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.