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.