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.
No comments:
Post a Comment