Rachmaninoff only completed three operas, these and The Miserly Knight (he started another one, Monna Vanna, which he never completed for copyright-related reasons; meanwhile, his opera based on Flaubert's Salammbô never got past the idea phase). These two are similar in that they both feature the trope of woman, lover, and jealous husband who kills them both--not that that's anything unusual, but they're presented together here by the Opéra National de Lorraine--with French subtitles, which were pleasingly easy for me to understand.
Aleko is based on a poem by Pushkin. There's a shocker for you. There's a troupe of gypsies (I should probably at some point do a whole post on the word "gypsy"); an old guy tells a story about how he had a sweetheart with whom he had a daughter, Zemfira, but then she left him. Zemfira is now involved with an outsider, a Russian named Aleko. He's sad because she doesn't love him anymore; she has a new lover. When he sees them together, he impulsively murders them both. The gypsies let him live but cast him out of their troupe.
Francesca da Rimini is, well, based on the episode from Dante--this is the story that just everyone feels compelled to make into an opera. I've seen the Zandonai, and if you have, you basically know this: woman, Francesca, tricked into marrying man, Lanciotto, by making her think she was going to marry his hotter brother, Paolo. They have an affair. Lanciotto murders them. This differs from the Zandonai in that there's no third brother; also, this one actually features Dante and Virgil as characters at the beginning, observing these souls in Hell about whom Dante gets curious.
I liked these both. Why not? The music is great. Both of them seem somehow more melodic than The Miserly Knight, though I may be remembering that wrong. I did significantly prefer Francesca, though--and I thought it was dramatically better than the Zandonai version. It really works: I mean, for all that you can point out how nuts this story seems from a contemporary perspective, it really, really works on its own terms. It forces you to accept it. And what it does really well is to make you accept that they're going into this sinful relationship, knowing it for what it is, but willing to accept damnation: one kiss is worth eternity in Hell. It is dramatically compelling.
As I said, these are presented together, meaning that they feature the same singers in the lead roles (Alexander Vinogradov is especially good as the betrayed husbands--you shouldn't murder your wife and her lover, but he brings a pathos to the roles that make them sort of sympathetic nonetheless) and certain things carry over. Each of them works well individually, I think. Aleko takes place in a kinda-modern-day gypsy encampment with a strong circus motif. There's a long instrumental section where the circus performers just...perform. Including a guy in a bear suit, who is probably meant, more or less, to just be a trained bear. Okay, that's kind of weird. But it works. Again, though, the production of Francesca da Rimini blows it away: it's really great and really contributes to the opera. In the beginning, in the section with Dante and Virgil, the damned souls are represented as people in monk robes carrying skeletons--possibly they're mean to be the skeletons, but regardless, it is really eerie and effective. These skeletons remain onstage throughout the opera, emphasizing the doomed nature of the proceedings, and that this is really just a vision that Dante and Virgil are having.
I have to admit, though, the connections between the two don't really work that well, for me: the dancing bear for makes a cameo appearance for no reason in Francesca, and at the very end, the back of the stage opens and we see, A CAR! The same car where Zemfira and her lover had their assignation! OMG! And yet, I don't think that the car is really freighted with the kind of symbolic importance that the producer was apparently assuming. It does not add to the drama.
Regardless! I like these, especially the latter, a lot. It was watching it that prompted me to make this little dabble into theology. Still, I'll end by saying this: the idea that having an affair, of whatever kind, means that you have PERMANENTLY TURNED YOUR BACK ON GOD and therefore should SUFFER ETERNALLY strikes me as a bit drama-queen-ish. Come on.
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