing very effectively.

The question is, if I saw one of Offenbach's operettas, would I be able to distinguish it from a "regular" opera? Well, that's something I should probably find out one of these days.

Gaetano Donizetti, Rita (1860)

The story on wikipedia is that while Donizetti was waiting around for a libretto to be ready for him, he ran into Gustave Vaëz, who had written the libretto for Lucia di Lammermoor, and asked him if he could write a short something so he'd have something to occupy himself in the meantime. Vaëz dashed out this one-acter, and the rest is history. Sort of. It wasn't performed until after Donizetti's death, however.

So that's this. And musically, it's typically sparkling Donizetti-in-comic-mode; no complaints there (although it does perhaps take a little while for it to really take off). But the plot, well...this is a zany comedy about domestic violence. It has, um, not aged well. I looked for reviews online, and they generally either don't even mention this or treat it in an off-handed "oh, well, it's all just super-goofy anyway, don't think too hard about it," but I thought it was definitely...worth noting. The main thing that's worth noting, really.

Rita runs a roadside inn; she's very self-satisfied about how well she's doing, and also about her bumbling husband, Beppi, whom she whacks around whenever he gets out of line. He's a super-big improvement, she notes, over her first husband, lost at sea, who would beat her. You definitely want to be the beater rather than the beatee. But then it turns out said first husband, Gaspar, was notdead, and he comes back. Not looking to reunite with Rita, he doesn't know she's there, just to stay at the inn. It turns out he thought she was dead, and he has a Canadian fiancée. He helpfully explains to Beppi when he sees how henpecked he is that he would beat his first wife but, you know, not enough to kill her, and she'd love him, and he intends to do the same with his new wife. Whee. Anyway, when it's revealed who he is, they have an argument about who has to stay with Rita, but in the end, she and Beppi are reconciled and, apparently, nobody is going to beat anyone, and Gasparo goes on his merry way and will, presumably, inflict plenty of violence on his new wife. COOL.

I watched this 1962 teleplay, which is definitely the oldest video of an opera I've ever seen. For the record, it's actually quite well-done; I'd never heard of any of the singers (just the three of them), but they're all good, especially Federico Davia as Gasparo. He has a goofy comic-opera face that works well in the role.

Still. The music's good enough that it might be worth seeing anyway, depending on your priorities, but the story is extremely non-lovable. Easy to see why it's relatively little-known and not spoken of in the same breath as Donizetti's comic masterpieces.  There are a surprising number of productions on youtube (most without subtitles), but it's hard for me to see how you could make it much more palatable.

Charles Gounod, Faust (1859)

This was the first opera that the Met produced in their inaugural season in 1883. That's fun fact. It was popular then, and it's popular now. It's basically the Faust story, similarly though not identically presented to La damnation de Faust. I do not have that much more to say about it, except that it really is pretty terrific: great music, great drama.

But let's speak for a minute of this production, and of the concept of "Eurotrash." The term really doesn't seem to have a set definition, but to my mind it's not synonymous with "Regietheater." I define Eurotrash--a term sometimes used affectionately--as an operatic production that takes place in an updated or wildly different setting than the original. This can be done well or poorly, such that if I call a production Eurotrash, it isn't meant as any sort of value judgment (by contrast, Regietheater presents productions with little or no relevance to the original opera, which usually involves shoehorning in transgressive sex and violence).

I have certainly seen and written here about productions that I would characterize as Eurotrash, but, you know, I've generally liked them. I think these things can be done very well, and when they are, they're a great deal of fun. But here's the first production I've ever seen that I would characterize as bad Eurotrash. Sorry. But there it is. I'm honestly surprised that the Met's quality control let this get through. It's this really incoherent concept where Faust is a nuclear physicist during World War II, and, I guess, he's involved with the creation of the atomic bomb. So in the beginning, he's kind of puttering around his lab, and there's an eyewash station that keeps cropping up for seemingly no good reason, throughout the show. The witches in the Walpurgisnacht section seem to be radiation victims. And there are weird touches that don't really seem to have to do with anything, like a weird giant soldier puppet that the soldiers parade around in act I like a giant skeleton that appears at the end of act III. So I really didn't like any of this, and even if it were done well, I just don't think it's a natural fit for the original story.

That's not to say, however, that I exactly disliked watching it. Another thing about the production is that it's not very thorough, and there were large stretches where you could easily just forget about the putative concept, and all was fine. FURTHERMORE, all the principal singers were fantastic. Jonas Kaufmann as Faust doesn't exactly have that much to do (one thing about the Faust story is that when you come right down to it, Faust really isn't that interesting as a character), but he does it with verve. Marguerite, on the other hand, while also not much of a character, has a lot more to do here than the version in Berlioz' opera, and Marina Poplavskaya is really terrific. Her "there was a king of Thule" aria (which, I realized, must come from Goethe himself, as the lyrics also appear in the Berlioz) is truly fantastic, and I'd definitely recommend searching it out even if you don't want to watch the whole thing. And then, of course, René Pape as a dapper, sinister Mephistopheles, and what can you say about that. He's predictably terrific, and I should note that in spite of my complaints about the production, it still includes some really terrific staging, a high point being when he's singing a song about the golden calf and making the people in the background kind of jerk along to his dance. Veryeffective in bringing across his Satanic power.

So yeah. I'd say this whole thing succeeds when the opera itself is able to rise above the production. And while it's a tribute to the opera's quality that it's able to do that so frequently, it really shouldn't have to, should it? The two ought to complement and elevate each other. Maybe sometime I'll see a production of this where that is the case.

George Frideric Handel, Rodelinda (1725)

So Bertarido is a king, of somewhere-or-other, only his throne has been usurped by Grimoaldo, a duke of somewhere-or-other, taking Rodelinda, Bertarido's wife, prisoner. Grimoaldo hopes to marry Rodelinda (even though he'd previously been involved with her sister-in-law, Eduige), since Bertarido is thought to be dead. But surprise twist! He's not. And with the aid of the loyal counsellor Unulfo, Eduige and Rodelinda are able to restore him to the throne and kill the evil counsellor Garibaldo and Grimoaldo regrets his ways and gets back together with Eduige and is forgiven and truly everyone is happy.

There's something about a story like this that I really appreciate. In what world, you might ask, would Grimoaldo not only be allowed to live following a failed coup like this, but not be punished in any way? It's a forgiving world where people are basically good (except, you know, the one bad guy) and everything just works out. I know it's a fantasy, but it is aspirational for me (and absolutely no comparison to the current situation should be made; ITMFA). It's just a nice story--although there was one part I thought was a little dubious, where Rodelinda says she's marry Grimoaldo, only there's one condition: he has to murder her young son in cold blood, here and now. To show what this is all really about. And you have to figure that she must realize that he's not bad enough to actually do that; otherwise she just comes across as monstrous. But boy, there isn't any indication of that, and even if it isthe plan, christ, lady, you are traumatizing the hell out of the kid here. But otherwise, it was smooth sailing. And Handel's music...well, you know what it sounds like, and if you like it, you'll like this, and I do and I did.

I feel like I'm actually understanding more about the evolution of opera lately. So the thing about these early baroque operas, as I understand it, is that they were really, really favoring the singing over plot. That's why you have characters repeating the same lines over and over, and so much room for vocal embellishment. There was a reaction against this which was spearheaded by Gluck, leading directly to Mozart, and from there to Bel Canto guys like Donizetti and Rossini and thence Verdi and Wagner. Correct me if I'm mangling any of this. But point being: baroque operas weren't performed that much until recently, and the reason is that the staging is so static that it's hard to know what to do with it, given contemporary aesthetics. The solution--certainly in the three Handel operas I've seen--is to add a lot of stage action so as to make it seem like you're not just repeating the same lines over and over. Even though you are. And, well, it works. This production, by Stephen Wadsworth, is a period piece, but with very elaborate sets allowing for a level of dynamism that a less fancy staging wouldn't be able to manage, and choreography to match. Renée Fleming plays the title character, and hey, what's to complain about? STEPHANIE FUCKING BLYTHE is Eduige; I'd never seen her in a romantic role before, and I'm glad she's able to do that, and well. I also really liked tenor Joseph Kaiser as the not-actually-evil usurper. Bertarido and Unulfo are played by countertenors, Andreas Scholl and Iestyn Davies, and they're fine in the context, though I have to admit, I'm not sure I've one hundred percent wrapped my brain around countertenors as a concept yet.

As usual, I don't have a pithy way to end this, other than to say that I think--LOOK BEHIND YOU! *smoke bomb*

Christoph Willibald Gluck, Iphigénie en Tauride (1779)

Shows what I know: I thought the premise of this opera was some wild-ass fanfiction, but no, it turns out that it's largely based on a Euripides play. That's what I get for not knowing my Greek drama as well as I should! My punishment is harsh yet just.

Anyway, that premise which seemed crazy to poor benighted me: it turns out that when Agamemnon tried to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia so that the gods would him so with his guys to kill some Trojans, Diana actually magically whisked her away at the last moment to be high priestess at her temple in Tauris. That's the good news; the bad news is that the full job title is apparently "murder priestess," and she has to sacrifice foreigners to try to propitiate gods, and it's not at all clear what Diana's motives were supposed to have been here. Anyway, Orestes and his pal Pylades show up as prisoners, and they're going to be sacrificed. But then they're not, Pylades goes for reinforcements (don't think too hard about the timeline here), the siblings are reunited, and everyone's happy, except the bad king responsible for ordering all these sacrifices. He is deceased.

The bulk of the drama revolves around neither Iphigenia nor Orestes knowing the other's name for an infeasibly long time; this would be obnoxious if this were a tragedy, but it's not, so it's all good. The other bulk (things can have two bulks!) consists of Orestes and Pylades asserting their love for one another; Iphigenia can save one of them, but only one (for reasons that are never even gestured at), and they're all "sacrifice me!" "no! sacrifice me!" There seems to be a distinct homoerotic subtext to their relationship, and if thisis to be believed, Gluck would have been perfectly aware of this. So that's interesting.

This feels like more of a concrete story with characters and everything than Orfeo ed Euricide, which is more mythic. But what hasn't changed is that Gluck writes some great music. I read herethat Schubert "asserted that there could be nothing more beautiful in the world," which is quite a recommendation. This peformance--of what seems a pretty traditional production--features Susan Graham as Iphigenia, and it certainly gives her more do do than La damnation de Faust

did. She feels like the appropriate singer for the role. Plácido Domingo is probably if you spend any time thinking about it too old to be playing Orestes, but he's good enough that this is easy to overlook.

Just really great stuff all around. And if you want some actual Iphigenia-related Gluck fanfiction, you could check out this one.

Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo (1607)

So I guess it's debatable whether this is actually the first opera per se, but it's certainly one of the first, and certainly the first that's actually performed these days. I did want to see Euridice, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

So, you watch an opera by a later baroque composer like Handel or Vivaldi, and it's obvious how different it is from your nineteenth-century works, but there's still a pretty clear line of succession. In spite of the differences, they still have a lot in common. Orfeo, I found, was a much more alien proposition. The music isn't wholly unfamiliar; to my unlettered ears, it sounds like it's splitting the difference between Renaissance music and later baroque stuff. But the singing is in a completely different style from more familiar opera (I wish I had the musicological training to enumerate what exactly that means), and the sensibilities of the whole thing are very different. The whole thing is slow and solemn in a way that opera usually isn't. I think this is perfectly captured by this La Scala performance. It's probably actually at least kind of similar to what it would've looked like in the seventeenth century: minimalistic sets (three of them: a garden, Hades, and the shores of Thrace with a single tree), figures dressed in Renaissance garb, and only very constrained, stylized movements and shows of emotion, in stark contrast to the more naturalistic acting (relatively speaking) that we associate with opera. Even in the happy opening section, there's a funereal air to the proceedings (goth kids really ought to love this).  It could certainly come across differently with a different production, but I really think a production like that is called for. Anything much different seems like it would be counter to the music. There was one part that made me laugh: a voice in Hades wonders of Orfeo "will he be able to resist his youthful exuberance?" "Exuberant" is not an adjective I would apply to any of the characters here.

Anyway, the whole thing creates a haunting, otherworldly effect, and I loved it. Monteverdi has two other extant operas, but there are at least four that are lost, and that fact pains me deeply. I mean okay, there may conceivably be more urgent problems, but when I think that substantial amounts of this transcendent music are lost, whereas copies of The Art of the Deal will continue to exist while radioactive cockroaches are swarming over our remains...ugh.

Hector Berlioz, La damnation de Faust (1846)

There's some uncertainty as to whether this should be considered an opera; it's more often performed just as a concert due to Staging Difficulties. But I dunno; it sure looked like an opera to me, and according to Wikipedia, Berlioz wanted it to be while conceding that, due to technological limits of the time, it didn't really work as such. But now we have no limits! We can do anything! ANYTHING!!!  Except run a democratic society.  Oh well.

It would probably be bootless to describe the plot: it's the Faust legend, basically. There are a few differences in how it shakes out that may be surprising, but that's basically it. But, I have to say--and this might be partially why people don't think of it as an opera--it does have significant story issues. A lot of the story just isn't there; you have to fill it in yourself. The relationship between Faust and Marguerite is never developed in any way. And the overall logic of salvation and damnation feels pretty arbitrary and illogical. Furthermore, even insofar as we overlook these things, it doesn't really tell a story so much as link together a series of very loose tableaux that sorta-kinda hover around the vicinity of a story.

But none of this matters, because Berlioz's music is sumptuous and ravishing and remarkably expressive and the vignettes, regardless of whether they add up to anything, are frequently really striking and dramatic, never more so--I should think--than in Robert Lepage's production. This was before his Rings, but it probably actually works better than those do: you have different levels and cubicles that characters can be standing in, like a cross-section of an apartment building, and you have video being projected onto the wall that--we are told--is interactive, reacting to the characters' singing and changing tone or pitch or whatnot, and yes, undeniably there are a few places where it's a little silly, but it mostly works remarkably well, and is a feast for both ears and eyes.

There are only three significant characters (or, you could argue, only two; Marguerite really amounts to little more than a glorified cameo--the fact that she appears in the curtain call after Mephistopheles feels totally unjustified--is Susan Graham some sorta prima donna who would've demanded it?), and only four period, along with a large chorus, which is great, as one would anticipate. I feel like in a Faust story, Mephistopheles is always going to be the most striking character (as well as, almost certainly, the most fun to play), so it's maybe not really fair to say that John Relya actually does the best job, per se: he's elevated by the role and also his costume, and especially his ostentatiously-feathered hat--but he sure is great, regardless. Honestly, Faust and Marguerite don't really get that much to do, but Marcello Giordani and Susan Graham are plenty solid, and I also really liked Patrick Carfizzi in a small role as a random dude in a tavern who sings a drinking song.

Anyway, great stuff. Two thumbs up.

Alban Berg, Lulu (1937/1979)

Well...here's this. It's an opera, called be Some--by which I mean the people in the backstage interviews--as the Greatest Twentieth Century Opera. Berg left it unfinished at his death, but it was subsequently completed based on his notes by Friederich Cerha (boy, there's a name that means nothing to either you or me) in 1979, and that version is now considered standard.

This is the story of Lulu, obsessed about by numerous different men (and one woman), at first at the top of the world but then less so, until she ends up prostituting herself and subsequently dead in a dirty apartment in London. That's the short version. The long version is too hellaciously complicated for me to even begin to cover. This is definitely a more complicated libretto than most.

I wanted to see this because...well, because it's considered such a major opera, obviously, but also because the production of the Met HD version is by William Kentridge, who had previously done The Nose. And the production is indeed impressive, clearly from the same mind as the previous one, but more focused on sketches in the background, and less pastiche. Though some pastiche. But it's totally appropriate for the opera's spiky German expressionism. Or so I believe.

Berg wrote atonal music, and my knowledge of music theory is really not adequate for me to say what that really means. I mean, it's obviously not Mozart or Puccini, but can I describe, in technical terms, whyit's not like them? Nope. And here's the thing: it irks me to say this, given the reputation and given how glowingly all the people in the backstage interviews talk about it, and I do not doubt that they are perfectly intelligent and sincere in their tastes, but I did not like it. To me, "cacophony" would be the best word, and while the singing no doubt was what it had to be, and done well in that context, I do not feel that it provided opportunitiesfor the sort of singing I would like. And we should pause here to note that given how long it took me to warm to opera at all, it's entirely reasonable to suggest that this is really just a matter of acquiring a taste. But man, I sure haven't acquired it yet.

That doesn't mean I absolutely hated it as a whole. As I said, the production is very good, and I do have to admit there were a few moments where the nature of the music sort of gelled for me and got into it a bit. Also, on a pure acting level, there's no denying that Marlis Petersen in the title role puts on one of the greatest performances I've ever seen, totally expressive and moving smoothly from insouciance to desperation as the opera progresses. But damn, man, I just couldn't get into it. It probably also doesn't help that it almost certainly takes the title for Grimmest Opera I've Seen. At the end, Lulu is abruptly murdered offstage and then seen no more, and it's just...geez. I realize that this isn't necessarily a criticism, and yet...oof. Maybe it just hit me at the wrong time. I must admit, though, I still want to see Berg's other opera, Wozzek,if only because I'm a huge fan of the Werner Herzog film based on the same play. And hey, maybe I'll start to appreciate this atonal stuff more.

Dmitri Shostakovich, The Nose (1928)

HOLY CRUD, PEOPLE. Let me tell you about this production. I'm sure it's not the most expensive one I've ever seen--certainly not with those Ring operas--but damned if it isn't the most elaborate and impressive. It was designed by the South African artist William Kentridge, and It involves collages of Soviet newspapers and who knows what all along with a combination of film and stop-motion shadow puppetry to create something the likes of which I've never seen before. I can't imagine what it would be like to see this live; there are parts where I am genuinely unable to conceptualize how this would look in person. One is drowning in words and images in a way of which I hope Shostakovich would have approved.

To me, it certainly seems the perfect marriage of scene and text. As you know, this is loosely based on Gogol's short story (with bits culled from a number of other seminal Russian works); I must admit that I've never read it, but you know what they say: the opera is always better than the short story. And here, it seems to me that the chaotic production is a great complement to the bureaucratic satire of the text.

I will admit it: there's not exactly a lot of what you would call "heart" here, but that seems unimportant, because what is here is just amazing in its own right. Shostakovich's score is, as in Lady Macbeth,spectacular. The fact that he wrote this when he was in his early twenties only doesn't seem mind-blowing because Mozart wrecked the curve. Under the circumstances, the singers themselves seem almost irrelevant. There isn't much in the way of show-stopping arias here; again, that is not the goal. Still, Paulo Szot gives an appropriate air of haplessness to the petty bureaucrat Kovalyov whose nose takes on a life of its own (though one has to note that he very definitely has a nose throughout the entire opera. Is that how it's always done? Not that it bothered me, but you'd think there would be some signifier of his noselessness). The rest of the cast--a lot of Russian nationals--is also great. What did you expect?

And, you know, I say it lacks heart, but that depends on how you define the term, doesn't it? The characters may not be much, but the artistry is still inspiring, and that's a kind of heart too. I've gotta tell you: in these grim times, taking refuge in high art is one of the things--possibly the main thing?--that helps me stay sane. We must remind ourselves: as unbelievably awful as we humans frequently are, we're also capable of transcendent greatness. I hope that's enough to absolve us as a species in the final judgment. The fact that Shostakovich was prevented from writing more operas by an insanely irrational Soviet government is a crime. One of many, of course, but still. I don't want to cause any controversy here, but I'll go ahead and say it: Stalin sucked. He was not a good leader! Crucify me for speaking the truth and give me a high-paying sinecure if you will!

A Verdi Triptych

It's all very well to watch lesser-known operas; sometimes you find real gems, and even if you don't, it remains an interesting exercise. But sometimes...well, the ultra-popular ones are ultra-popular for a reason. And nobody's more popular than ol' Giuseppe. NUMBERS DON'T LIE.

(I really like that list because it confirms my impression that most operas performed these days are either by Verdi, Mozart, or Puccini. It actually doesn't quite--to figure that out, you'd need to know how many are performed by composers who make the top ten--but it's certainly true that those three dominate.)

So anyway, I'd already seen the Verdi operas that would be most likely to appear in the Family Feud category "name a famous Verdi opera" (and what a world it would be if THAT were a thing), but he wrote a bunch, so I watched three others. These are they.

Un ballo in maschera (1859)

This ruled so hard. It's the fictionalized story of the assassination of Gustav III of Sweden in 1792. See, there's a conspiracy against the king because various nobles consider some of his actions to have been unjust (the opera itself is basically uninterested in how fair these grievances may have been), which conspiracy receives an unexpected boost when the king's best friend discovers that his wife and the king are in love and joins in. Things end unhappily for all. But really, it's about the execution. The music is some of Verdi's best, in my subjective opinion, though that may be just because it works so well in the context. There's something sort of off-kilter (in a good way) about the opera, and I think the production matches that perfectly. It takes place in an odd, slightly surreal early-twentieth-century milieu, and I doggone love it. Everyone's great, and special shout-out to the late great Dmitri Hvorostovsky as the aggrieved friend (the opera world suffered quite a loss with his premature death), but my favorites have to be STEPHANIE FUCKING BLYTHE (that's her legal name, all-caps and all) as Ulrica the fortune-teller (yes, there's a fortune-teller--as I said, it's a little weird) and Kathleen Kim (who seriously may be the tiniest-ever adult human being without a genetic disorder) as the king's page, Oscar, who plays the role in an uncanny, flirtatiously androgynous way that matches the production perfectly. Point being: terrific. I want more.

Simon Boccanegra (1857)

I thought this one was a bit of a disappointment. This production is much more traditional than Un Ballo, which is fine, but other aspects left something to be desired. The excessively convoluted plotting got in the way of what should have been the story's emotional core. Or so I thought. So ol' Simon's a former pirate who becomes doge of Genoa (and whose former-pirate-ness plays no role in the story) but he has enemies and a daughter, Amelia, whom he thought was dead but wasn't and that daughter's grandfather, Fiesco, who wants revenge for the seduction of his daughter. And, of course, Amelia has a lover, Adorno. Things kind of got better in the last half, but it's just such a jumble, and I didn't find most of the characters particularly vivid. Boccanegra is played by Plácido Domingo, who, if you weren't aware, has been taking on baritone roles this past decade. One's voice can certainly lower as you age (just listen to Songs of Leonard Cohenand You Want It Darker back-to-back for an object lesson), and he does a reasonable job, but it's still kind of obvious that he's not really a baritone. I actually preferred James Morris (who played Wotan in the 89-90 Ring) as Fiesco. He brought an appropriate gravitas to the role, which I think is the best in the opera. Two interesting things to note. First, this has by far the most protracted death I've ever seen in an opera: Boccanegra is poisoned in the middle of Act II but doesn't die 'til the end of Act III (okay, I suppose you could argue that certain tuberculosis deaths are similarly drawn-out). Second, this is really only semi-tragic; for the tragic effect it leans pretty darned heavily on us being sad about Boccanegra himself, but for me that didn't work as well as one might hope, and Fiesco, Adorno, and Amelia are all fine. I mean, sure, they spend a lot of time wailing about the bitterness of life, but I think they'll get over it. Adorno even gets to be the new doge (though according to wikipedia,"he was deposed by the people of Genoa because he had introduced too high taxes," which seems a bit of an anticlimax)! Other than Falstaff, of course, I'd never seen a Verdi opera where he doesn't kill off at least one of the lovers.

Nabucco (1842)

This was Verdi's third opera but his first to be a big critical and commercial success; it cemented his position as a composer nonpareil. Still, given how early it was in his career, I fully expected this one to be a bit bumpy. My expectation was defied, however; I thought it was awfully damned good, easily better than Boccanegra, certainly dramatically and arguably musically as well. The opera is on Biblical themes (you may know the title character better as Nebuchadnezzar), and if your sensibilities are anything like mine, you might sorta roll your eyes a bit at the whole Jews-versus-Pagans thing, but to me, that didn't matter. I got swept up regardless. That's not to say it's not without its flaws, notably the romantic couple (Nabucco's daughter and a Judaic man), which is the most hilariously desultory, half-assed pairing I've ever seen. Seriously, I feel like at a certain point the guy in particular just sort of disappears, or if he was still there he didn't make enough impression for me to even notice him. But NEVER MIND THAT. As with Simon, the Met did a production with Domingo in it, but...no offense, Plácido, I'm sure you were fine, but I kind of wanted to see an actual baritone in the title role, so I went with the above-linked 2001 version with Juan Pons. He's excellent, even if--let's be honest--it's not the most complex or interesting character. But the show is handily stolen by Maria Guleghina as Abigaille, his rebellious supposed-daughter (she's actually the daughter of slaves, which is of marginal relevance to the plot, and it's never explained why she was raised as Nabucco's daughter). To be fair, the fact that it's clearly the best role in the opera can't have hurt, but she is absolutely electric in her rage, and in a rare moment of calm she has a beautiful aria about her past peace and happiness ("Anch'io dischiuso un giorno"). I am distressed by the fact that I've never seen Guleghina in anything else. Anyway, a lot of great and powerful music here, and in particular a lot of great choral stuff; as the Met has the best chorus in the biz, it's a perfect fit. This again is a traditional sort of production, but I do have to highlight one particular bit of stagecraft: I was impressed and alarmed that they actually set a large piece of the set on fire during the burning of the Temple. It's cool yet incredibly dangerous-looking, but the Met didn't burn down, so I guess it worked out, by design or luck. Tragedy-watch: this really isn't one by any metric. Nabucco converts but still gets to be king and everyone's happy. Well, except Abigaille, who is dead (we are told that God "clouded her mind" which caused her to take poison, which seems kind of a dick move on his part--surely he could've saved her as well?), but she converts prior to dying, so it's all good. I guess.

Anyway, tune in later for more sets of three Verdi operas, maybe.

Carl Nielsen, Saul og David (1902)

Hey look, it's none other than my first Danish opera! There actually do seem to be a fair number of them from Scandinavia, but as ever with countries that we don't associate with the form, they're not widely shown overseas. Or so it seems to me. Anyway, there's a 1986 production on youtube right here.

It is, obviously, an opera on Biblical themes. So apparently, God's mad at Saul because, um, he did the sacrifice wrong, not waiting for the prophet Samuel to get there first. That God is a temperamental one, no doubt about it. But then he meets his son Jonathan's friend David, whose singing comforts him. David and Saul's daughter Michal fall in love. La. But then! Oh no philistines, led my some dude named Goliath. So, well, we all know what happens, but only off-stage. There is no on-stage philistine-slaying. Everyone loves David for this: they repeatedly note that "Saul has slain thousands, but David has slain tens of thousands," and Saul gets jealous and David is exiled. David comes upon Saul's camp at night, but does not kill anyone, to show how he wants peace. They are reconciled, but this reconciliation lasts approximately zero seconds, because then ol' Samuel shows up, and declares that David is or should be the new king and then dies, and Saul is all pissed again. Anyway, thing with the Witch of Endor, in whose body Samuel informs him that God hates him now and he's going to die and all his kids too and then...that happens, and David's the new boss. Though he's sad about all the dead people. The end.

Most odd. Most odd indeed. It's a little hard to know how to read this opera. If you see it as a straight, unironic Biblical account...it really doesn't work. I mean, Old Testament stories in particular are often weird and repellent and difficult to put into what we would consider narratively and morally comprehensible frameworks. That's just a fact. And this...is very much included. This idea that Saul is now hated of God because he did some nonsense legalistic bullshit about sacrifices wrong, and therefore this random-ass kid is going to take his place, and everyone excited about how many philistines they've murdered the hell out of, it's all kind of...well, it's not exactly a very satisfying or morally edifying story (and even if you DO think all that stuff is fine, the fact is, the relationship between Saul and David, which you'd think would be the whole point, is never really developed to any meaningful extent). But, I must say, it does work somewhat better if you think of it as the story of Saul getting screwed over, whether by his own neuroses or God or some combination or whatever. Not exactly cheerful, but since when was that a problem for operas? And it's pretty clear that the text itself has at least a certain amount of sympathy with this view; witness his final aria before offing himself. So it's kind of ambiguous and strange, for sure.

Musically, again, it's a bit scattered, I feel. There are bits that are less exciting, but there are also bits that are more so, like David and Michal's passionate first-act love duet (notwithstanding the fact that their relationship is never developed or goes anywhere or anything), or the reconciliation chorus between Saul and David (notwithstanding the fact that this is rendered meaningless almost instantaneously), or Saul's aforementioned final aria, which is definitely the best thing in the opera, and seems to be a much better emotional climax than YAY DAVID'S KING NOW HE'S GOING TO MAKE ISRAEL GREAT AGAIN.

I should note that the video and sound quality here are really not the best; this production seems to have been ripped from an old videocassette, and you know what those are like. I think it's enough to give you an idea, but be warned. Out of the cast, I think Leif Roar as Saul is definitely the highlight; I had no idea who this was while I was watching it, but it turns out that Roar also played the villainous Telramund in the LohengrinI saw, which was a highlight of that production. I don't think any of the other singers have any international acclaim, but they're all, you know, good enough. The production itself relied a bit more than I would've liked on the singers where mostly single-color costumes, giving it a sort of faerie-tale look that didn't seem entirely appropriate to me, but again, BASICALLY FINE. Glad I saw it. End of review.

Carl Maria von Weber, Der Freischütz (1821)

Here is a pivotal opera in the develop of German romanticism! Please enjoy it! I suppose if I'm talking about works that feel definitively of one country, this is about as German as it gets.

This, of course, is based on the Freischütz legend: six bullets for you, one for the devil. Solid legend. A++++ would read again. The plot of the opera is easily summed up: Max is usually a good marksman, but lately he's on a missing streak, which is especially bad because he's supposed to get married the next day but there's a rule that you can only do that if you pass a shooting test, so he's feeling a little desperate, which is why when Kaspar--who needs to find a sacrifice pronto or his deal with the devil, Samiel, expires and he gets dragged to hell--tempts him to come with him to the forest at midnight to make some of these "free bullets," he goes along. But the next day, at the wedding, he's on the last bullet and instead of hitting the target it flies straight at his fiancée, Agathe. So that's that, except here's the part you might not expect: don't worry, guys! Agathe's fine! She just fell down from the shock! The bullet actually somehow ricocheted off and hit Kaspar! Max confesses what he's done, and the...mayor? MC?...is pissed and wants him exiled, even though all the people beg for his forgiveness. But then a holy hermit appears and tells him that, come on, we all screw up, let he who is without sin &c; let's just give Max a year's probation and if he can manage to go that length without making any more Satanic pacts, he can marry Agathe. Also, let's abolish this shooting test; it's dumb. So all that stuff happens! Turns out the Devil doesn't have much power if deals with him are so easily countermanded, but, I mean, fair enough: it does seem a bit unfair that you can irrevocably damn yourself to hell on a brief impulse. We can of course also see this redemption business in Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhaüser, as well as Goethe's Faust,but this seems to differ from those in that the hero doesn't even have to die.

I watched this film version, from 1968 (for whatever reason there are three separate copies on youtube, but only one with subtitles) which I thought was quite reasonable. The scene in the woods at night is appropriately atmospheric, which is probably going to be your biggest concern. I think you're going to want a Kaspar who plays up the sinisterness to the hilt, and Gottlob Frick certainly does the job: you don't have to see him do or say anything to know that he's up to no good. I suppose some would quibble with the unsubtlety, but I dug him. Arlene Saunders is good as Agathe, but even better, I think, is Edith Mathis as her friend Ännchen, who brings an Audrey-Hepburn-like charm to the role. I would perhaps suggest that Ernst Kozub as Max is a bit too consistently glum/petulant throughout, but it's a small complaint. I didn't find this one life-changing, but it's certainly worth seeing.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sadko (1898)

You know, I've only seen a handful of Russian operas, but of those that I've seen, they all feel really intensely Russian to me in a way that operas from other countries don't feel quite so Italian, French, German, or whatever.  Does that make sense?  It might be a nutty thing to say.  But regardless, here's another datapoint!  I keep hearing about Rimsky-Korsakov editing and completing operas that remained unfinished at the composer's death, but what about his own work? Hmm? This is basically a folk tale in opera form; I remember when I was small I really, really liked all these "folk tales from X" books I would check out of the library, so it definitely brings me back.

Sadko himself is a folk hero; an adventurer and gusli player. The opera centers around the town of Novgorod, where all the rich merchants think he's kind of a fuck-up. But he goes to Lake Ilmen where he encounters Volkhova, the daughter of the Sea King (as you do) and they fall in love. She has to go, but tells him that he can get rich by catching three golden fish, and leaves, swearing they'll meet again. Long story short: he DOES get rich, goes on a long voyage, ends up at the bottom of the sea, propitiates the Sea King who accepts him as his daughter's husband, but then--this part is somewhat less than clear--paganism is apparently replaced by Christianity and the Sea King loses his power and Volkhova has to become a river. I realize it sounds insane when I say it like that. And even when I don't! But be that as it may. So Sadko is cast back up at Novgorod? WAS IT ALL A DREAM?!? Presumably not, given that he's still rich.

I mean, the music here is utterly sumptuous. Rimsky-Korsakov was Some Kinda Tunesmith. I watched this 1994 production, from the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. And you can watch it too! I think it's probably the ideal way to experience this opera; the traditionally-styled production is incredibly impressive. There are a half-dozen-odd elaborate (in a good way) sets, and all the costuming, my lord, there's a hugecast of chorus members and background characters here and they all look great. All in all, the perfect match for the opera itself. Those Russians do know how to put on a show. The singing is also great. Sadko himself--naturally--has by far the biggest part; I imagine it must be quite demanding, and Vladimir Galouzine does a fine job, bringing an appropriate youthful vigor and inquisitiveness to the role. But it's all good.

So this is really fantastic in many ways, but there's just one thing that doesn't sit right with me, that I couldn't quite make myself ignore. So the thing about Sadko is, he's pursuing Volkhova, but...he's also married. And I gather that he's supposed to seem more young and impulsive and thoughtless than actually jerkish, but...I felt like Rimsky-Korsakov didn't quite pull that off. His wife is a character, bemoaning her husband's long absence, and she's definitely supposed to be sympathetic, but Sadko...man. I mean, he leaves on this lengthy ocean voyage in pursuit of this phantom woman, and I feel like the very least he could do in that situation is to tell her what's happening, but nope, she's left with just no idea. In the end, they're back together again, happily it seems, but in spite of his "forgive me," the whole thing just does not seem to work emotionally or psychologically. I know a folk tale is not generally going to be "realistic," but...I don't know. I feel that this is a serious fly in the ointment. Otherwise, I'd rave unreservedly, but as it is, it's reserved raving for me.

Richard Wagner, Götterdämmerung (1876)

Götterdämmerung? More like Götterdumberung! Amirite? Or should it be "Götterdämmerdung?" Let's workshop this.

Sheesh. Well. Anyway. We open on the Norns singing about what's going on while ominously spinning a rope of fate, which breaks, ominously. Then, on the mountain, Siegfried and Brünnhilde declare their love for each other, of which he gives her the ring as a pledge. And he's off to...seek adventure, I guess. You'd think he'd want to spend more time with his blushing bride, but WHATEVER. Heroes will be heroes, I guess. And that's the prologue. Act I: the action switches to a hall where we see a king of...some kingdom, presumably, Gunther; and his sister Gutrune and half-brother Hagen. Hagen suggests that half-bro should marry Brünnhilde, the only problem being that Siegfried's already found her. He suggests that Gutrune should also marry Siegfried, and produces a potion to make him fall in love with her and forget his former love; then Gunther can marry her. A perfect scheme! Conveniently enough, Siegfried then shows up. Gunther extends hospitality, and Gutrune gives him the potion, which does what it says on the label; he offers to win a wife for Gunther, who tells him the whole Brünnhilde situation, and that only a fearless man can get through the fire (sidenote: what does this mean? Surely "fearless" is not a synonym for "flame-resistant?" Is it that the flames aren't real, but only a fearless type would be willing to take the risk by charging through them? Difficult to say.) Anyway the plan is that Siegfried uses the Tarnhelm to look like Gunther and in that state gets Brünnhilde so she'll have to marry him. The two swear blood-brotherhood. When they leave, Hagen gloats about how his Cunning Plan to get Siegfried to bring him the ring is working. Back on the mountain, another valkyrie, Waltraute, visits Brünnhilde to tell her what's the haps: Wotan is sad because his spear that gave him power was broken (although he seemed pretty equanimous about it in Siegfried), and he ordered the World Tree hacked down and piled the branches around Valhalla awaiting the giant conflagration that will mean the end. This is apparently due to the ring's curse, and he keeps muttering that if only it were returned to the Rheinmaidens, all would be well. But Brünnhilde refuses to return it, being an emblem of Siegfried's love, so Waltraute has a sad and leaves. Siegfried shows up, claims Brünnhilde for Gunther, and takes the ring, and would you believe we've only just finished the first act? As the second opens, Hagen is visited in a waking dream by his father, who turns out to be ALBERICH! Alberich urges him to get the ring and kill Siegfried, which I feel like he was already pretty much onboard with, but WHATEVER. Gunther and Brünnhilde return; she is shocked to see Siegfried, and when she sees the ring on his finger, she realizes that it wasn't Gunther but Siegfried who captured her, which pisses her off, though I kind of think she should really already be at maxed-out pissed-offedness. She accuses him of being a dick (more or less), which he swears is untrue. Anyway, Brünnhilde, Gunther, and Hagen all agree that Siegfried should be murdified (though I feel like Brünnhilde ought to be comparably pissed off at Gunther); it seems that Siegfried is invincible thanks to vaguely-defined enchantments put on him by Brünnhilde (as compared to the original stories, in which he was invulnerable due to having bathed in Fafner's blood), but she knew he'd never run from combat, so she neglected to protect his back, so let's stab him in the back (wouldn't it have been easier to just enchant the whole guy, as opposed to excluding specific bits?). And let's do it on a hunting trip, so we can claim a boar killed him and Gutrune won't hate us. Now, on to act III. The Rheinmaidens are still unhappy about the lost gold; Siegfried, having gotten separated from the hunting party, drops by. They beg him to give them the ring to escape the curse, but he foolishly laughs at them and does no such thing. The rest of the hunters show up. Hagen gives him a potion which restores his memory, and then when he talks about his romance with Brünnhilde, stabs him in the back and murders him (this being the penalty for having sworn never to have been involved with her). Anyway, back at the hall, Gutrune is sad, but whatever (it's funny how instantaneously they give up the façade of a boar having been responsible). Hagen claims the ring, Gunther sez no, Hagen murders him. Brünnhilde orders a funeral pyre built for Siegfried and lights it on fire. Then (I'm cribbing from summaries now, because it is far from obvious what's happening here, at least in the Lepage production), she rides into the flames, the hall collapses in the fire, the Rhine rises up to quench it, the Rheinmaidens recover the ring (Hagen tries to get it back but is pulled under), Valhalla is in flames, I guess Gutrune must be queen now, good for her, THE END.

Man, that summary was NOT worth the time it took to write it. I dunno. I have to say, I feel a bit...underwhelmed by this last chapter. Why? Oh, I don't know. Can I start by saying how much I hated the climax to Act I? So first, let's note that Wagner wrote this in such a way as to make it very hard to perform effectively. Siegfried is supposed to look like Gunther, but the singer playing Siegfried is the one involved. So how to do it? Well, by wearing the tarnhelm, which here (and also in the Schenk; I think it's the usual way to do it) is depicted as a kind of metal cloth that you just drape over your head. Did helmets ever really work like this? Regardless, it's pretty goofy-looking. But the action itself is what I reallydidn't like. Brünnhilde is completely passive in this scene, just letting the ring be taken, letting herself be dragged away. What happened to being Wotan's bravest, most glorious daughter? For reasons that surpass understanding, she doesn't even try "sorry, I'm already taken." And then Siegfried just looks like a huge dickhead, specifically talking about how he'll take her by force if she doesn't want to go. Just because you're not in love with a woman doesn't mean you should be a giant creep to her. So that was kinda bad. Granted, things did get better, and really, there are a lot of great scenes here, there's no denying it. But man, the storytelling just seemed a bit creaky. So for instance, when asked where the ring came from, Siegfried explains that he got it from a dragon he'd killed, which okay. So...why, in his opinion, did Brünnhilde have it on the mountain? It truly makes no sense. Also, in the ending, why is Valhalla supposed to be burning, when, per Waltraute, Wotan specifically said that giving the ring back to the Rheinmaidens would fix everything for the gods? Argh it again makes no sense, and the whole apocalypse is less dramatic and cool and ominous than I'd like. Bah, I say. My whelmedness is limited. Yes, great music, that goes without saying, but dramatically...eh.

The production, once again, fine. Some good touches. You know, I think they realized after Rheingold how silly the wires looked; I don't think any of the characters have been wired since. I wonder if they've even gotten rid of them for Rheingold;if you saw it nowadays, would it be different than the recorded version? Here at one point the Rheinmaidens dohave to clamber up a slope, which is a littledubious, but not too bad. And I wanted to call attention to one cool bit where, after Hagen has murdered Siegfried, Gunther gets his blood on his hands, which he washes off in the Rhine, which then becomes progressively more red and bloody. That was a cool, apocalyptic touch. You can't complain about the singers; I think my favorite was actually Eric Owens, better than ever as Alberich; I'm bummed that he only has one scene. But Hans-Peter König is also very forceful as Hagen--much better than he was as Hunding in Walküre,although, as ever when I say things like that, this was probably a better role. Iain Paterson is appropriately slimy as the weak-willed Gunther, and Jay Hunter Morris and Deborah Voigt remain strong as Siegfried and Brünnhilde. Really, I think it's the opera itself more than the production that I have problems with. I really hope that Wagner's remaining major operas--Tristan und Isolte, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Parsifal--are able to conclude things on a high note. Dramatically, I think that the only ring opera that was up to much was Die Walküre,though I'll concede that I'm just Some Guy and that I might feel differently if I gave them more viewings.