Benjamin Britten, The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968)

Britten's second and third "church parables," and unlike Curlew River, they're actually based on Bible stories. I guess that was obvious from the titles.

I think you know what these stories are about, but what the hell. The Burning Fiery Furnace, three Israeli men come to the court of King Nebuchadnezzar. They're three MCs and they're on the go: Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. Actually, I didn't know that those weren't their original names, which are Hanania, Mishael, and Azaria--less catchy, certainly. In fairness to me, I mainly knew the story from the Johnny Cash version of the gospel song "Fourth Man in the Fire," which does not mention this either. I wonder how many people actually know their original names? I'm guessing not many. Anyway, they refuse to worship King Nebby's idol, so he orders them thrown in the furnace, but God saves them, and Nebby converts to Judaism. THAT'S NOT HOW IT HAPPENS IN NABUCCO. Now I don't know which opera to believe.

In The Prodigal Son, the younger son of the rich guy asks for his inheritance early and goes and spends it. The opera differs from the original story in that there's a satanic temper urging the kid on; this doesn't seem to be like a dramatically satisfying choice. I think it works better if he's just acting on his own, being dopey kid. Anyway, he spends all his money and returns home in shame only to be welcomed by his father. It's a lovely story, really. It works whether or not you buy into the religious aspect. Much more edifying than the furnace thing, which is clearly coming from a less developed religious perspective.

So regardless of the quality of the source material, I didn't really care for either of these operas. I should include a huge disclaimer, however: I was not able to see particularly good-quality recordings of either one. You know, I write these entries like I'm reviewing operas, but really, I'm reviewing particular performances of operas. Sure, the fundamental material of the opera itself comes into it, but that's far from the only thing. I try to look through the performance to the opera as written as much as I can, but my opinion will definitely vary enormously according to quality. So. It's slightly baffling to me that there's no high-quality DVD set of professional performances of all three church parables. It would be a real service. But...well, we work with what we can. This 1968 BBC recording of The Burning Fiery Furnace is kind of interesting for featuring most of the original cast, including Britten's long-time partner Peter Pears as Nebuchadnezzar. But eh. As I said, I really, really don't find the story interesting, and this kind of bored me. By contrast, we have this 2013 performance of The Prodigal Son, which definitely has a churchy feel to it. I like it more, but still not that much. Neither of these has subtitles, which certainly does not help; you really miss the majority of the dialogue.

Oh well! I've decided I'm a Britten completist, so I was glad to see these. But alas--seeing his first opera, Paul Bunyan (with libretto by WH Auden!) seems impossible--there's a German-language performance with German subs on youtube, but that's it. Well, maybe someday. Now, on to bigger and better things!!!