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.
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