So here's a somewhat happier happier story about a Jewish-German composer in the first half of the twentieth century: naturally, his career in Germany was obliterated on the nazi takeover, but he emigrated to England in 1935, according to wikipedia "on the advice of an SS officer"--I'd love to hear about that in more detail. He kept writing music, but he met with general indifference, and even though his opera Beatrice Cenci won a prize in a competition, it somehow was never produced: I'm not clear if this was just for lack of funding or political reasons. Anyway, he stopped composing for twenty-some years until he returned to the field in his and the eighties. This coincided with a resurgence of interesting in his work, and he lived to see Beatrice Cenci's first staging in 1994. So that at least is heartening.
It's based on a play by Shelley which is in turn based on a real-life incident of a Renaissance noblewoman who killed her abusive father and was in turn executed after a lurid trial. Well...that about describes that. To be slightly more specific, her father is a terrifying, sadistic murder fetishist making life hell for her, her mother-in-law, and her brother, so they all plan to kill him (there's a scene at a party where he's feeling cheerful and someone asks why and he says it's because his other two worthless sons who were off studying have DIED recently, so that's great, and everyone's sort of freaked but still refuse to help his family because of his political power--so there are definitely structural problems here)...well, actually, this priest that Beatrice had been carrying a flame for suggests contracting some helpful men to do the killing for them, but then one of the bumbling idiots gets caught and it's LIGHTS OUT for this family. Except the son; he's too young to be executed, I guess. But.
It has very old-fashioned music, out-of-step, I suppose, with the times; he Goldschmidt characterized this as "bel canto," and you can definitely see the influence. Or at least, I think you can. Maybe I'm just saying that because he said it. BUT FOR REAL. It's some nice music, for sure.
The best thing by far about this production is Christoph Pohl as Francesco, the dad. He really has that decadent Renaissance cruelty thing down pat; he's mesmerizing whenever he's on stage.
And yet, somehow, I didn't quite like this as much as I wanted to. I think a big part of the problem is that the libretto--being, I assume, an Italian translation of Shelley's text--is so stylized and mannered. The tragedy doesn't come across so well, I thought (and also, the thing with the priest Beatrice has or had the hots for is a narrative cul de sac that contributes nothing to anything). Also, the production: it's a Eurotrashy thing that sometimes works: Francesco delivers his last aria holding a microphone and dressed in a shiny jacket like a Vegas lounge singer; that's chilling. But the fact that Beatrice is wearing an enormous red fright wig throughout? Less so. And the way people keep waving handguns around--I don't mind the anachronism itself, obviously, but I feel that this is very odd and distracting in the context of the chosen atmosphere.
Oh well; you can't win 'em all. Anyway, it certainly wasn't an unpleasant way to spend a few hours.
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