Richard Strauss, Capriccio (1942)

This is Strauss' final opera, and like Ariadne auf Naxos, it's a meta-opera, though in a different way. So it's the eighteenth century, and the Countess has two suitors, Flamand, a composer; and Olivier, a poet. Also present are the Countess' actor brother (were nobles able to be actors back in the day? Seems like it would be felt to be beneath them); Clairon, an actress; and La Roche, a theatrical director. The Countess can't decide which of her suitors she prefers, and they all have a more or less friendly debate about which takes artistic precedence, words or music? It's symbolic, you see. After this peters out, the Countess commissions a new opera, which is going to be about the argument they just had, with characters like them. Whoooooah, man. Everyone leaves, but they request that she tell them what ending she wants. Who will it be, the musician or the poet? Is there a good way of resolving this, or does the force of the argument lie in its being unresolved?

Gorgeous music, far moreso than the nazis deserved. I mean, granted, what they deserved was off-key shrieking accompanied by literal nails on a chalkboard, pumped at deafening volume into their ears, but eh. Strauss' artistry is not in question. Granted, very little actually happenshere, and at times it does get a little dry; I could forgive an audience member for shouting "FOR GOD'S SAKE SOMEBODY STAB SOMEBODY" during the argument. But basically it's great; no denying it. This Met production features Renée Fleming as the Countess, and hey, nothin' wrong with that. I may have seen some of the others here or there, but none are super-familiar to me. Everyone's good, though.

The production transplants the action to the 1920s, which is fine, although a little bit momentarily confusing when the libretto refers to Gluck and Rameau and you realize, oh, wait, they're supposed to be talking about contemporary or near-contemporary composers. Also, what REALLY confused me was...IS it meant to be the eighteenth century? I sure think it is, but the libretto sure does refer to people leaving in coupes and limousines. I can't imagine that the Met would modify it, so it must be just an anachronism. Or so I think.

We have to talk about the fact that this opera premiered in Nazi Germany at its height (depth), or at least I want to. You can read a longish section about "Strauss in Nazi Germany" on his wikipedia page. In summary: he did try to work with the nazi government in the early- to mid-thirties before remaining aloof from their ideology became obviously untenable. He never personally evinced any anti-Semtism, and in fact protected his Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren from the Holocaust (the fact that that was even possible modifies one's view of the time and place somewhat--we have this image of it as an all-encompassing evil, and that's not inaccurate, but at the same time, celebrities could apparently go against the grain without suffering personally). You can see he could've/should've done more, but I really don't think you can judge someone in a situation like that as long as they aren't actually pro-genocide. He's basically okay.

Still, it does give one slight pause that, in the quotes from his letters on that wikipedia page, his main beef with the nazis is that they were "untalented" or "incompetent. I mean, sure, but...there's a quote from a letter to his (Jewish) libretticist Stefan Zwieg: "Do you believe I am ever, in any of my actions, guided by the thought that I am 'German'? Do you suppose Mozart was consciously 'Aryan' when he composed?" and you think yes! This exactly! This perfectly encapsulates the idiocy of white supremacists pointing to the likes of Shakespeare and, yes, Mozart as evidence of white supremacy. But then he goes on to conclude: "I recognise only two types of people: those who have talent and those who have none," and you think, weeeell...okaaaay...but, just to be clear, you'd be against industrialized murder even if the victims had no discernible talents and the death camp administrators were musical geniuses? Right? I mean, I have no doubt that he would have been, I don't believe for a moment that he was in any way sympathetic to nazi ideology (such as it was), but this dividing people into "talented" and "talentless" seems like a weirdly inhuman way to frame it. Possibly being a genius twist your thinking a little.

Anyway, so, this was first screened for Nazis, which does not make you want to shout, COOL. And yet...I dunno. I really don't know. This all seems especially relevant in light of current events. Don't you imagine that in Nazi Germany there must've been a fair few people who abhored the regime but, well, were still basically living their lives. For whom, in spite of everything, life still seemed "normal." I mean, what are you personally doing about children being ripped away from their parents and locked in cages? What am I doing? The answers are jack and shit, and supporting a Democratic is NOT adequate. But what are we SUPPOSED to do? Do we have an obligation to break laws? Did they have an obligation THEN? It may be argued that the US in 2020 is not Nazi Germany, and that's obviously true, but not terribly helpful. The whole point of "never again" is to not let a nazi-like regime arise, but if you're not allowed to criticize anyone for moving in that direction until you have full-on death camps, then...well, you actually just meant "again," didn't you?  You weren't interested in actually stopping it.  Well done.  Point being, I don't know how to judge those people. And I don't know how history will judge us, if there ends up being history.

Boy, that got dark and off-topic. Well, here's the final paragraph of that section of the wikipedia entry, which I find kind of moving regardless of the issues surrounding it:

In April 1945, Strauss was apprehended by American soldiers at his Garmisch estate. As he descended the staircase he announced to Lieutenant Milton Weiss of the U.S. Army, "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome." Lt. Weiss, who was also a musician, nodded in recognition. An "Off Limits" sign was subsequently placed on the lawn to protect Strauss. The American oboist John de Lancie, who knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly, was in the army unit, and asked Strauss to compose an oboe concerto. Initially dismissive of the idea, Strauss completed this late work, his Oboe Concerto, before the end of the year.

Hector Berlioz, Benvenuto Cellini (1838)

Benvenuto Cellini was a Rennaisance goldsmith, sculptor, and general, uh, Rennaissance man. You've probably seen his sculture "Perseus with the Head of Medusa," even if you don't connect it with Cellini. He wrote a famous autobiography. He plays a small but pivotal role in Manuel Mujica Láinez' magisterial novel Bomarzo. Also, he's the subject of Berlioz' first opera. Well, sort of; Berlioz admired his artistry and wanted to write about him, but the actual events of the opera are apparently one hundred percent made up, and none of the characters are historical except Cellini himself and Pope Clement VII (how many operas feature popes as singing characters, I wonder? There's a hyper-specific question for you--and one that you can't answer with a simple google search).

Anyway, Benvenuto and Teresa are in love, but her dad doesn't like him 'cause he thinks he's a bum, even though the Pope's commissioned him to make a bronze statue of Perseus. Fieramosca is also in love with Teresa, but he's creepy and sleazy and she doesn't like him. So B&T hatch a scheme to elope, dressing as monks and using the performance of a new opera as cover (Cellini died in 1571, twenty-six years before Jacopo Peri's Dafne, the first known opera, was written), helped by Cellini's apprentice Ascanio. But Fieramosca's pal Pompeo comes up with the idea of THEM dressing up as monks too and kidnapping Teresa. The scene at the opera is very chaotic, and a fight breaks out where Cellini fatally stabs Pompeo. He escapes, but he's wanted for murder. The Pope shows up at his place, as he does, and says, okay, if you finish this statue by tonight, I'll absolve you and let you marry Teresa, otherwise *throat-slitting gesture.* Will he succeed?!? Yes. But I have to say, I have questions about this legal system. Seems like a pretty terrible way for a Pope to behave, sparing people or not because he likes their art projects. I mean, probably not unrealistic, but still. Is this meant to be a veiled criticism of the papacy? Hard to say.

It's an interesting plot because this whole thing of having to do something within a time limit seems much more characteristic of movies than operas. And Cellini himself is almost an anti-hero; he really seems to think that his artistic talent makes murdering dudes okay, and he's a big ol' womanizer the long-term durability of whose relationship with Teresa seems very doubtful. Have I ever seen something like this in an opera before? Hard to say. I continue to be a big fan of Berlioz' music, so this is a lot of fun. It must be conceded, I suppose, that the second half is rather less cohesive than the first. It's never exactly clear what Cellini is doing to finish this statue, other than exhorting the other metalworkers to help him. Yeah, okay, but it's supposed to be about his personal genius, so what is he doing? Still pretty great. It was not a sucess at its premiere, and it still isn't frequently staged (due at least in part to its compexlity--dammit, Hector, write an opera that people can perform!), but it deserves to be. So there.

This staging is by Terry Gilliam (he's not the only film director to try his hand at opera; Werner Herzog is prolific in that regard). What happened to Terry Gilliam, anyway? I feel like in the eighties and into the nineties he was kind of a big deal, with Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and The Fisher King, but these days his films are released, to the extent that they are, to general critical indifference. The last one I saw was 12 Monkeys, which was so overwhelmingly nihilistic as to make Brazil look like a light romantic comedy. Very well-made, but still...regardless, I think maybe he should just stick to opera from now on, 'cause this is banging (he had previously done La damnation de Faust, but if it was ever recorded, I don't think it's commercially available, which is a shame). It's very colorful and extravagent--you want giant puppet heads? Unicyclists? Dudes juggling flaming torches? It's got you covered! Delightful costumes, too; the Pope, for instance, looks like some sort of Mandarin, and Cellini's pal Bernardino looks like a punk out of Streets of Rage. The anachronisms feel extremely appropriate to the spirit of the time, and probably more evocative of it than a more sober production would be.

The cast was good. Am I capable of accurately judging gradations of quality in operatic singing? Probably not very well. Nonetheless. Go away. The only singer here I was familiar with was Laurent Naouri (Mr. Natalie Dessay himself), whom I've seen in a bunch of Rameau operas, here appropriately slimy yet possessed of a certain humanity as Fieramosca, but it's all good. I particularly liked Michèle Losier en travestias Ascanio, and John Osborn seems to have the character of Cellini down well. Here'san interview with him where he talks about it.

Only one Berlioz opera I haven't yet seen, his Shakespeare adaptation Béatrice et Bénédict,which I'm extremely keen to catch.

Umberto Giordano, Andrea Chénier (1896)

Here's a barn-burner of a piece. Well, actually, the drama is a bit muddled and confusing at first, but ultimately it all works out. I mean, definitely not for the characters, but hey, such is life! It's the French Revolution! What fun! Chénier is an actual poet who was executed in the Terror, although I think this is pretty substantially fictionalized. He and Maddalena, a young aristocratic woman whose family is killed, fall in love. Meanwhile, Gérard, a former servant in their house, who's carrying a torch for Maddalena, has become an up-and-comer in the revolutionary government. He fabricates charges against Chénier so he can get Maddalena to come out of hiding. This works, but after some internal debate, he rejects the idea of playing Scarpia and agrees to help the two of them. It's actually quite interesting because--notwithstanding baroque opera, which is a completely different beast--it is really NOT common for characters so clearly marked as villains to have heel-face turns like this. Still, he does; he tries to save Chénier, but the gods will have blood, and he's taken away to be executed while Maddalena takes the place of a condemned woman so she can die with him. The end!!!

(If you want to know the general attitude towards the historical events, it's basically "the rich people were kind of clueless and oblivious, but the Terror was a bit much," which seems eminently reasonable.)

A lot of great moments here. No one will forget Gérard's "Nemico della patria" aria, where he laments his lost ideals, or Maddalena's "La mamma morta," about how the revolutionaries destroyed her family. And Maddalena and Chénier's final duet, well. There is this Met performance from 1996. Honestly, I often find these old Met productions kind of stuffy and unappealing-looking, and this one is no exception, but it's not a big deal. Juan Pons is really good as Gérard, who--if I haven't emphasized it enough before--an extremely interesting character. Maria Guleghina was sensational as Abigaille in Nabucco, so it's no surprise that she's sensational as Maddalena in this. It also features a young STEPHANIE FUCKING BLYTHE in a small role; she's fine, though it's not necessarily obvious from this how she would come to be known as STEPHANIE FUCKING BLYTHE.

As for Chénier himself...well, let's back up a moment. The question of to what extent we expect opera singers to look like we'd expect their characters to look is a bit fraught. A lot of people are going to say, the voice is ALL. That's the only consideration. And yet, I don't think it is. Otherwise, operas wouldn't have such elaborate productions. Nobody really disagrees that they're a combination of both audio and visual elements, and as such, I think it's not necessarily unfair to think that the appearance of singers should be a factor. I mean fercrissake, we bitch endlessly about productions, so how do you decide what's off-limits? That said, practically speaking, you have to leave A LOT of wiggle room, and I don't think anyone has any problem with that. So the young lovers are more like middle-aged lovers? The soprano is maybe not quite such a radiant beauty that you can picture her driving men to kill? No problem. Pons is technically too old to be playing Gérard--who is supposed to be about Maddalena's age, having grown up with her--but it doesn't really matter.

But there's wiggle room and then there's wiggle room. Chénier is supposed to be young and dashing, and yet he is played by Luciano Pavarotti, who at the time was sixty and corpulent. Also, for some reason, he has really unkempt hair (and not in a sexy, romantic-poet way; just in the way of someone who looks like he couldn't be bothered) and a scraggly beard; I don't know if he was just too big to take guidance from anyone, or if for some misguided reason they WANTED him to look like that (he looks much better in any kind of publicity photo you might see), but either way, he looks about as far from the character as you can get. Don't get me wrong! He's still a great singer! I'm a fan! I listen to this album all the time during the holiday season! It fucking rules! And there would be no problem with his performance if you were just listening to the audio, but boy. I may sound like a philistine and/or a blasphemer here, but I think the drama here would've been substantially improved by a more appropriate-looking lead, even if his voice wasn't quite as good.

I sometimes think that baritones have it easier than tenors in this regard--they usually play villains or otherwise non-romantic characters, and thus age isn't too important, but tenors are always playing romantic leads: burn brightly but flare out quickly? Maybe.  Presumably that's why Domingo started taking baritone roles.

Gérard Pesson, Trois Contes (2019)

This one was on Operavision a while back; it's not there now, but I'd downloaded it, so I decided to watch it. Of course, the title just means "three tales," but people generally associate that name with Flaubert's collection of three stories by that title. This is...not that. It's three stories, kind of, but if it has anything to do with Flaubert, you'll have to tell me. There's not that much information on it online, and what there is doesn't give much of an idea of what it's about. There may be a reason for that.

The first tale is "The Princess and the Pea." I sometimes wonder why there aren't more well-known operas based on fairy tales. You've got several Cinderallas, Hansel und Gretel, Rusalka at a stretch, and...? Sure, plenty of others exist, but I think that's where most people are going to have to start googling. They're certainly not in the common repertoire. "The Princess and the Pea," however, is inherently funny as an operatic concept, as it is as a Disney movie, not just because of the painful sexism, but because it's barely even a story. There's nothing to it. It's strange to me that it's one of that small handful of fairytales to which everyone knows the plot. Why do we have to know about this dopey piece of ephermera? It's not fair!

Actually, though, while this opera's handling of the story is pretty darn strange, it's probably the best you could do. It consists of a series of "variations" on the story: first, we just see the story play out as you'd expect, and then we see different versions of it--this, I surmise, because fairy tales tend to come in many different versions. Some of them are barely different from the original, and some are extremely strange. Like in one they've LOST the pea, and oh no, what can have happened to it?!? Oh, wait, we can just buy another. Problem solved! And then there's one where the prince comes back having found a princess to marry, and it's actually TWO women, but he and his parents keep talking about them as if it were only one. The characters aren't portrayed at all "realistically" (even in an operatic idiom); they're like weird marionettes playing out this barely-a-story and calling attention to its texuality. It's extremely goofy, but pretty entertaining. This is the longest of the three sections, which is good, since it's also the best.

The second story is based on--of all things--a non-fiction book called Proust's Overcoatabout a collector's efforts to find Proust's personal effects after his death. Um...I don't know what else to say about that. It's certainly not an operatic subject you see every day. Like the first story, you can't exactly take it seriously, but it's less obviously cartoonish than the first one, and so less interesting, to me at least. Also...there's a part of me that understands why one would want to find artifacts associated with famous writers (when I visited the Brontë house in York, which has been made into a museum, they had recently acquired the table where the sisters supposedly wrote many of their novels, which was kind of cool), there's another part of me that thinks, so what? The overcoat in question is the collector's ultimate goal, but...I dunno. What can you do with it? Do you plan on trying to find Proust's DNA on it so you can clone him? Granted, it wouldn't make for the worst Jurassic Park sequel...

The third act is based on short story by Poe called "The Devil in the Bellfry," about a stultifying town called Vondervotteimittiss ("wonder what time it is") where everything is precise and regimented until the devil comes by and makes the clock strike thirteen, throwing everything into chaos. Most of it consists of a guy narrating the story; I found it definitely the least interesting thing here. Also, if there's any connective tissue between these three, it's pretty obscure. Maybe you could say they're all, in some sense, about storytelling, but that seems kind of thin to me.

The music isn't my thing, let's be blunt. It's not anywhere near as avant-garde as Luci mie traditrici, but I feel that it's sort of trending in that direction, and without the poisonous atmosphere that made that opera (or opera-like object) sort of intriguing. I'm all in favor of inscrutable art, but eh...I did sort of like the first act in spite of everything, but the other two were not very interesting to me, and I feel that the lack of inter-act cohesion is a problem.  Apparently, this was actually commissioned, by the Opéra de Lille, which boggles my mind.  What could they have possibly asked for?  Or did they just request that Pesson go nuts?  Well, if so, they certainly got what they paid for. Hard to imagine this taking a place in the repertoire (why would you possibly produce this when instead you could produce any other opera?)  But hey! They said the same thing, more or less, about Tristram Shandy! And yet, I doubt this is comparable to that. Why isn't there a Tristram Shandyopera? Apparently there's long been an unfinished one.

Ambroise Thomas, Hamlet (1868)

Should Thomas have gone on my list of neglected composers? Well, it's irrelevant now, although I have to say, I cannot wrap my head around a French person named "Thomas." Hey, I'm sure if I looked, I could find any number of French people with non typically French-sounding names, so that's neither here nor there, but it's how I feel, dernit! I guess this isn't a super-well-known opera, but it's doing okay, compartively: there's the Met production I saw, there's one on Operavision right now, there are a few DVDs...not too shabby.

This Met 2010 production is the first time they'd staged it in over a hundred years; they came back to it because of Simon Keenlyside, who apparently had been making waves as the character throughout Europe. And yet, in his interview, Keenlyside sounds weirdly unsure about the opera: "It offends many people that it isn't Hamlet, but it ISN'T--it's text-driven, it's just not Shakespeare text-driven, and IF it's possible to forget that it isn't Hamlet the play . . . then it's still, uh, it still can be a powerful evening, I think." I mean, personally, I think any Shakespearean opera that's any good is good because of the composer; Shakespeare is great because of the language, and given that you're not going to have that in the opera, you've gotta rely on the actual...opera-y bits. Still, sounding a bit defensive there about the divergences from the text. Totally unnecessary!

Still, let's consider the text and the changes Thomas hath wrought. So as I said, this doesn't really feature Shakespearean dialogue, though it does include occasional fragments of Shakespeare. So how about "to be or not to be?" you definitely ask. And yes it's there, and it's actually pretty funny: I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se as part of a libretto, but it's hard not to compare it to the iconic original, and note that it looks like a rendition by a hapless student who was supposed to memorize the soliloquy but really only had a vague idea of what it was about along with a few bits and pieces and had to frantically try to fake it:

To be or not to be

Oh, the mystery!

To die...to sleep.

To sleep

Oh, to find you again!

If only I could break my bond to this earth!

Then?

What is the undiscovered country from which no traveler ever returns?

To be or not to be

Oh, the mystery

To die...to sleep.

To sleep

Oh, the mystery!

Oh, the mystery!

To die...

To sleep...

Perchance to dream!

Well, anyway. As for the plot itself: it...kind of follows the play, at least at first. It features most of the characters, short of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern and Fortinbras. However, some of them, notably Polonius and Horatio, have had their roles considerably cut down. Polonius especially stands out for his lack of importance: he sings like two lines and then disappears. Hamlet doesn't kill him, and we're left to assume that Ophelia's madness is exclusively Hamlet-related, nothing to do with her pa being done in, which...it makes her character seem more trivial, is what it does, to me, anyway. Hmm.

But let me tell you about the ending, which is significantly different from Shakespeare. Spoilers for weird variation on ancient story! Okay, so Hamlet is brooding in the graveyard when Laertes appears. They fight, and mortally stab one another, but, in operatic fashion, Hamlet's death is sufficiently protracted that he's able to do some more stuff. Ophelia's funeral procession comes by, with Gertrude and Claudius. Hamlet's all ready to die, but then Ghost Dad appears and orders him to murder Claudius. So he does, and then expires. Gertrude, surprisingly, lives, though she's none too happy about these goings on. But that's not the half of it: this production is a revision of the original libretto, in which Hamlet lives and Ghost Dad orders him to be king now. I...don't really know how to feel about this. I'm not offended by the desecration of the Sacred Text blahdy blah, but...it's weird. And you sort of wonder, what exactly is the point here? And if you're able to just completely change things so cavalierly (whether talking about Thomas or the revisers who messed with the text), then how much sense does this story make, anyway? Shouldn't the ending in some way be determined by what had gone before?

This production DOES show off some great acting, I'll say that much. That seems to be part of the purpose of the fairly sparse production (I suspect that the costumes were the most expensive part of it). Sure, Keenlyside Hamlets the shit out of it, but equally good is Jennifer Larmore (whom I don't think I'd ever seen before) as a tortured Gertrude. James Morris is predictably reliable as Claudius, though the role actually doesn't give him that much to do. The only relative weak spot, I think, is Marlis Petersen's Ophelia. I LIKE Petersen; I don't think it's just that she's a bad actor like Diane Damrau. But...eh. She does not sell me the character, possibly because she stepped in at the last minute due to illness. Who did she replace? It's none other than Natalie Dessay, and I've gotta say, HOLY SHIT would I have rather seen Dessay in this role. Oh my goodness. Well, so it goes.

I don't think it's an all-time great opera, but it certainly has its moments, including a very good first-act love duet between Hamlet and Ophelia, and a fun gravedigger duet near the end. And, of course, there's a mad scene for Ophelia, which...well, it's still okay, but all I could think of was Dessay in Lucia di Lammermoor and how she would have crushed it (not that I think that this scene in itself is as good as that one). I dunno. Worth seeing.

Naturally, this isn't the only operatic version of Hamlet. One of the others was written in 1936 by a Lativan composer named Jānis Kalniņš. The only reason I know about this is that a while ago Operavision had a Latvian Opera Hundredth Anniversary Concert up, which included pieces from various Latvian operas that that we will never ever see unless Operavision takes pity on us. Anyway, one of them was an apparently humorous (based on the sound and the body language; there were no subtitles) gravedigger duet therefrom. It was pretty good! I want to see the whole thing.

Thomas Adès, The Tempest (2004)

Had to see this, for sure. Amazingly enough, according to the backstage Met discussion, it's had no less than eight different productions--a staggering number for a contemporary opera, and given that that was 2012, there may well have been more by now. This seems to be a very popular opera. There have been a number of Tempest-operas over the years, but none of the others have really caught on, so this has probably become the definitive operatic Tempest.

The Tempest. You know what it's about, I know what it's about, all the Gods of Heaven and Earth know what it's about. The plot here is just about identical to the play, give or take. The music is recognizably by the Exterminating Angel guy, albeit with more conventional orchestration. The libretto is...well, obviously it would be a pretty heavy lift to try to cram the Shakespearean dialogue in here (though come to think of it, this appears to be the first Shakespeare opera I've seen, not counting The Enchanted Island, so I don't know how the others handle it), so things are kind of pared down. It's mostly okay--at least it doesn't have the issue of bathetically prosaic dialogue being sung--though there are quite a few rhyming couplets that come across as a bit silly. Eg: "Try to understand/This is Ferdinand" or "We were sunk/I was drunk." It is what it is.

It's a gaudy Met production by Robert Lepage, which works fine. It supposedly takes place in La Scala in the nineteenth century, but that's a kind of vague, obscure thing that doesn't come across particularly well. Everyone's in very eye-catching costumes, notably Prospero (Simon Keenlyside, who created the role), who is covered with all kinds of fancy tattoos--did he get them when he was duke? Seems like it would be hard to get them after, but I don't know; maybe he just used magic. You've also got Isabel Leonard as a predictably radiant Miranda and Kevin Burdette and Iestyn Davies amusing as the scheming Stefano and Trinculo respectively.

One must make special note of, again, Audrey Luna as Ariel. If she sometimes had to hit those inhumanly high notes in The Exterminating Angel,she has to spend most of her time there here--which I suppose is appropriate for a literally inhuman character. It sort of drove me crazy at first, but I don't know: it may not be the most pleasing to the ears, but I feel like it works as spectacle: given the shrieking combined with her costume and make up, she comes across as extremely deranged, which is certainly a valid conception of the character. I did not have a problem with it.

Thing is, though, I have to admit, in spite of the high praise that this has received all around, I found it a little bit boring. Maybe it's just over-familiarity with the source material, but honestly, I'm really not much of a fan of the original story (in a world where The Enchanted Island exists, I'm not sure I ever need to revisit the original version).  It fails to excite, and I feel that this lacked the memorable moments that we'd see in Adès' subsequent opera. And although I accept that you have to do something to make the dialogue manageable, I'm not at all certain what's been done here is as effective as you'd hope.

Thomas Adès, The Exterminating Angel (2016)

Ha!  Crossing one of those unseen composers off the list right away!

My dad saw this a while ago and super-duper hated it. But I mean, really, if you want to discourage me from seeing an opera, the best choice would be to say, eh, it was kinda meh. Obviously I'm going to want to see such a maligned piece. My dad's taste in opera more or less overlaps with mine; it's not super-conservative or anything. Still, you won't catch him watching Einstein on the Beach, say. Nonetheless, I was entirely prepared to believe that I would indeed dislike this. That it would be just impossibly awkward and "what the hell do people SEE in this?" Alas--if that's what you were hoping for--no. I thought this was a really good opera. Maybe even better than that. Um...I feel like that's sort of anti-climactic, but it's just how it is.

Everyone probably knows the plot of The Exterminating Angel, or at least the premise? Bunch of rich people at a dinner party realize that they're unable to leave the premises for no rational reason and get progessively more unhinged? I have seen the Buñuel film, albeit some time ago; I can't quite speak to what may be different here, but that's about it.

I will say that the first part of the opera--the first act and especially the first part of the first act--has its problems, and that if I had only watched it that far, I would very probably not have such a high opinion of the whole. We come back to the question of whether colloquial English dialogue can really work as opera singing, at least for an Anglophone audience. And...once again, I'm not so sure. The early going is especially iffy because the characters (this has a huge cast for an opera, with no less than twenty-two singing roles plus a chorus, including every vocal type except the sadly marginalized contralto) are basically singing pleasantries and small-talk, and it...well, it's not great. It's a bit cringe-inducing, really. Later in the opera, as shit starts to get unreal, the situation more high-stakes and, well, operatic, it starts to work better. But the beginning is kinda bad. Furthermore, Adès really likes the ultra-high female voices, and the way they're written, some of them are frequently just screeching their lines, and not just the ultra-high coloratura soprano Audrey Luna but all the sopranos here. This happens kind of throughout, but I feel like it's less prevalent later on. Or maybe I just got used to it.

Speaking of Audrey Luna, though, I have to say: it's very impressive, certainly, that her voice is able to comfortably dwell in the G range (and apparently this opera contains the highest note ever sung at the Met, as she reaches all the way up to the next A--I can easily believe it). But...I feel like this may be a case where the composer was so preoccupied with whether he could, he didn't stop to think if he should. Okay okay, Luna, it's great that you're able to do this, but maybe we'd all be better off if you...didn't?  It's unlike anything else you're likely to hear, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to hear it.   I know I always say that what I want from art is new experiences, so maybe I'm an unbelievably vile hypocrite, but that is how I feel.  Something to consider, anyway.

Still, it does get better. A lot better, I'd say. The characters start to come into their own and even get some decent vocal moments (though that's not really what the emphasis is on here). You've got Christine Rice as Blanca playing an increasingly desperate song on the piano. You've got Iestyn Davies as Francisco freaking out about not having the right kind of spoon for his coffee. You've got Alice Coote as Leonora (the first time I've seen her in a non-trouser role, I think) growing trulyunhinged and stabbing one of the other women. You've got an unnerving death duet from the two lovers in the closet. You've got Rice, Coote, and Luna, chanting "we need blood"--seriously, there is a lot of great stuff here; all the singers are excellent at coming unglued.

Also, Adès' music, man, I swear. The orchestra includes some unusual instruments, including a shit-ton of bells and something called an ondes Martenot, a primitive electronic instrument that sounds kind of like a theremin. It's really strange, thrilling stuff. Here, listen to this "interlude" that opens Act II to see what he can do.

Are you meant to, like, feel for the characters here? Because I feel like maybe I'm not, but by the end, I totally did. I got sucked in; there's no denying it, and this became one of my favorite contemporary operas. Honestly, I liked it more than anything I've seen by John Adams (no offense to Adams--"The People Are the Heroes Now" is still great), eg. I'll have to see The Tempest very soon.

Top Ten Opera Composers I've Somehow Avoided

I've seen a fair few operas, but there are hundreds of composers I've NEVER seen. I mean, thousand, really, but in terms of those that are ever performed and available in any way, probably hundreds. I want to see them all! Why not? But there are a few notably notable omissions on my list, so here's the ten that seem most glaring to me.

1. Pyotr Tchaikovsky--Truly weird that I've missed out on Tchaikovsky to date. I mean, I've listened to plenty of his music; I've seen The Nutcracker; I know how good he is--so what gives? If Eugene Oneginisn't the most famous Russian opera, it's second only to Boris Godunov.

2. Giacomo Meyerbeer--His star has fallen nowadays (in large part because of the nazis--but also, sadly we have to admit, because of Wagner and other anti-Semites of the time), but he was one of the most successful opera composers of the ninteenth century. I have no doubt that his operas are well worth seeing, and a lot of them are more or less readily available.

3. Benjamin Britten--The most famous British composer of operas? I suppose it depends on whether you count Gilbert and Sullivan, but certainly a huge name. I've heard nothing but positive things about the likes of Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and Death in Venice,

so let's get on it!

4. Francesco Cavalli--The most important early baroque composer short of Monteverdi himself, or such is the impression I get. He wrote a lot of operas, many of which are both extant and well-regarded, so as a fan of baroque music, what am I waiting for?

5. Arnold Schoenberg--I like the Schoenberg music I've heard, sort of, and he IS considered one of the most important figures in twentieth-century music. I have to admit, I still haven't quite wrapped my head around atonal music (let's face it, even after having it explained to me several times, I'm still not entirely sure what it even is), so I'm a little wary here, but I think that if I'm at all interested in music, I need to at least see Moses und Aron [sic]. Here is a youtube comment that you should ABSOLUTELY NOT IN TEN BILLION YEARS "view replies" to:

You know, I'm starting to think that even though Wagner was a genius composer, his malign influence may not actually have been worth it.

6. Mikhail Glinka--He only wrote two operas, but he's widely considered the father of Russian music as its own distinctive thing, and I really want to see his work. Also, he may be the handsomest composer:

Dang. In later pictures, he doesn't look as good due to the omnipresent Unfortunate Facial Hair, but still.

7. Thomas Adès--As far as contemporary composers I'm umfamiliar with go, he must be number one. I suppose that's a somewhat limited group, but still. I have heard mixed reviews, but nonetheless, The Tempest and The Exterminating Angel are both high on the viewing list.

8. Some Scarlatti or other--There are three baroque composers named "Scarlatti" (more, actually, but these are the only ones who wrote extant operas): Alessandro, his son Domenico, and his nephew Giuseppe. Which is best? Who can possibly say?!? I just feel, given the preponderance of Scarlattis stomping around, I ought to experience at least one of them. It's only fair.

9. Marc-Antoine Charpentier--Between Lully and Rameau, there was Charpentier (actually, he was only a little younger than Lully, but apparently he only came into his own after the death of Lully, who was apparently kind of monopolizing the opera stage. He's supposed to be good. I want to find out more. Hey, we're near the end of the list; it's only natural that these should turn from must-sees to probably-a-decent-idea-to-sees.

10. Leonardo Vinci--Boy, his parents were NOT thinking in terms of google searches when they named him, I'll tell you that much. Another baroque composer--I'm loading up on those guys, and why not? I dunno; he's supposed to be good. Also, he was allegedly poisoned by a jealous husband, so that's fun.

Honorable mention: Umberto Giordano--again, meant to be good. His first opera was written for the competition that was ultimately won by Cavalleria rusticana. Andrea Chénier and Fedoracome highly recommended.

Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

Hey, it's this! What's "this?" It's my two hundredth opera, that's what! Of course, it depends on what you're willing to count as an "opera," which is why this sort of effort to exactly ennumerate things like this is an exercise in foolishness, but fuck man, I can't help it. It's my generation! I think I approach operas the way some do pokémon, though I think they're more likely to actually catch 'em all.

I chose this one for the big two-oh-oh because it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music. Or so sez Wikipedia. I would've said "twentieth-century," but no doubt they know best. I would have assumed it was based on some Greek myth or other, but no, apparently the story goes back no further than the play by Maurice Maeterlinck that it's based on. We learn again from Wikipedia that Maeterlinck, after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, would go on to plagiarize a book about termites. Cool, cool.

Well, that's neither here nor there. The story, at least in outline, is pretty darned simple, as these things go: Prince Goulaud finds this mysterious woman, Mélisande, in the woods, and they get married, as you do. But then she and his brother Pélleas fall in love, so he murders him. He feels bad afterwards, but it's TOO LATE. And then Mélisande dies in childbirth, and THAT IS THAT.

You know who didn't like this opera? The Latin American dictator protagonist of Alejo Carpentier's great novel Reasons of State, who sees its Met debut. He remarks: "No one is really singing here; there is no baritone, tenor, or bass . . . there are no arias . . . no ballet . . . not a single ensemble [ . . . ] The fact is that although our friend the Academician, and that other chap, D'Annunzio, tell me that this is a masterpiece, I'd rather have Manon, Traviata,and Carmen. And talking of whores, take me to a brothel." He also complains about what he perceives as a lack of actual music; he makes the whole thing sound impossibly avant-garde, but it's really not: this seems to be illustrating his rigidly conventional thinking. I mean, I know that people have had a hard time dealing with innovations in music, so what do I know, but this ain't Berg; it ain't even Strauss at his most extreme. It's true that there are no arias here, but really, in a post-Wagner world, is that that hard to deal with?

The music, in truth, is melodious as anything; I found it quite transporting. I think one's mileage may vary as to the actual drama, though. It's very stylized; this stylization is emphasized in this production, but it's hard to imagine it could ever not basically be so. I was insistently reminded of L'Orfeo,which is similarly emotionally cool and characterized by very deliberate, mannered gestures. This certainly isn't bad--L'Orfeo is great, of course--but while there is plenty here that's striking and memorable, it did, at times, feel a bit bloodless. Like you want this romance to have more passion, dammit. But that's clearly not what the piece is going for, and I respect that. I liked it, basically. And I liked the production, basically (by our old friend Robert Wilson) about which the first and last thing you'll notice is its extreme blueness, which again--this seems characteristic of the whole thing--is striking but a bit monotonous in places. Also--speaking of deliberate gestures--at several points Pelléas does what looks to me to be exactly the gesture that the kids call "dabbing," which surely can't be deliberate. There's nothing else humorous here, and do you think anyone involve actually knows what that is? It's some kind of miracle that I do. But anyway. That's neither here nor there. It's too bad that this is Debussy's only completed opera.

Unsuk Chin, Alice in Wonderland (2007)

Who's got two thumbs and has seen a whopping THREE operas by women? Not to brag, but that's a total of almost exactly 1.5% of the total! Okay, kind of pathetic. But I have to wonder: even if you decided that your only goal was to see as many operas by woman as possible, how many would you be able to accrue? Would you be able to get to triple digits? I have my doubts. It's not a problem that can be individually solved.

Chin is a Korean composer. Is the opera in Korean? We should be so lucky. But okay, MAYBE English makes more sense, given the story. We all know about Alice in Wonderland, right? It's one of those books that everyone at least sort of half knows about, yeah? Well: maybe. But here are two comments on the video. "I love how this focuses on the madness of wonderland and the effects they use to pull off the iconic moments." And: "well...it does capture the essence of Lewis Carroll's story." So what do you think "the essence of Lewis Carroll's story is," exactly? It's not just LOL random, hur hur he must have been on drugs stuff. It's whimsical, obviously, but mostly, it's stuffed full of mathematical and linguistic jokes and concepts. If you don't dig any deeper than "this is weird," you haven't really dug at all. It's a purely surface reading of the text.

Well but so...unfortunately, I actually feel that the libretto here hasn't done any digging either. Because it really is just an unending string of nonsense babble, some of it directly from Carroll, some significantly embellished. Nor does it follow the plot, such as it is, of the book. I have no idea what that dude meant by "the iconic moments" because it mixes everything up; scenes with the Caterpillar Cheshire Cat Mad Hatter and so on are really not anything like what you'd find in the original.

Of course, there's no need to directly follow Carroll's text. It's fine to do your own thing and bring your own interpretation to the story (although people tend not to do anything very interesting with it, if you ask me). But then we have to ask: okay, but what is this opera doing,exactly? And, as indicated above, I think the answer is "not much." I was actually kind of into it at first, but at a certain point I realized that there would be no drama here, that nothing would ever resolve into anything, and I have to confess to you, I got SO BORED. Oh my goodness. Fair's fair, possibly if I'd been more engaged I would've gotten more out of it. But...well, there's a catch-22. The music is sort of minimalistic and dischordant in a way that made me sort of think of Wozzeck,which I recently saw for the second time via the Met's Live in HD. So that would be fine, but the thing about Wozzeckis, I may not fully have my head wrapped around Berg's music, but the story really sucks me in. Not so here.

Yeah, the production is sort of as zany as you'd want, I guess, with most of the characters (including Alice) wearing giant puppet costumes and not showing their faces. It's fine; I just didn't feel like it was in service of much. There is a rather striking climactic moment where she takes off her mask and reveals her face (it's Sally Matthews, last seen by me as the lead in Handel's Deidamia--hard to imagine a more different opera from this than that), and that's kind of cool, but...eh. Honestly, I can't really recommend this to anyone, and I would be extremely reluctant to see a hypothetical Chin Through the Looking-Glass.

Camille Saint-Saëns, Samson et Dalila (1877)

Here's a somewhat famous opera I'd never seen, so I thought, why not? Probably everyone basically knows the story of Samson and Delilah: he's a tough Israelite warrior fighting the Philistines, until Delilah (who--I'm not a Biblical expert--I think is supposed to be another Israelite who betrays him in the original story, but in the opera she's clearly a Philistine herself) seduces him and gets him to reveal the secret of his strength, which is his hair; she has it cut and he's turned over to the Philistines but then, for his final attack, he knocks down the temple's pillars and everyone dies. Extremely edifying.

Here's my main question about this story: why would everyone just assume that he has some special secret to his strength that can be learned and used to defeat him? Sure they turn out to be right, but doesn't it make more intuitive sense that, welp, he's just tough because God gave him superpowers; there's nothing you can do about it. Sorry. Or maybe: yeah, but God revokes these powers when he gives into temptation with Delilah. That would make sense too. But no; turns out he just has a weak point like a videogame boss. I find this whole thing very theologically dubious.

As an opera, the thing I found striking about this--because it's so unusual, when you think about it--is that there's no romance here: he's in love with her, he says, whatever that may actually mean, but we're never meant to believe that she feels anything for him; that her motive are not purely mercenary. And...you don't see that much in opera. Think about it. I mean, sure, there are operas that aren't about romance at all, but if they are, you kind of expect there to be something there. I mean, I think that even Pinkerton feels more for Butterfly than Delilah does in this, and it's not like you get the impression that Samson's feelings go much beyond sheer lust (if there's a difference). I have to admit, it leaves the story here feeling a bit thin,even by operatic standards.

I still liked it, though! Saint-Saëns is fun. I especially liked the "Bacchanale" ballet sequence where the Philistines are celebrating Samson's subjugation. Super-Orientalist, but hey, also super-great. And are those "Eastern" motifs that you hear everywhere from here specifically, or is it a matter of a common ancestor? Either way, I LOVE IT. I watched this version, which is mostly quite good. Frankly, I'm not sure it's even theoretically possible for any singer to be magnetic enough as Delilah to make the story actually believable, but Marianna Tarasova does about as reasonable a job as you'd expect. Nikola Mijailovic is also very good as the sinister Philistine priest of Dagon. Torsten Kerl as Samson looks the part, but I can't help feel he's a bit acting-challenged, which doesn't help. The more or less modern-dress production is actually very effective, mostly. The one part that they really botch is the ending, where--SIGH--as opposed to just knocking down the temple, Samson is shown about to set off a suicide vest. For fuck's sake, people. You can't just throw in such a loaded signifier with absolutely no logic to it. It's just the laziest possible effort to be "transgressive," and in a very stupid way. Don't be dumb. Dammit. OH WELL. Still a good performance, and a good opera.

Charles Gounod, La nonne sanglante (1854)

This is based on an episode from Mathew Lewis' gothic novel The Monk. The idea is that these two families are at war with one another. They decide to stop fighting and to signify the end of their enmity, Agnès, one of their daughters, should marry the eldest son from the other. But OH NO! She and the younger son, Rodolphe, are in love! What to do? They decide to elope, but there's a spooky story that the ghost of a nun is walking the halls of the castle! Rodolphe doesn't believe it, but then he mistakes the ghost for Agnès and pledges his troth to her instead (he may not be all that bright). Then, lucky break, it turns out Rodolphe's brother has been killed in The Wars. Only problem is this damn nun, who won't give Rodolphe up unless she avenges her by killing her lover who murdered her. He agrees, but oh no, who does the murdered turn out to be? Only people who have seen an opera before will be able to guess the answer.

This one's a banger. Beautiful romantic music, frequently highly dramatic, reflecting the gothic nature of the drama. Good stuff. Okay okay, as I said, Rodolphe may be a bit dim, but no biggie. And okay, maybe Rodolphe's page Arthur (en travesti) is slightly incongruous as comic relief, but again, it's totally fine. There may not quite be any single piece as memorable as "Le veau d'or est toujours debout," but on the whole the score is at least as good as if not better than Faust's, I'd say. This production is also very good: limited, abstract sets and characters all costumed in black and gray (except the nun in white), perfectly evoking the setting. The only odd thing about it is these two minor characters with no particular significance to the plot who smash the color scheme by being dressed in bright blue outfits. Why? What is going on here? I don't get it! The performances are fine; Michael Spyres as Rodolphe has the most to do by a pretty wide margin, and he makes it work. I also was very charmed by Jodie Devos as Arthur, even if the role is a little odd. As the nun, Marion Lebègue is memorable and she has these contact lenses that make her pupils look tiny. Very unnerving.

So as you know, the only Gounod operas that are commonly performed are Faust and Roméo et Juliette. Why is this? It could just be kind of arbitrary happenstance, or it could be the fact that those two are based on stories that everyone more or less knows--certainly this one isn't. The Monk may have been a sensation in its time, but who reads it today? Still, we can eliminate the theory that it's based on merit, because this absolutely deserves to be part of the common repertory. A nice surprise.

Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach (1976)

As the opera opens, we see two women sitting on the side of the otherwise-bare stage, emotionlessly reciting a series of disconnected numbers and phrases over a faint background ambient drone.  For the first part of this, there's also a lot of noise from the audience, who don't quite seem to realize that the opera has started, though eventually they quiet down.  This goes on for something like twenty minutes. The question is: can you imagine yourself conceivably liking this? You don't have to necessarily like it as done, but can you imagine a situation where you would? If so, this may be for you. It may not, but it may be. If not...I'd say it's definitely not.

To me, this really drives home how incredibly normal Akhnaten is by comparison. Sure, it's pretty abstract, but it has characters. Specific things happen. There are FREAKIN' ARIAS. Einstein on the Beach has none of those things. Hell, it barely has singing. I mean, it does, but it's mainly repetitive, wordless choruses; there are a few featured singers, but they rarely sing actual words, let alone coherent ideas. There's also a lot of spoken text, but again...very abstruce. It doesn't get much more avant-garde than this. I think you really only call it "opera" because there's no other obvious category to put it in. It's closer to an opera than it is to a musical, but that is the most I'll say for it. And it ain't that close to either.

So...what's it "about," if you can even use that word? Extremely good question. As hard as I try, I find it VERY hard to connect most of this to Einstein in any concrete way (though there is a violinist decked out as the man--apparently he liked to play to help him think). Maybe more generally it's sort of science-y, but even then...I dunno. There are several scenes with trains, one in a courtroom, one in a vaguely futuristic sort of cityscape, a few that just consist of dancers pinging around the stage (like atoms?) to the music, and one that seriously just consists of nothing but a bar of light moving sloooooowly from a horizontal to a vertical orientation. I don't think analytical thought is going to get you very far here. It's sort of different from other operas in that it's more of a group effort: Glass wrote the music, but that is in tandem with Robert Wilson's art design and Lucinda Childs' choreography--point being, it's supposed to be like this. You're not likely to see a more "accessible" performance, so take it for what it is (I'd like to note that this isn't my first encounter with Wilson--the Tom Waits albums The Black Rider, Alice, and Blood Money were all written for plays of his.  So that's pretty cool).

I mean, sure I liked it, mainly. The music is incredibly repetitive (in the booklet, Glass objects to his music being thus described, but this strikes me as disingenous--if you don't like it, you shouldn't write the same chord sequences over and over and over, dammit), but, like Akhnaten,frequently hypnotically compelling--though it strikes me that his musical idiom may be somewhat limited in that regard (but then again, The Perfect American seems to demonstrate a wider range). But come on: can't we acknowledge that this gets a little silly sometimes? I think we're in denial if we don't. People are always pulling faces, and how 'bout, the scene that opens the third act? A woman recites the following anecdote:

I was in this prematurely air-conditioned super market, and there were all these aisles, and there were all these bathing caps that you could buy which had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them. They were red and yellow and blue. I wasn't tempted to buy one, but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach.

Then, she repeats it over and over, dozens and dozens and dozens of times; I didn't count how many or anything, but all told, this goes on for another twenty minutes (did I mention that, as it it weren't inaccessible enough, this is a four-and-a-half-hour piece?). I was watching with my brother, and at a certain point we just looked at each other and laughed, because come on. As you know, I like crazy experimental stuff, and what I want art to do is to give me new experiences. In that sense, Einstein on the Beach totally delivers, and I was extremely glad to see it (though I liked Akhnaten way better), but one has to acknowledge that, in addition to very much not being for everyone, it's just fundamentally a little bit goofy.