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.
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