Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aleksis Kivi (1997)

Hey look, another Finnish opera. The topic of this one is awfully esoteric, at least for the non-Finns among us. Aleksis Kivi was a nineteenth-century writer of poems, plays, and a novel who died at the age of thirty-eight of some mixture of physical and mental causes and is now--per wikipedia--known as Finland's national writer. As I understand it, he was one of the first writers to take the Finnish language seriously, as opposed to just writing in Swedish. It's kind of amazing to me that this was ever released on DVD, not that I'm complaining. I was unfamiliar with Kivi, but that novel of his does look kind of interesting, so maybe I'll check out the English translation.

The opera is certainly not a conventional biography. If anything, plotwise it sort of reminds me of Philip Glass, a very impressionistic thing where not much happens. Most of it takes place at the end of Kivi's life, depicting him as a desperate, broken-down alcoholic, though the second act goes back to happier times, when he's winning writing contests and being the toast of the town among the young reformers, with a wealthy patroness. The young Kivi is played by a different singer. In the last act, things really start to break down, it's at least in part his hallucinations, and at the end there's a duet between the old(er) and young Kivis. The main conceit throughout the whole opera is that there's this implacable literary critic, August Ahlqvist, who HATES HATES HATES Kivi and, at least in this telling, more or less drives him to his death. I am not here to adjudicate Finnish literary disputes, but as depicted here, Ahlqvist is quite a hateful character. It's not a singing role; all his dialogue is spoken, which seems like an effective touch. He was (according to the DVD sleeve notes) a technically accomplished poet himself, but lacked the music that Kivi has. A lot of the libretto is taken from Kivi's actual writings, apparently, not that you'd necessarily know if you're not familiar with his oeuvre.

I don't think an opera necessarily needs to be plot-heavy, obviously. Glass is great. But I have my doubts here. I see what it's going for, and I suppose maybe it works on its own desired level, but I really kept wanting more to actually...happen. I am not sure if Rautavaara's habit of writing his own libretti was a good one. Granted, I am not Finnish, and maybe if I were (god, if only) and if the character had more cultural resonance to me, I would like this more. And yet...something like Boris Godunov takes place in a very specific historical period, treating of a time and place that most of us know nothing about--and yet, it works. It's specific yet universal. You don't need to have any special knowledge of or investment in the events for it to resonate.  I feel like this should be that way too, but I'm not convinced it is. Rasputin had its issues, no doubt, but I certainly feel it was closer to that ideal than this is. I still like the music (though I do feel it misses a beat in not doing more to evoke Kivi's time and place), but I don't know that I'd call this a success. To me, I'd say it's more a vaguely interesting curiosity than anything else.

Jake Heggie, Moby-Dick (2010)

It's unclear why the title of the novel is hyphenated but the actual whale's name isn't. However, I'm glad to see that this opera version kept the hyphen intact. However, unfortunately, it got rid of the alternate title, so while if you say "hey, I just saw that opera, Moby-Dick," other people will say "cool, how was it?" if you say "hey, I just saw that opera, The Whale," these same people will say "what the heck are you talking about, you weirdo?" They'll think you sounded like a fool! It's a real shame.

Heggie is also the composer of Dead Man Walking, which is going to have its Met debut live in HD next season. That is, if anything ever happens again in this country. I just don't know anymore. The libretto to Dead Man Walking was written by the playwright Terrence McNally, who also suggested the idea for this opera and who also died of coronavirus last week. Ain't that a kick in the teeth.

Well, life goes on, for now, for some of us, so watching operas to relieve the tension is a good idea. This version of Moby-Dick is streamlined from the novel; obviously, there are no whale-biology sections, eg. It starts in media res, with the Pequod already at sea. It features most of the characters you'd expect: Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb, Flask, Queequeg, Pip the cabin-boy (a trouser role) and Ishmael--although for whatever reason, the latter is referred to only as "greenhorn" until the very end when he's talking to the (off-screen) captain of the Rachel who asks him his name and he says...well, you can guess. So that's a bit naff, but for the most part, the libretto does quite a good job of capturing that Melvillean spirit, although I was disappointed that it doesn't include Fedallah, the ominous Indian mystic, who, it seems, could've made for some good dramatic moments.

People are inevitably going to compare this to Billy Budd. It may not be entirely fair, but there's just no escaping it. There's certainly at least some Britten here. And, no, if we must compare, I suppose it doesn't quite live up to that one. It is awfully good, though! There are a lot of great dramatic arias; Ahab and Starbuck in particular seem to be great roles: indeed, the highlight here is probably a really beautiful duet between the two of them rhapsodizing about their wives and children back in Nantucket; Ahab is almost persuaded to turn the ship around, but then the whale appears and everyone goes to hell. Dramatically. This San Francisco Opera production has a lot of great ocean effects that I'm not entirely sure how they pulled off. Also, Ahab really appears to be missing a leg; I suppose it's his lower leg is just bent all the way back and tied behind him--that must be annoying--but whatever it is, it works very well.

Ahab here is played by Jay Hunter Morris, the smalltown Texas boy who sounds like the sweetest guy ever in interviews, eternally unable to believe his luck that he gets to be an opera singer. He played Siegfried in the Met's Live in HD ring performances. It's kind of amazing: Siegfried was recorded in November of 2011, Götterdämmerung in February of 2012, and then this in I think October 2012: so less than a year between playing a seventeen-year-old kid and a fifty-eight-year-old sea captain. He was in his late forties at the time, and it works at least in large part just because of how his hair was dyed in the former role: sure, he didn't quite look like a teenager, willing suspension of disbelief and all, but closer than you might think. And then, here, he's really fantastic as Ahab, nailing both the madness and the introspective moments. Morgan Smith--not exactly a household name--is also a highlight as Starbuck.

It's really hard, obviously, to say what new operas will have enduring popularity and which ones will just fade away. Let's face it, even if I like them, most of the ones you see on Operavision are probably in the latter category, but this seems likely to stick around. I mean, as long as the performing arts stick around, period, which length is never quite clear. But let's try to be optimistic, for god's sake.

Rued Langgaard, Antikrist (1930)

And now, another Danish opera for Scandinavian Opera Week! Nordic Opera Week? Irrelevant: whatever kind of week it is, it's over now, 'cause I ain't got any more! So for now, enjoy this.

The first thing to say is that musically, this is just stunning. You rarely hear the like. Intensely powerful, dramatic music, reminiscent of the best of Wagner or Strauss and at least as good. Langgaard was a rare talent--basically unknown in his lifetime, apparently--and he deserves to be heard like heck.

As for the plot. Well. In addition to being a brilliant composer, Langgaard was also apparently a kind of weird, reactionary Jesus-freak type, so this his only opera is on religious themes--whether he believed in a literal forthcoming end of the world or just a figurative one, we can see his preoccupations here. It does not have a conventional plot. In the beginning, the Antichrist is summoned to walk the earth (although the character him--or her!--self never appears), and at the end, he's destroyed by God. And between the beginning and the end...other stuff happens. Maybe. It's difficult to say, really.

Aside from bits and pieces, Antikrist was never performed in Langgaard's lifetime, producers frequently rejecting the libretto as too weird. You see such complaints and the popular narrative is: grrr short-sighted producers not recognizing greatness when they see it I hate them sooooo much! And yet, I see their point. I suppose it's generally about the consequences of the Antichrist walking the earth, with the Beast and the Whore and other apocalyptic Biblical things, but most of the actual singing is more or less gibberish to me. The music is dramatically compelling as anything, but when you don't have a compelling story to go with it...well, you're only halfway there.

Just watching this with no prior knowledge, I think you would strongly suspect that it was a staged oratorio rather than an opera proper. That's what it feels like--and not one of your more plot-heavy oratorios--a Messiah, eg. But apparently Langgaard was very insistent that it was in fact an opera and should be performed as such. Well, okay, I don't mind, but I'm sorry to say, I don't think much of the only available video. Even if the story doesn't amount to much, you really ought to be able to make this visually striking. But this isn't; it's presented like a mystery play in a church, with everyone dressed up as nineteenth-century Danish peasants, I guess enacting the story, such as it is. It's really nothing much to look at, I have to say.

As I say, Langgaard's music is great. I think everyone should at least listen to this. But you don't have to feel guilty about not watching it as well.

Einojuhani Rautavaara, Rasputin (2003)

Now there was a cat that really was gone, let me tell you.

This one happened unexpectedly: I just did a google search for "Finnish operas" and idly clicked on every result and saw WHOA, there's a video of this one on youtube, with subtitles'n'everything! So I had to see it. I've looked as hard as I'm able, and as far as Scandinavian operas go, there's a fair number in Danish, Swedish and Finnish, very few in Norwegian or Icelandic, and I'm gonna venture probably none in Faroese. Although as I understand it, all of these but Finnish are mutually comprehensible to one degree or another, so maybe that doesn't mean much.

Rasputin seems like an ideal subject for an opera, really. A very larger-than-life character just BEGGING to get some crunchy arias for a bass-baritone to sink his fangs into. I really like Rautavaara's music. Very lush, romantic stuff, occasionally flirting a little with atonality, but mainly quite accessible. The story here...well, there are probably no surprises if you're even vaguely aware of Rasputin's biography: he's the only one, seemingly, who can take care of the young haemophilic tsarevich, so he gets in good with the rulers, but he's also kind of crazy and decadent and the nobles hate him, so they kill him. The difficulty that they had with this is always connected with Rasputin himself being some sort of weird demonic supervillain or something, but I have a feeling it had more to do with the assassins' extreme ineptitude than anything else. He was killed just before the February Revolution changed everything, so his death is depicted as sort of symbolic of that.

The real Rasputin, you know, had a wife and three children, but people don't usually think about that because it kind of contradicts or at least complicates the popular conception of the man. They are not featured in this opera, at any rate. That's okay, but the question is...what is this about, really? And the answer is extremely unclear to me. You would think it would be a character study, but it really doesn't actually get under its title character's skin to any great degree. There's a certain amount of politicking among the court, but it never amounts to much, and there are things that you feel like should mean something--like two of the conspirators, Dmitri Pavlovich and Felix Felixovich being lovers, which I gather is based on contemporaneous rumors--but then never do. In fact, none of the characters come across as vividly or distinctly as you'd like them to. I feel like this is trying to be a very old-school opera with classic operatic values, but it's ultimately a bit of a let-down.

However! What this production does have going for it is Matti Salminen in the title role. Salminen played Fafner in the '89-'90 Met Ring productions, and man, he really kills it. Just an absolutely huge bass voice, and at least as he's made up here, the bearing and sunken eyes that make you think, yep, that's Rasputin all right! I wish the opera gave him the chance to do more, but even as it stands, it may well be worth watching for him alone.

Still, there are other Rautavaara operas available, and the music here is strong enough that I may check them out.

Iiro Rantala, Sanatorio Express (2018)

Welcome to day three of Scandinavian Opera Week! Didn't know it was Scandinavian Opera Week? Well, neither did I. And yet, here we, with my second-ever Finnish-language work. Rantala is mainly known as a jazz pianist, and weirdly enough, neither his wikipedia page, nor--as far as I can tell--his official website makes any reference whatsoever to this opera--nor, again as far as I can tell, has anyone ever reviewed it on the internet. This no-profile situation is very baffling to me--I'm pretty sure every other contemporary opera I've seen has at least something written about it online. I'm a Sanatorio Express pioneer, and that level of responsibility makes me very nervous.

Well, never mind. I don't think this one needs and very close attention. It's set in a sanatorium. Are those still a thing? All I can think of when I hear the term is The Magic Mountain. Well, be that as it may, this one exists. It's called--wait for it--Sanatorio Express, and people go there to treat their more-or-less imaginary neuroses. None of the characters are named. The sanatorium is run by a kind of sleazy, tyrannical doctor. There's a jaded receptionist commenting on the action. There are a few random patients, but the main couple is a woman who eats compulsively concerned about her weight (who, it must be admitted, veers dangerously close at times to being nothing more than fat joke) and a...well, a guy. Another inmate. He doesn't really have any characteristics. The woman's husband shows up, angry, and it turns out that he's closeted and unhappy (is this a thing that would really happen in Finland in 2017?). Everyone learns to accept themselves, and the husband and the doctor hook up.

It's...fine, I guess. A little slight. The Operavision blurb goes on about how "side-splittingly funny" it is, which seems like a bit of an overstatement, though it has its amusing moments. It also declares that it would be "a great introduction to opera for first-timers," and I can't say I agree with that at all. The music is a sort of "zany," whimsically comical affair, as befits the action. I found Päivi Nisula to be a hoot as the receptionist. The stuff about "oh all these people with their fake diseases they're so pampered LOL" seems a bit culturally reactionary at times, but hey, there IS a gay couple, so if we're making some sort of balance sheet here, I guess things come off fairly neutrally.

Hey, we're living in dark times; maybe you need something silly and disposable to fill them. I certainly wouldn't blame you. This'll fill the bill, though I can name any number of other operas that would probably do it more satisfyingly.

Sebastian Fagerlund, Autumn Sonata (2017)

This is based on an Ingmar Bergman film which I must admit, I haven't seen (it's also my first opera sung in Swedish). I'm definitely woefully inadequate in my knowledge of cinema, but as you get older, you start to realize that you're just never going to experience all the art you might want to. There are potentially transcendent, life-changing experiences that you will never have, and even if you knew in advance exactly what they were, you wouldn't be able to get to them all--there simply isn't enough time in a life. You must simply accept it and pick and choose what you're most interested in.

That said, I have seen Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, an exceedingly delightful comedy that would be a great subject for an exceedingly delightful comic opera, if anyone wants to get on that. This is definitely not a comedy: a woman, Eva, lives with her husband, Viktor, and Eva's disabled sister Helena. Some time ago, their four-year-old son died, which has made things difficult. Having heard about the death of her stepfather, she invites her mother Charlotte, a famous concert pianist, to visit. Long-buried tensions come simmering to the surface (this being the purpose of long-buried tensions), the visit ends, and nobody is happy. Whee!

You might think: during a pandemic, shouldn't you be watching...cheerier things than this? It doesn't seem calculated to put you in a good frame of mind. And I see what you're saying, but you know, whether or not it's "happy," watching a transcendent work of art has its compensations.

First the music: I have rarely heard contemporary opera music I liked as much as this. Lush, tense, brooding, and very perfectly aligned with the characters' moods. Also, some of the best choral work you'll see in a contemporary opera, representing Charlotte's mindset. Fagerlund is definitely one to watch, I'd say. And then the story and the characters themselves: these may just be good because the film is good, I don't know, but this drama is...very compelling. It's the sort of thing that, when you describe it, kind of sounds like a cliche, but I feel like it's stories like this that created the cliche in the first place, and in the moment, as you're watching, it really works.

And to top it off, the singers themselves. The two men here are fine, whatever, but this is really a story about women, and OH MY GOD, the three female singers here--Anne Sofie von Otter (not often that you see a star this big in an Operavision production) as Charlotte, Erika Sunnegårdh as Eva, and (in a smaller but still crucial role) Helena Juntunen as Helena--they just act the shit out of their parts. I have rarely been so impressed with operatic acting in anything, old or new. It's all incredibly real.

I have to admit, I wasn't that excited about the prospect of seeing this. It's clearly just internalized prejudice: that this sort of Very Serious character drama is something that you feel obligated to see, but you don't really want to. But I should learn to overcove such prejudices. This is magnificent stuff. The Met should put it on.

Carl Nielsen, Maskarade (1906)

The other opera by the composer of Saul og David, which I wasn't that fond of, but what the hell. According to wikipedia, it's considered to be Denmark's national opera. Does every country with any kind of operatic tradition have a "national opera?" What's Italy's?

Very different than Saul og David, this. It's more or less an effort at an opera-buffa-type thing. Plot could hardly be simpler: a young man, Leander, met a woman anonymously at a masquerade the night before and wants to marry her. But his dad already has a match picked out for him! What to do? Well, it turns out that the woman who was supposed to marry him, Leonora, ALSO has met someone at the masquerade the other night and wants out. You would not be able to figure out the twist if I gave you one billion guesses.

So what did I think of this? Well, the music's not-bad late-romantic stuff. Good overture, and later a memorable ballet sequence. I was basically enjoying it through the first act. This is fun, thought I. And then it just totally collapsed into boring incoherence. I don't know how else to put it. The incoherence may be intentional--you know, masquerades, masks, the carnivalesque, like that; not so much the boring, I think. But wow, the characters just did NOTHING to endear themselves to me or interest me in any way, and...blah. Perhaps some more charismatic singers could've done, but they certainly aren't helped by the libretto.

Speaking of the individual singers, it's necessary to allow that my impression is almost certainly at least tinged by the production.  It's from 2007, and it's a modern-day thing. Now, you could complain that that doesn't really work: the opera (after a play) is set in 1723 (why so specific, I don't know), and the idea that contemporary Danes would be messing around with arranged marriages seems a bit questionable--and also, that this slovenly dude has a (similarly slovenly)...valet?  Come on.  But really, that didn't bother me. The plot is extremely flimsy and only very intermittently relevant. What's more bothersome is the way it conducts itself, especially--as noted--in the second and third acts. Is the opera fundamentally, as I characterized it above, incoherent? Well, I think so, but this production only exacerbates that, with people in all kinds of costumes wandering about and acrobats and I don't know what. I mean, it's clearly supposed to be surreal and dreamlike, but to me, it simply doesn't work. It ALSO doesn't help that the English subtitles are made to rhyme, sometimes in really torturous ways that adds another unwelcome level of incoherence.

Say what you will about the production, though: I honestly have my serious doubts that I'd think it was a great opera even if it had a great production. I might find it a BIT less painful to sit through, but it's hard to think I'd find it entirely painless. I may not have loved Saul og David, but I definitely like it better than this.

Look, here's what it comes down to: I'm sorry to say this, Danes, but I'm afraid your national opera, of which you are so proud, might kind of...suck. Hey, you have no grounds for complaint: you're the ones who have have a functional, egalitarian social democracy. But this is one area where, I feel pretty confident in saying, ours is better than yours.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1905)

It had been a long time since I'd seen a Rimsky-Korsakov opera, and this seems to be considered one of his best. So there you go. It's based on two separate legends: one about a city that God makes disappear when it's being threatened by the Golden Horde, and one about a saint, Fevroniya, who almost certainly wasn't a real person. She lived a long and happy life, supposedly--that's no way for a saint to behave! The character in the opera has very little to do with the original story, however.

Fevroniya is a poor peasant, living a quiet life in the woods and communing with the wild animals. She meets a hunter, Vsevolod, son of the prince of Kitezh, and they fall in love and get engaged. Back in town (not Kitezh), wedding preparations are underway. People are singing songs. An obnoxious drunkard, Grishka, is making trouble for everyone. Then, disaster: the Tatars are invading! They slaughter most of the people, taking Fevroniya captive and forcing Grishka to show them the way to Kitezh. In Kitezh, everyone's alarmed, as you'd expect. Vsevolod leads some troops against the Tatars and they're all killed. The Tatars reach the city, but are unable to see it, and conclude they'll decide what to do in the morning. Grishka, wracked with fear and remorse, begs Fevroniya to free him, and eventually she does and they flee. In the morning, the city is still not there, but its reflection can be seen in the lake, which causes the Tatars to freak out and flee. In the woods, Fevroniya and Grishka are still running. He starts having hallucinations, freaks out, and runs off. Fevorniya sees visions of the Invisible City (is this the same as Kitezh? Not clear. It's a metaphysical city) and meets all the people who've died, including her fiancé. She's happy for this salvation, but sad that Grishka remains unredeemed, so she sends him a letter, telling him that he too will be saved some day, and everyone goes to their eternal reward.

It'll definitely remind you of Parsifal in some ways: lots of sin and redemption, abstuse theology, stuff about the redeeming power of nature, probably goes on a little longer than it needs to--the works. As usual for Rimsky-Korsakov, not many show-stopping arias per se, but tons and tons of great music, and a surprisingly moving story. He was apparently planning for this to be his last opera before he got the idea for The Golden Cockerel, and it certainly would have made a fitting climax. Love it, and love the radiant Svetlana Ignatovich as Fevroniya--she also played the female lead in Tsar Saltan, although, confusingly, she was credited there as Svetlana Aksenova. Definitely the same person, though. Did she get married and change her name? It is an ineffable mystery.

There are, somewhat surprisingly, two different productions available on disc, but I chose this one. It's by the polarizing Dmitri Tcherniakov, who did that Tale of Tsar Saltan where it's all stories told to and by an autistic teenager. That production, in spite of sounding kind of dubious, was in many ways brilliant and worked incredibly well in places. And...in places it did not, and it well and truly botched the ending. So I wasn't sure about this one. I was kind of prepared to have to look past the production to see through to the opera itself. I needn't have worried, though. Yes, it takes place in a vaguely-defined post-apocalyptic world, and that in itself is sure to turn a lot of people off, but the actual story is totally faithful to the libretto; there's no attempt to subvert it or make it about anything else. Call it Eurotrash if you must, but it's definitely not Regietheatre.

Actually, it's mainly the second and third acts that people have issues with. The first and fourth, taking place in the wilderness, seem a lot less controversial. And well, yes, it's true, these acts take place in an aggressively modern-day setting. Yes, there is a guy wearing a bootleg Bob Marley/Homer Simpson t-shirt. But once I got used to it, I had no problem with it. It was a very effective way to tell the story. Some, for sure, object to the portrayal of Grishka, especially when he first appears. Played by John Daszak (currently tweeting up a storm about our failed Coronavirus response), he's depicted as a kind of football hooligan type, aggressively vulgar and not-giving-a-fuck. But really, if you're bothered by the fact that--for instance--at one point he mimes jerking off with a crucifix, have you maybe perhaps forgotten that the whole point is that, especially in the beginning, he's supposed to be an unredeemed sinner? How PG-rated do you need your sinners to be? There ARE some extreme things here, but then again, the libretto itself is kind of extreme in places, especially with the violence. In all, I think it makes perfect sense--and actually, from reviews I've seen, it looks like the OTHER production of this that's available is significantly weirder and possibly less on-point. So I think I made the right choice here.

Bedřich Smetana, Libuše (1881)

It's my two hundred fifty-fifth opera. You know what that means, don't you? It means that if this were The Legend of Zelda, and I'd maxed out my money, and each opera cost one rupee to watch, now I'd have to go around slaughtering octoroks if wanted to watch any more. Well, I guess that would've happened earlier, given that I've seen some in multiple productions. BUT LOOK, let's just accept that if you pay to see one once, you own it; future viewings are free. BE REASONABLE. So obviously this is important, but it is NOTHING compared to what it'll be like when I see my sixty-five thousand five hundred thirty fifth opera. That'll be a momentous occasion for sure. Good lord, is all this Coronavirus bullshit making me even more flakey than usual? A frightful thought.

Smetana is best-known for his extremely delightful comic opera The Bartered Bride. I somehow never got around to writing about it here, but rest assured: it's one of the funnest things you'll see, and this production from Garsington Opera is one of the best I've seen on Operavision. It's still up, so what are you waiting for?

Anyway, this one is considerably less well-known. I think this Operavision production--which is long-removed--was the only way you could've seen it. However, I suspect that the composer, and probably a lot of other Czechs at the time, would've thought it was more significant, as it's one of these patriotic operas about a country's history. Libuše is a legendary figure in Czech history who is supposed to have started a dynasty and founded the city of Prague. The opera starts with two brothers, Chrudoš and Šťáhlav, arguing about their inheritance. Chrudoš, being the elder brother, thinks he should inherit everything, whereas Šťáhlav naturally would prefer something more egalitarian. They take their grievance to the queen, Libuše, who finds in favor of the latter. The former gets pissed off and wonders why he should accept judgment from a dumb girl. She decides that she should get married so she'd be seen as more legitimate. She asks the people to choose a husband for her, but they tell her that she should decide for herself--seems fair--so she chooses a farmer named Přemysl, a childhood friend who--lucky break--is also in love with her. We learn why Chrudoš was so grumpy: it's not just because he's a jerk; it's that he's in love with a woman, Krasava, and she's in love with him, only he was kind of clumsy and awkward and took his sweet time in telling her, so for revenge, she pretended to be in love with his brother instead, which seems somewhat perverse. Anyway, they work things out and both couples are married. Libuše has visions about the future of the Czech people. That is all.

For a foreigner with no vested interest in Czech-ness, this was nonetheless not a wholly unpleasant experience to sit through, in its extremely low-stakes way. I don't think the music is as good as in The Bartered Bride, but maybe that's at least in part because that one is telling a more interesting story. But here's the thing: this opera is almost three hours long, and very little actually happens in it. Such plot as there is is basically confined to the first half; after that, it's basically everyone just celebrating. Apparently, this is reserved for special occasions in its homeland; this production was put on to celebrate the centenary of an independent Czechoslovakia. So...fair enough, I suppose; this is emphatically not being aimed at me, so I shouldn't cavil. Still, most humans, like me, are not Czechs, and I suspect that they, like me, will find this of more academic interest than anything else. I mean really, if done responsibly, celebrating your national identity is all good fun and all, but I feel like a more engaging work like The Bartered Bride, even if it doesn't specifically center on the topic, might be a better way to do that.

Stuart MacRae, Anthropocene (2019)

Well, this is nothing if not timely; as you know the idea is that we're living in an era, the Anthropocene, defined by human impact on the planet. Which...yeah, seems all too plausible. Now, in opera form! Well, kind of. This is one of those kind of weird-looking things that I didn't get around to when it was on Operavision, but of course I downloaded it, and now here we are.

So in northern Greenland, there's a research ship named King's Anthropocene, after its somewhat megalomaniacal owner, Harry King. Also on the ship: King's daughter Daisy; the ship's captain, Ross; a sailor, Vasco; a husband-and-wife scientist team, Prentice and Charles; and a journalist, Miles. They have a problem, because winter has come and they've gotten stuck in the ice, due to having stuck around to retrieve...something stuck in a block of ice. Upon breaking open said block of ice, it turns out that "something" is a young woman, alive, known only as "Ice." She speaks English, but in an unclear, abstruce way. Don't get too attached to these people, 'cause they ain't all making it out of here alive!

Obviously, with a title like that, this can't not be topical, but it certainly isn't in an obvious way. Which, hey, is fine; you don't need your art to be obvious. Without spoiling anything, the idea of sacrifice is central to the story. How this applies to the issue of climate change is left, more or less, as an exercise for the viewer. It's a reasonably gripping story, though the ending does seem to be a bit overly rushed and muddled, and while I'm certainly not saying that the opera should be didactic, I do think doing a bit more to ground its themes wouldn't have come amiss.

The music, well...I mean, it's fine. Not actively unpleasant to listen to, and sometimes appropriately atmospheric. But it's hard for me to imagine anyone wanting to just listen to it for its own sake, and while none of the singers are bad per se, the only one really given the chance to make much of an impression is Jennifer France as Ice. I really appreciate the ambition and the willingness to take opera in an usual direction, but this is definitely one of those admire-more-than-love kind of dealies.

Jean-Baptiste Lully, Armide (1686)

More Lully, baby! Yes! I'm a glutton for punishment! This is the last opera he completed before dying due to bashing himself in the foot while conducting a concert and refusing to have his leg amputated and developing gangrene that spead to his brain. There is no part of that story that I can wrap my head around. But the point is, if it's his last opera, maybe it's also his most musically sophisticated? Who can say?

We start with a prologue dedicated, of course, to Louis XIV that seems over-the-top in its fawning even by the standards of these things. Usually there's at least some light allegorical cover, but here, although it doesn't mention him by name, it's just an endless litany of fullsome praise. Hey, I get it, if you grow up thinking you're a literal god, you just take this stuff as your due, but I can't help feeling viscerally embarrassed on his behalf. This is pathetic, dude. Maybe it's just because we have a president who completely melts down anytime he's not the subject of sycophantic obsequiousness from his toadies. According to this, Lully was kind of on the outs with the king at the time, so apparently extreme measures were called for. Certainly, he would want to preserve his set-up, which was pretty sweet until he fell victim to the apparent French custom of using fifty-pound iron maces for conducting.

ANYWAY, once we get past that, this is based, at least to some degree, on Tasso. Armide is the Saracen sorceress, and she's used magic to ensnare the knight Renaud and make him love her. However, she doesn't like the fact that he only loves her because of her magic, so she summons Hate to make her not love him, but then she changes her mind and is left to her fate. They spend some time together, but then he leaves: not, surprisingly, because he's been disenchanted and realizes she's evil--he assures her that he still loves her--but just because, goshdarnit, he loves Glory even more (there are a couple of knights that come to "save" him, but they're weirdly irrelevant to what actually happens). As you do. She is left bereft, and possibly kills herself, as in this production, though it's not one hundred percent clear from the libretto. Either way would work.

So, actually, I'm happy to say, I did end up liking this a lot more than either of my previous Lully experiences. Whether that's because of the music itself, the human drama, the performances, or the production--who can say. Probably some mixture. As for the music: it sounds much like the Lully of yore, and yet...I don't know! I found it involving in ways that I didn't in those earlier works. There's one scene in particular, at the climax of Act II, in which Armide is fighting against her feelings for Renauld, trying to decide whether to stab him, and whoa, the music and the whole situation were super-dramatic. I didn't think JB had it in him! Armide's drama is actually highly compelling; a very well-drawn character. You cannot but sympathize, especially because Stéphanie d'Oustrac is truly excellent in the role. This is really her show; all the other characters, Renaud included, are extremely secondary, so it's important that she's good enough. And d'Oustrac is more than. For what it's worth, Renaud is played by Paul Agnew, and Hatred by Laurent Naouri--these three seem to be in every French baroque production.

The production is doubtless polarizing, but I thought it was very good (and that upload is doubtless super-illegal, but the DVD is long out-of-print, so I think it's justified). The prologue is presented in the modern-day Palace of Versailles, sung by tour guides, with visitors doing the dances. It's fun and funny, and it's hard for me to imagine why you'd want to watch a completely po-faced tribute to some dumb dead king. The main action of the opera is framed as the dream of one of these tourists, who sneakily climbs over the cordon and takes a nap in one of the antique beds. When the main action starts, it's in a more or less period setting, but one that works well, and that isn't afraid to depict the knights that come to rescue Renaud as random tourists, which makes sense if it's all a guy's dream.

I may regret it, but this makes me want to see more by Lully. I definitely feel less alienated from him than I did in the past.

Amilcare Ponchielli, La Gioconda (1876)

This opera (and this composer, I suppose) is most famous for its "Dance of the Hours," as featured in Disney's Fantasia--the sequence with the dancing hippos and crocodiles. And I have a bone to pick: people call them "alligators," and I know that the lead is named "Ben Ali Gator," but they're crocodiles, dammit! It's all African animals, and there are NO ALLIGATORS native to Africa! Get it together, people!

Anyway. The opera is very much not a comic fantasia with dancing animals. It's based on a Victor Hugo play (with a libretto by Arrigo Boito), which probably gives you an idea of how cheerful it's likely to be.

Some of the plot will sound like Tosca, but let's note that this predates that by some twenty years. So...there's a singer, Gioconda, who lives with her blind mother in Venice. There's an evil spy, Barnaba, who's in lust with her, but she spurns his advances. She's in love with Enzo, a sea captain, but he's in love with Laura, with whom he had a relationship before she was forced to marry an inquistion higher-up, Alvise. Barnaba, knowing Gioconda is in love with Enzo, thinks it's a good idea to help him out (or seem to) in order to help his own chances, so he tells Enzo and Laura how they can escape and then passes this info on to Alvise. Enzo and Laura meet so they can elope together. Alvise is there to stop them and Gioconda too, because she's jealous and wants revenge. She's going to murder Laura but has a change of heart and let's them escape. Alvise captures Laura. He orders her to kill herself by taking poison, but Gioconda comes by and gives her that Romeo-and-Juliet-style poison where you just appear to be dead. She takes it. Enzo reveals his presence when he thinks Laura is dead. Gioconda agrees to give herself to Barnaba if he'll let Enzo free. He releases him before claiming his past of the bargain, which seems like a tactical mistake on his part. But anyway, she lets Laura and Enzo escape together and kills herself rather than give into Barnaba. Really, couldn't she have at least tried killing him first? Show some gumption, woman! But anyway, she's dies. Barnaba gilds the lilly on his evil by shouting at the dying or dead Gioconda that he murdered her mother. The end.

This is a fairly popular opera (unlike Ponchielli's other ten, which seem to be completely unknown these days). And hey, I'm not saying the music's bad. Verdi-esque romanticism. Certainly, that there "Dance of the Hours" is famous for a reason. And yet, on the whole, my impression is fairly lukewarm. That plot summary? You notice how it's not very coherent? Well, neither is the experience of watching this. It certainly feels like Victor Hugo! As in Rigoletto, good destroyed and evil unscathed (although this one does at least have the grace note of the couple who escape). That's fine, but it's just, it seems to me, pointlessly hard to follow. It's a long way in until you have any idea of who the characters really are, and there's a lot that you sort of just have to infer in a way that doesn't feel intentional. And come on, Barnaba is meant to be this towering figure of evil, and sure, his actions support that, but he's simply not defined well enough or given enough stagetime to really rise to Scarpia levels here. Come on. The "insights" on the Operavision page really overstate just how jet-black the plot is. "There is probably no other work in the whole operatic repertoire that is more absolutely black," it says. Seriously? Lulu and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, just to name two that are inarguably blacker. No, it's not notably cheerful, but I think the execution would've had to be better for it to be as grim as Ponchielli and Boito--I suppose--wanted it to be.

Then again, it could just be that self-same production, from Monnaie de Munt. It's down now so you can't see it, but that may be for the best. The milieu of the opera (not just the production) is a kind of decadent, hallucinatory one, which I am down with. But...the most memorable thing here is a guy in a giant, evil-clown mask who periodically appears. And yes, okay, I get it, evil, mask, deception, but...I mean, I guess I don't even hate it, but I don't think it's effective in getting the piece's themes across, either. Bah. Maybe I'd like it better in a better production, but I think it's possible that this may just be a somewhat overrated opera.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Violanta (1916)

Here's a true rarity, rarely recorded and never until now on video. It's Korngold's second opera, written when he was seventeen, now on Operavision!

It's a short, one-act (hour and a half) opera, with a simple but very classically "operatic" plot: Violanta is bent on revenge against Alfonso, whose sister Nerina committed suicide after he seduced her. She's finally found him, and gets her husband Simone to reluctantly agree on a plan: she's anonymously invited Alfonso to their house, and at the right musical cue, Simone will come in and stab him. He arrives and Violanta reveals her identity, but he tells the sad story of his life and his longing for death and she realizes she's in love with him. They make out. Simone comes out and Violanta tells him that she's in love with Alfonso and he shouldn't kill him. He tries to anyway, but she throws herself in the way and is killed instead. That's that.

This is all very Wagnerian, of course. In particular, the dialectic of love and death and an inability to stop from embracing a fatal, perverse version of the former will remind you of Tristan und Isolde. And Korngold's music: also Wagnerian, as in Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder der Heliane: an endless river of melody without clearly-defined arias. I was a little bit skeptical about watching Korngold's juvenilia, but I needn't have worried: to my admittedly untrained ears, this is as musically and dramatically compelling as those later works. I am extremely impressed.

Korngold wasn't a prolific opera composer due to forces outside his control, but MAN he was good. We REALLY need recordings of his first opera, Der Ring des Polykrates, and most especially his last, Die Kathrin, which premiered as the piece-of-shit nazi regime was rampling up. A full-length opera written in Korngold's maturity! What a treasure! And yet, it's utterly unknown today. I can't even find any sort of plot synopsis on the internet; I have no idea what it's about. But damn, I want to see it.

George Frideric Handel, Admeto (1727)

Here's some Handel for ya! Just a quick take, because my Handel insights are running dry, to the extent that they ever existed. Can you handel it?!? I sincerely apologize for that extremely inappropriate comment.

This is based on Euripides' play Alcestis. It's Legendary Times, and Admeto is king of Thessaly. He's dying, but it seems that he can live if his wife Alceste sacrifices herself. Don't think about it too hard; it doesn't make much sense. She commits sucide, which seems surprisingly dark for a Handel opera, but Admeto, having recovered, sends his best warrior, Ercole (that's Hercules to you and me) to the Underworld to retrieve her. So that's going on; in the meantime, there's another princess, Antigona, in love with Admeto (Admeto's brother Trasimede is also in unrequited love with her). To get close to Admeto, she gets a job working in the palace gardens. Admeto's all upset because he's in love with both his wife and this other woman (#thessalianproblems), and goes on a bit. Having been successfully rescued by Ercole, Alceste instructs Ercole to tell Admeto that he wasn't able to find her to see how he'll react. He decides to take advantage by marrying Antigona, but Alceste indignantly reveals herself, and it turns out that they're still in love, and Antigona and Trasimede get together, and there is a somewhat unconvincing happy ending.

It's perfectly solid Handel, shaky story notwithstanding. One fun aria after another, if not quite on the level of something like Orlando, and lacking the comedy of an Agrippina or Giulio Cesare. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I don't know how much else I have to say. I will comment on this production, however, which has an ancient Japanese theme. This would certainly drive the usual suspects bonkers, but I think it's not too bad at all: very visually inventive and striking, which lots of silent Japanese ghosts and monsters dancing about at relevant points. Also, dudes dressed as sheep and stags, which is a bit goofy, but fine. The only misstep--and it's quite a bit misstep, I feel--is the way Ercole is made up like a sumo wrestler, complete with fat suit. That's just fucking goofy in a stupid way, and it's very difficult for me to understand how the producer could not have realized that. Wasn't there anyone around willing to point it out? Crikey.

Sergei Prokofiev, War and Peace (1946)

Guess what? With this, I have now seen every opera on that Guardian list. And guess what else? It's my two-hundred-fiftieth opera. Yeah! The question I have is: will I theoretically be able to hit a thousand? Is that a realistic possibility? It's so hard to judge these things, but even though that is a lot of operas, my feeling is, yeah, probably so. I just keep discovering new (as in, new-to-me, not contemporary, although contemporary also) composers who have operas which have indeed been produced and made available via digital media--far more than I'm actually able to watch. Maybe this'll slack off at a certain point, but it shows no signs. And of course always new operas from Operavision, although now, of course, Coronavirus is playing merry hell with their schedule. It's actually sort of funny (hey, you've got to find humor in these times): for the months of March and April, they had an all-Mozart schedule planned, but what with everything being cancelled, they are furiously changing the schedule, adding and subtracting things in a desperate effort to hit on something that'll actually be performed.

Have I read War and Peace? Yes, I have, in college, half a lifetime ago, though I definitely gave up on the massive epilogue about Russian history and whatnot. Do I remember it? Not particularly! Any criticism that I have of War and Peace the opera is concerned with the opera alone. If something works it works, if it doesn't it doesn't, with no reference to the novel. That is all I can do!

That said, I did sort of wonder how such a famously massive book could be made into an opera. It's long, four hours, but...even so. Ol' Sergei had his work cut out for him! It turns out that the answer is: by ruthlessly paring down and streamlining the story. So, the first act is called "Peace." It centers around Natasha Rostova, who is engaged to Prince Andrei but who allows herself to be seduced by Prince Anatole and plans to elope with him even though he's secretly already married. The cad! The second half, "War" (betcha didn't see that coming) is of course about Napoleon's efforts to take Moscow and the resistance thereto, featuring Andrei and Anatole's brother-in-law Pierre, who feels stifled in his life of meaningless luxury until he learns that war is a force that gives him meaning. He lives, Andrei dies, Russia is saved, and that's that.

I like Prokofiev's music a lot. The first half of the opera has a lot of dances in it, as you'd expect, and the second is dominated by rousing, patriotic choruses, as mandated by the Committee on the Arts. I can imagine their thinking: well, it's Tolstoy, a canonical part of our literature that we want to embrace, but boy, we sure aren't in love with the fact that all the heroes are Princes and Counts. Well, maybe it'll be okay if it just demonstrates enough musical patriotism. Clearly a very artificial part of the opera, but hey, they are rousing, admittedly.

Still, there are decidedly issues here. The only other opera I've seen as bifurcated as this one is Les Troyens. As I recall, the novel more or less alternated between the two, but here it's all peace and then all war. I do clearly remember when reading it that the peace parts were entertaining but then the war parts...a bit of a slog. And whaddaya know, that impression carries over to the opera! I seriously got into the human drama in the first part, and Natasha's anguish at the end is very compelling. I wanted more! But I didn't get it. She only appears in one scene in the second half, at Andrei's deathbed, and her story is over. Instead, well, we get a lot of patriotic choruses, which is well and good to a certain extent, but a little of that goes a long way. It doesn't help that this half also involves a lot of characters we've never seen before and don't really care about (and neither Andrei's nor Pierre's dramas were very well-developed or of any great interest to me). There are scenes of both Russian and French soldiers discussing strategy. Overall: not super-riveting. This second part is some thirty minutes longer than the first, and I really started to feel the weight of those minutes. In the end, I was impressed by the musicality, but beaten down by the story.

This Mariinsky Theatre production from 1991 is supposedly the first time the whole thing was performed uncut. It's a surprisingly subdued production by Mariinsky standards, with minimalistic sets, although the costuming is elaborate. Maybe I didn't emphasize enough just how big the production is, with dozens of singing roles and extras; it might be better to keep it relatively simple, just so everything doesn't get completely bogged down. The production does feature, in two scenes, a borzoi wandering around the stage, who is, it goes without saying, a Very Good Dog. Also, a guy riding a horse.

I dunno. I like Prokofiev, yet now I've seen four of his operas, and none of them have wholly satisfied. The only other one that's performed with any regularity is The Fiery Angel, so I guess I should try that one. There's going to be a new production at the Met next year (assuming Coronavirus doesn't mean the cancelation of all performing arts ever), but to everyone's dismay, it's not being done Live in HD, possibly because it's supposed to be somewhat R-rated. Still, it's easily available elsewhere. What I really want to see is Semyon Kotko, which is apparently about a wealthy landowner who is heroically executed by the Red Army, but for some inexplicable reason, it doesn't seem to get much play these days. Well, someday, we can only hope!

Hans Werner Henze, The Bassarids (1965)

Like The Rake's Progress (and a handful of other operas), this has a libretto co-written by WH Auden, so that's nice. It's closely based on Euripides' Bacchae ("Bassarids"=Bacchae; I don't know where the name comes from): Dionysus is having a mystery cult, in which Cadmus (the founder of Thebes) and the blind sage Tiresias become involved. The current king of Thebes, Pentheus, is not down with this; he wants to repress all this orgiastic ritual. He tries to have Dionysus thrown in prison, but fails, and is increasingly mesmerized by him. Dionysus's followers, including his mother, rip him apart. Thebes falls, and Dionysus calls on Persephone to release his mother Semele from Hades. There's a lot about Semele here, unlike the source material, but that ending still feels like a bit of a non-sequitur. Also, 'round about the mid-point of the opera, there's an intermezzo where the Bassarids perform a play about Venus and Adonis. I just feel like I should mention that, given how much space it takes up here.

I hadn't been familiar with Henze's music before seeing this, but at least here, it's frenzied and thrilling and--dare I say it--Dionysian. I love the fact that I can just discover a composer I'd never heard of (from operavision this time, as often, where you can still watch it until April 12) and they're really great.

Part of the reason I liked this so much, however, has to be attributed to the cast, starting with Sean Panikkar as Dionysus. There's actually a different production of this opera available on DVD with a different cast that nonetheless also features Panikkar in the role, so I guess it's a specialty of his, and you can see why: he is super-uncanny and intense in the part. It is easy to buy him as this enigmatic, erotic, and pissed-off deity. But it's not just Panikkar; Günter Papendell as Pentheus and Jens Larsen as Cadmos really bring it. They all seem to be singing for their lives.

It's a sort of minimalistic production in which the chorus and orchestra share space on the stage, which basically just consists of a stairway down the middle. Everyone's fairly soberly dressed, although Tiresias wearing a dress is kinda weird. I get that it's because--as least sometimes--he's meant to be a hermaphrodite, and I can certainly see how this fluidity would go along with the wild, chaotic energy that Dinonysus is meant to represent, and writing this sentence, I've just about convinced myself that it actually makes perfect sense. It still looks weird, however, especially combined with the dark glasses he wears.

Yeah, freakin' eh, once again, a story that I wasn't sure would enthrall me turned out to do just that. Will I see more of Henze in the future? It is devoutly to be hoped!

Giacomo Meyerbeer, Robert le Diable (1831)

I'd been looking forward to seeing this one, notwithstanding the fact that L'Africaine impressed me not. This is the one that made Meyerbeer into a superstar; he'd written quite a number of operas with German and Italian libretti, but his career really took off when he switched to French, which he first did here. Cool title, cool premise, I am totally down. And look at this rad-ass cover:

That is an opera I want to see.

So it's inspired by a medieval story where this guy who's the son of the Devil and who goes around murdering nuns and suchlike until he realizes, hey! That's bad! And repents. Um...it doesn't sound super-exciting when I put it so tersely, I know, but there you are. This doesn't actually have that much to do with that. But Robert is, allegedly, the Devil's son. Specifically, the son of his sinister traveling companion, Bertram. A peasant named Raimbaut tells this story, and Robert indignantly orders him put to death until he learns that he's engaged, then spares him in exchange for his fiancée, until he learns that said fiancée is his foster sister Alice, who sorta flits in and out of the opera and serves as Bertram's angelic counterpart. Robert wants to win a tournament for the hand of his beloved Isabelle, but Bertram tricks him into missing it, to Isabelle's sorrow. He further tempts Raimbaut into giving up Alice in favor of a dissolute life of pleasure. He tells Robert that he can get Isabelle back with a magic branch from a saint's tomb that's guarded by the spirits of evil nuns. He succeeds and uses the branch to freeze everyong surrounding Isabelle, but she knows he's using witchcraft and begs him to repent. Bertram wants him to sign a contract with him to go to hell and Alice wants him to not do that and marry Isabelle instead, and he chooses the latter.

Let me clarify that I liked this opera. It's way better than L'Africane. Everything with Bertram is diabolical good fun, especially because this production features John Relyea--the most demonic-looking opera singer (and who also has parti-colored eyes) in the role--in the role. What a great bass.  Really commanding singing.  He should play a devil in every opera. Operas that don't feature devils should have new parts specifically written for him. The scene where he tempts Raimbaut, oddly played for laughs, is especially entertaining. Anyway, that's great, the overture's great, the ballet scene with the evil undead nuns (always a crowd-pleaser) is great. There's a lot to like here. But GOOD GOD is the libretto ever an unholy (heh) mess. If that plot description sounded disjointed, there's a REASON for that. But even beyond the plot being kind of choppy, we have what I think are more important thematic concerns.

The first thing--perhaps the main thing is: what exactly is Robert's deal? Is he supposed to be evil and in need of repentance, or not? In the beginning, when he's presumably going to rape Raimaut's fiancée before he learns it's his sister...that seems evil. But then it's just over and no one comments on it or anything again. It's implied that him missing the tournament is somehow evil? And taking the branch is sacrilege, I guess. But really: stories about evil people repenting are inherently dramatic, but this does a piss-poor job of setting him up as evil. It's not clear what he is.

And, further, the climax is sort of preposterous: he's stuck between Bertram wanting him to sign a contract to go with him to Hell and Alice saying, no, come and marry Isabelle! He's supposed to be all Luke Skywalker, oh, will he choose good or evil? What an internal conflict! He's wracked with indecision, because that's, like, dramatic and stuff, but there's just no reason for this: no possible incentive for him to choose Hell. And then to top it all off, he doesn't even positively choose anything: for Bertram to win he needs to sign his soul over by midnight, but instead he just vacillates until he runs out the clock and is saved by default, which, I mean...I think we can reasonably characterize the idea that good just wins by default as long as it's allowed to run out the clock on evil as theologically dubious. You know what they say: all that is necessary for good to triumph is for evil men to do nothing. If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution. It's all very bathetic.

Still, maybe I'm wrong about there being no advantage to choosing Hell. What does Bertram want, exactly? Okay, so he wants him to serve evil, but what does that mean? This is his son we're talking about, so does he actually want him to be a damned soul, or just to be another demon? Robert le diable, and all. He says on a number of occasions that he loves his son, and while the idea of an absolutely evil being loving anyone seems like a contradiction in terms, my impression is that we're supposed to at least maybe sort of think that he's capable of experiencing some sort of emotion. So, like, is he just picturing having fun father-son trips to drag damned souls into eternal perdition? That's what I call family togetherness! But the point is, I don't know what he wants, I don't really know what anyone wants, and it significantly vitiates the drama.

Still! As I said, I enjoyed it nonetheless. I need to see Les Huguenots, which seems to be generally regarded as his best opera. I do think, though, that his status as one of the big names in nineteenth-century opera may be as much a case of right place, right time as anything else. I certainly don't think he's as good as--to pick an almost exact contemporary working in the same milieu--Hector Berlioz (though he was certainly more prolific). I'll still probably be seeing all of his work that I can, however, 'cause that's just how I roll.

Michael Tippett, King Priam (1962)

This is the only opera (and composer) that I actually discovered through that Guardian list. According to wikipedia, in his lifetime Tippett "was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the twentieth century." I think it's fair to say that his star has fallen in recent times. I was initially concerned that my efforts to see the entire list would be stymied by this one not being available anywhere, but, mirabile dictu, there's a film version from 1985 that we can watch. I feel like we have here an excellent opportunity to potentially find a hidden gem, so let's see.

It centers on the Trojan War. As you might have guessed. You'll probably be familiar with the basic story beats, probably excepting the stuff about Paris' early life, which apparently DOES come from actual primary sources but which isn't Homeric and which I don't think people usually learn about: when he was a baby, an oracle predicted that he would result in his father's death, and so after some agonizing, he's to be left in the wilderness to die, but is instead raised by a shepherd until he reappears and Priam decides, oh, fuck it, I'm going to embrace him as my son regardless of prophesy. After that, we're in familiar territory: Paris gives the golden apple to Aphrodite and takes Helen away from Meneleus, precipitating the war: Hector kills Patroclus, Achilles kills Hector, Paris kills Achilles, you know the drill. Everyone's killed by someone!

The libretto is by Tippett himself. It's sometimes a bit messy, but also very striking. The opera centers around the idea of fate and how individual choices, whether they're meant or not, lock people into situations that they can see but not avoid. Honestly, I was a bit skeptical that I could find yet another narrative about the Trojan War dramatically compelling--it feels very played out to me--but this basically does it. It has that certain sort of stony grandeur that you associated with Greek epic. I was impressed more than not.

The music is sort of a mixture of larger-scale pieces and smaller stuff with just a piano or whatnot. It's probably cued to individual characters, but there is no way to know. I liked it, and there are a few somewhat spine-tingling bits like a trio between Hecuba, Andromache, and Helen, but it rarely blew me away.

This production is a made-for-TV thing from the eighties, shot on videotape I think, so the quality isn't all you might hope for. I mean, it's fine, these things don't bother me so much, but definitely not HD quality, and with that good ol' blocky aspect ratio that we all remember from old TV shows. The production is a okay, if a bit drab in places. It seems to be sort of a mixture between the old and the new. A surprising number of shirtless dudes, if that's your thing. A few places where I thought, huh, that seems like a bit much, as when Patroclus, Paris, and Priam are smearing themselves with Patroclus' blood. Rodney Macann is very striking in the title role, a sort of gaunt, rangy figure with a haunted look about him. Not that it matters, one hundred percent in favor of color-blind casting, etc, but IS notable that Howard Haskin as Paris is the ONLY non-white person in the cast. Stands out, for sure, although I suppose you could argue that in this telling of the story, that works, since his character's sort of an outsider. Wevs.

Would I consider this a sufficiently notable work to include on my list of fifty operas? Dunno about that, but at the same time, I'm kinda glad that SOMEONE did, so that I would be able to discovered and see it.

George Benjamin, Written on Skin (2012) and Lessons in Love and Violence (2018)

Shows how much I know, really: Benjamin seems to be a pretty prominent contemporary composer, but I'd never heard of him before seeing his work on Medici. I have more or less the same things to say about both of these operas, so I'm covering them together.

Written on Skin is based on a medieval legend of some kind, of questionable veracity. There's this rich lord of some description, known only as "the protector." He commissions a scribe known only as "the boy" to make an illuminated manuscript depicting his family in Paradise and his enemies in Hell (surprised Trump hasn't thought ot that one--I'm sure John MacNaughton would be happy to do a commission, but given Dear Leader's history, he'd be prudent to demand payment in advance), so he's doing that, but then his wife Agnès--whom he dominates and treats like a child--starts up an affair with the boy. When the protector finds out, he murders him and feeds his heart to his wife (what can I say; they were hella gruesome in the past) and asks her how she likes it. She defies him by telling him it's super-delicious, which you have to admit is pretty gutsy. She then commits suicide by jumping out the window before he can kill her. There are a trio of angels watching this, who also embody several of the characters. Libretto and production both involve significant anachronisms; there's clearly an effort to have this transcend the putative setting.

Lessons in Love and Violence is another historical setting, this one regarding Edward II and the political intriguing around him: his lover Gaveston is murdered, and his wife conspires with an earl, Mortimer, to overthrow him; this having been accomplished, said son turns on them and has Mortimer killed, in one of the more violent climaxes I've seen in an opera. Unlike Written on Skin, there's no anachronism in the text, but the production for this, the debut production, is almost aggressively contemporary.

These two operas are thematically and tonally very similar. They both have that sort of poisonous, decadent, unnerving atmosphere to them. Benjamin's music is tense and clattery in a way that might not be my all-time favorite, but that works well for the stories it's telling. But beyond that, the similarities are probably because the libretti are both written by the same playwright, Martin Crimp. And that, I am of two minds about (like a tree in which there are two blackbirds). On the one hand, yes, Crimp's writing is uncommonly literary, and it really does create a strong atmosphere with some very striking moments. Conversely, though, the very fact that it's so strongly mannered and artificial means that these turbulent, violent stories ironically feel a bit bloodless. I can't say that I was emotionally drawn into either of them at all. They've received high praise (with Le Monde declaring Written on Skin to be the "best opera written in the past twenty years"), but I found them to be easier to admire than love. And admire them I did! I'll certainly follow Benjamin's future work with interest. I don't think he'll ever be my favorite contemporary composer, though.

György Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre (1978)

Well? Well. Well well well. I'd been sort of intrigued about this for some time, and I finally saw it. It's certainly not like your average opera, if indeed there is such a thing, which there probably isn't, but if there is, it ain't like this. What a great sentence that was. It's based on a surrealist/satirical/apocalyptic play by Michel de Ghelderode.

The plot, such as it is, takes place in the fictional kingdom of Breughelland, where the dopey Prince Go-Go's idiotic courtiers cavort about and his incompetent secret police chief is incompetent. There's also a court astronomer who has a sadistic dominatrix wife who torments him. A seemingly demonic being known as Nekrotzar appears (name related to Necrosaro from Dragon Quest IV?), and announces the forthcoming end of the world. Nobody knows what's going to happen, so everyone just has a drink. The end.

Good God, people, I am SO down with this concept. I think it's super-cool. But the execution, boy, I dunno. The amount of obscene dicking around (both the libretto and this prodution are extremely R-rated) without a purpose gets...kinda boring. Not that I'm not theoretically in favor of obscene dicking around! But if has to have some sort of dramatic purpose or just be striking in and of itself, and a lot of the time, this just isn't, though I'll allow that it has a few moments.

And the music...eh. I have to admit, it's just not my thing. I get insecure when I see a lot of people heaping praise on an opera I don't like because I always think, OMG, their tastes must be way more sophisticated than mine! What is wrong with me?!? I must allow that, if it's any good, it probably really is one of these things that would take multiple viewings to get my head around, but I don't know if that's worth it. Some of it involves things like car horns and alarm clocks, but dammit, to me, this sort of avant garderie, though appealing in literature, in music is...not so much!

I mean, god knows I'm always interested in seeing such an unusual piece, but, well, I don't think it'll ever be a favorite of mine. Even if the US may be looking pretty similar to Breughelland these days.  Anyway, this is Ligeti's only opera, so I don't need to worry about my usual completionist tendencies.

Benjamin Britten, The Turn of the Screw (1954)

The more I see of Britten, the more I like him. He's great! Definitely one of the most significant opera composers of the twentieth century. Who more than he? Okay, Richard Strauss, obviously. Also, Puccini, if we count him as a twentieth-century composer. I dunno. Tosca premiered in January of 1900; is it, therefore, a "twentieth-century opera?" I personally tend to think of Puccini as the last great nineteenth century composer, even though most of his major works were written in the twentieth. Nineteenth century in spirit. Far more of Verdi than of Strauss in Puccini. ANYWAY, if we're being pointlessly strict about it and only counting composers whose works are exclusively twentieth-century, then Britten is number one. Whoo!

This is of course based on the Henry James novella, which I must admit, I have not read. I don't get along well with James. I did, way back when, see a play based on it, but I can't say I remember, well, anything whatsoever about it. Still, I had at least a vague idea of the story in my head: governess gets sent to a country house to care for two orphans (Miles and Flora). She learns that the old valet (Peter Quint) may have been sexually abusing Miles, as well as being involved with the previous governess, (Miss Jessel), but then they both died, so that sorted itself out, I reckon. Except they're back, maybe, in ghost form! Or maybe not, but I feel that the opera significantly takes away from the ambiguity about whether this is all in the governess's head by having both Quint and Jessel sing things when no one else is present. Or maybe not! It is opera, after all. Also, I kept being confused by how close "Peter Quint" is to Peter Quince from A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is also Britten's next opera! Argh!

But hey, whatever. We've got another banger here. I liked this a WHOLE LOT. It really has a genuinely creepy atmosophere to it, and I think that's at least as much down to Britten as it is to James. I'll admit, I definitely liked the first act more: all this unsettling build-up, the children singing nursery rhymes, and this part where Flora's listing the seas of the world and concludes with "Dead Sea"--I mean, you say it like that it doesn't sound like anything, but in practice it's REALLY effective. The second act, where things actually start happening, sort of, was a bit of a let-down, which I suppose is so common in horror fiction that it's hardly worth even noting. Hey, it's all good; it's not like I actually disliked the back half. Helluva thing, helluva thing.

This production updates the action to about the time of the opera's composition, which...fine? Doesn't make much difference to me. I feel like a potential problem here is that Miles is played by a treble, a boy, whereas Flora is a normal soprano role for an adult, which seems like it could cause a weird mismatch. But here, at least, it really works; they're styled and dressed in such a way as to seem more or less the same age. I especially liked Joanna Songi as Flora. And...that is what I have to say about that.

Jules Massenet, Manon (1882)

So there's this list called "Top 50 Operas" from the Guardian. That title is misleading, as it's not any kind of top-anything list, nor is it meant to be: it's just intended as an overview of the form. I have my issues with it, and I'll probably write about them later, but recently I decided, just for kicks, to watch every opera on it. Not in a particularly focused or systematic way, but eventually, probably sooner rather than later. Why not? I'd seen most of them already, so it's just a fun thing to do.

One of the operas on the list is Manon, and oh my GOD, I'm not quite sure why, but I SO did not want to watch this opera. Seriously, you suggest to me just about any opera I haven't seen, and many that I have, and I'll be like, sure, why not, let's go for it. But the prospect of seeing Manon just filled me with apathy. It's true that I didn't much care for the only other Massenet opera I've seen, Cendrillon, but that wasn't the main thing, I don't think. I'll be down with seeing Werther or Thaïs, for sure. I also found Puccini's Manon Lescaut a bit dull, but why should that make a difference? Different composer, totally different take on the story. I think what it came down to, basically, was that the story in question really fails to excite me and I don't care what anyone does with it. I mean, I still don't know quite why this should be the only one about which I feel this way, but there you are. Still, if I was going to watch everything on the list, I was gonna have to get to it sooner or later, so I forced myself to watch it. I KNOW that that's totally perverse and that it just sets the opera up to fail, but seriously, I don't think I was just going to naturally become more predisposed towards it anytime soon, so what choice did I have?

Well...I don't know if this is just a self-fulfilling prophesy or what, but as I anticipated, I didn't like this very much. I've never read Manon Lescaut the novel (maybe I should?), but this is certainly significantly different than Puccini (then again, I don't remember that one being very well-plotted either, so maybe there are similarities). In Puccini (if I recall aright; it's been a while), Manon goes off to be a rich man's mistress because they're out of money, whereas here, she just leaves des Grieux at the promise of an opulent life. He definitely doesn't become a priest in Puccini after losing her. Perhaps most significantly, the ending is changed: after having been transported to the United States for prostitution, Puccini has her die thirst and exhaustion in the Great Louisiana Desert, but Massenet doesn't even have her transported: thanks to a bribe from Lescaut, she's released, but then she dies anyway for no particular reason. So not super-edifying in either case.

I don't know; maybe I really don't like Massenet's music. Manon has a famous aria as she's preparing to leave des Grieux, "Adieu, notre petite table," which I guess is kind of poignant, but, honestly, nothing here really excited me--though it surely can't help that I find the drama so uncompelling. One notable thing is that Manon herself is incredibly mercenary throughout almost the whole thing. Dunno if that hews closely to the source material, but I found it hard to get too involved in the tragedy. I was watching this version with Netrebko as Manon, but after the first three acts, just out of boredom, I switched to this one: same production, different cast. I will say I preferred Lisette Oropesa in the role, but it's not a strong preference. Des Grieux comes across as kind of gormless in both the one and the other.

That's mostly all I have to say about this, but I wanted to call attention to just one thing in the production. It's updated to the nineteenth century, which, sure, fine, it certainly works better than that comtemporary Manon Lescaut I saw, even if it feels a bit arbitrary, but there's one part, after a ballet sequence, where dudes are abducting the dancers and carrying them off-stage as they're screaming, and, like, WHAT? I mean maybe you could do a feminist production where that would feel appropriate, but here it's just out of nowhere, and it feels like pointless edginess for the sake of it. I was not amused. Boo to the producer.

Mikhail Glinka, Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842)

And now, Glinka's other opera, based on a fairie tale poem by you-know-who. He was supposed to write the libretto, but never got around to it on account of being killed. As faerie tales often go, it's sort of hard to summarize, but I shall try. So the two title characters are going to get married! Ruslan is a knight and Lyudmilla is a princess of Kiev. There are also two other knights, Ratmir and Farlaf, who are jealous of Ruslan. But oh no! The court is paralyzed by magic while Lydumila is kidnapped by forces unknown! Her distraught father says that whoever rescues her can marry her, so Ruslan, Ratmir, and Farlaf all set out. Ruslan meets a good wizard named Finn who tells him that an evil dwarf, Chernomor, has kidnapped Lyudmilla, and also--unrelated and yet somehow not--there's an evil sorceress, Naina. Ruslan goes off to find Chernomor while Naina promises Farlaf that she'll help him win Lyudmila. For unclear reasons, in Chernomor's court, in addition to Lyudmila, there's another prisoner, Gorislava, Ratmir's forsaken lover. They meet again and fall back in love. Ruslan defeats Chernomor, but unfortunately, Lyudmila is under a sleeping spell that no one can break. Rusland, Ratmir, and Gorislava take her back home, but before they can get there, Farlaf, with Naina's help, captures her and takes her back so HE can win the prize (Naina just kind of disappears after this). But he can't wake her up! Fortunately, Finn appears and gives Ruslan a nodoz ring that'll break the spell and everyone's happy. Well, I guess Farlaf isn't super-happy (it's not specified in the libretto), but at least in this production, he's forgiven, which is a nice grace note.

Oh, and Ratmir's another trouser role, if you were counting.

I feel like faerie-tale operas are a bit hit-and-miss for me. If you have a comedy like La Cenerentola or Handel und Gretel, it's fine, but sometimes the unreality of the situation in a more serious opera robs it of potential dramatic power. This is even an issue in Rimsky-Korsakov operas that I like. Point being: I felt that that was the case here, and I definitely liked this less than A Life for the Tsar, which was a bit of a surprise, since it seems better-known/regarded.

It's certainly not that the music's bad: the overture opens things with a bang, and there are some real musical highlights herein, notably what I can only describe as a patter-song from Farlaf about how he's going to get Lyudmila and the inevitably Triumphant Chorus at the end. And yet, I feel that sometimes it's too much of a good thing, supporting a not-that-interesting story. In particular, there are several ballet sequences that go on for a VERY long time and that I couldn't help think could have benefitted from some judicious editing.

I dunno. It's all right, but it's hard for me to feel that much enthusiasm for it. Not, as I say, bad--and, as ever, the Mariinsky Theatre puts on a hell of a show (with a young Anna Natrebko as Lyudmila, for what that's worth, but don't get too excited--it's actually a fairly small role, what with the character being a prisoner for most of the runtime, and doesn't really give her much chance to shine), but I cannot help feeling vaguely disappointed.

Donnacha Dennehy, The Second Violinist (2017)

Here's an interesting contemporary opera--maybe the most contemporary I've ever seen. It takes place definitively in the here and now, and it takes advantage of technology to drive that home.

But what's it about? Well...that's a vexed question. It's about the titular violinist, Martin, who is having some sort of life crisis: he's supposed to be practicing and performing, but instead, he just ignores all his voice mails and messes around on his phone and drinks (that's one thing that doesn't ring quite true--who the heck is leaving voicemails in 2017?). He exchanges messages with a woman on a dating site (the opera makes heavy use of a big screen in the background to show what's on his phone). There are...jumps in time? Apparently? And a murder? Probably? Martin's obsessed with the late Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, who murdered his wife and her lover, which may be a hint about something (Quoth wikipedia: "Due to his status as a nobleman, the Gran Corte della Vicaria found that Gesualdo had not committed a crime." Plus ça change...).

The music is tense and unnerving and I sort of tensed up at the climax even though I wasn't totally sure why. But if the above doesn't make it clear: I basically found the story totally impenetrable (this is an Operavision production that's long been taken down). I am absolutely one hundred percent positive that there is in fact a there there, but whether it's just too abstruse to get after a single viewing (at least for a dumb guy like me), or whether the production wasn't filmed entirely clearly--hard to say. Very probably both.

Still, I don't know. This is a sort of story that you don't see often in opera, and I enjoy being challenged and I enjoy the fact that contemporary opera is a vibrant thing. I feel like it's like Disney comics in that it's totally unknown to outsiders ("what, they still make those things?), but I am a cool ninja who appreciates such things. End of story.

Mikhail Glinka, A Life for the Tsar (1836)

Yup, here we go. It's not the first-ever Russian opera, but it was the one that established Russian opera as its own distinctive thing. Or so I am told by the internet, which Knows All.

The life in question is a peasant, Ivan Susanin. There's a new Tsar, and his, Ivan's, daughter is going to get married! So that's fun. But Holy Rus is being menaced by the evil Poles! That's bad (sorry, Maciek; that's just the way it goes). They want to capture the new Tsar, which would also be bad, but when they demand that Susanin show them where he is, he leads them off in the wrong direction into the forest while his son Vanya goes to warn the Tsar that he's gotta get going. When the Poles learn that Susanin tricked them, they kill him, but the Tsar is safe! Woo patriotism!

Obviously, the sensibilities of the piece are not my own. Don't sacrifice yourself for the Tsar, Susanin! He doesn't care about you! You owe him nothing! Also, there's a scene where Vanya, who is young, is eager to grow up so he can join the army and his dad's like, yeah! Great! Think of all the glory you'll earn and SERIOUSLY dude, don't encourage your son to go abroad fighting for strangers! That is never a good idea!

But to be clear, none of this really bothered me; I got swept up in the drama and enjoyed the opera a lot. What's not to like? In particular, Susanin's aria as he's preparing for death when the Poles notice his perfidy is very powerful. Act II takes place amongst the Poles, and the bulk of it is a lengthy ballet sequence where Glinka presumably thought, well hell, I've got all these bangin' tunes; might as well stick them in there. So it may be some comfort to know that, while the Poles are the villains, they've got some great music. Also--a highly specific milestone--I think this is the first time I've seen a trouser role in a Russian opera: Vanya is a contralto role, although here, big surprise, it's sung by a mezzo. It's a good production, though; it's a movie from the Bolshi Opera from sometime in the nineties, and Evgeny Nesterenko shines as Susanin.

Are you perhaps thinking, "huh, 'a life for the Tsar.' I wonder if this presented a dilemma for the Soviet government, which obviously wanted to celebrate Russia's cultural heritage but at the same time has no use whatsoever for Tsars?" That's probably what you're thinking. Well, apparently during the Soviet era this was performed with a revised libretto that removes the Tsar altogether. Do I understand how that could possibly work? Not really! But the music probably still made it worth seeing even in bowdlerized form.

Claudio Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643)

Aaaah! Incoronazionevirus!

So I saw the Met in HD production of Handel's Agrappina on Saturday, and it was deeeee-lightful. A certain number of purists on the Met in HD facebook group scoffed at it, but GOOD GOD purists are tedious. How do they live in their head without putting themselves to sleep all the time? ANYWAY, my only point is, there was like a minute or so of random backstage stuff after the curtain call, and you could hear Iestyn Davies (who played Ottone) jokily remarking to Brenda Rae (who played Poppea, his love interest) "I know what you get up to in Monteverdi." And I figured it was ABOUT TIME that I too learned what she gets up to in Monteverdi. This is definitely one of the most prominent operas I hadn't seen (in addition to Orfeo, I have seen Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, though I don't think I wrote about it here; I don't remember being overly impressed, but I should probably revisit it).

Even though it does feature allegorical figures of virtue, fortune, and love, this generally feels more grounded than Orfeo; more about actual people. The emperor Nerone: he's in love and having an affair with Ottone's wife Poppea, in spite of being married himself. She manipulates him into having Seneca killed, because he's the one, she feels, who's keeping him from ditching his wife and marrying her. And he does! But don't worry about Ottone; he finds a new girlfriend. There's also a lot of stuff with comic-relief servants. Is this an all-around comedy? I find that a little difficult to say, but it certainly demonstrates that people didn't always want pure solemnity in their operas.

Yup! So anyway, here's an opera where we're celebrating the bad guys! I'm still sort of surprised by the deadpan sense of irony that people had back in the day. That feels more contemporary. Well, in fact, everyone other than Seneca also ends up okay (much unlike history), but still, it feels like a different thing from Agrippina, where, even if most of the characters are amoral at best, they're still sort of loveable. I wouldn't exactly call Nerone and Poppea here "loveable." I WILL say, though: they have some alarmingly sexy duets. Not appropriate for small children. I wouldn't have thought ol' Claudio had it in him. In general, the music is very varied and good; you can see the start of the development of the aria, and Monteverdi writes very well for specific characters. Apparently, Agrippina is the oldest opera the Met has ever performed, and while you can certainly see why they've given Lully the miss, this one seems like an obvious choice for their first seventeenth-century work.

There are many productions, but I saw this one, with Danielle de Niese as Poppea and Alice Coote as Nerone (also Davies again as Ottone); they're very good. Coote seems to be having fun playing a psychopath, and de Niese is as magnetic as ever. More so, probably. It's a sort of contemporary-ish production, although I'm coming to be more and more of the belief that it's not very helpful, or accurate, to describe these things in that way. They're stylized no matter what you do. Still, I liked it, with two big exceptions: first, there's a scene with Nerone and the poet Lucan[o]; they're just supposed to be drunkenly making up love songs, but here Nerone is flirting with Lucan, culminating in him kissing him and then drowning him in a bathtub. That strikes me as excessive and probably vaguely homophobic, and in any case, it undermines the whole point of the dang piece, which is his and Poppea's single-minded obsession with one another. And on that note, they made a really bad decision at the end: the two of them are singing one last duet, and as staged here, Nerone drifts to the side of the stage and off, leaving Poppea staring out into the audience in shock, and DUDE, are you trying to apply some sort of moral framework to this opera? Even though the fact that they absolutely get exactly what they want is, once again, the whole dang point? Bah. Seriously, this would be more or less perfect without those two missteps.

It's quite unfortunate that there are only the three extant Monteverdi operas, but I'm definitely glad we had this one (which was apparently also lost before being rediscovered in the last nineteenth century).  It's his last one, so maybe his best?  I wish we knew.  Hot tip: if you ever have the opportunity, I would strongly recommend rediscovering a lost Monteverdi opera.  The world of early music appreciation will be abuzz.