Well, if I want to fulfill my dream of seeing every opera available through Met in HD, I had to get to this eventually. There was no avoiding it. An even half dozen left, now. Is that "even?" Who can say.
It's based on a novel by Anatole France, taking place in early Post-Bible Times. There's a monk named Athanaël living in some monastery out in the desert. He's all hardcore ascetic and all, but he feels called upon to go to Alexandria to try to turn Thaïs, a courtesan he had known there, away from sin. So, he goes and does this thing. At first she makes light of him, but then she privately acknowledges the hollowness of her existence and decides to go with him. They escape into the desert. She enters a convent and he goes back to his monastery. But he's morose, and eventually he confesses that in spite of his efforts to be holy and everything, he can't keep from loving her. Off-stage voices announce that she's dying (of what? just of being in an opera, I guess). He goes to see her and tells her, no no, I was wrong about everything, earthly love is all that matters! But she's gone all holy-roller and can only see the angels and everything. She dies. He is sad. And that is that.
In a way, this is an interesting character piece: Athanaël, in spite of what he may tell himself, doesn't actually want to "save" Thaïs for pious reasons (if he care about the principle of the thing, why would he just ignore all the other courtesans in the Alexandrian court?). He's just hot for her, and even if he's not looking to get into her pants per se, he wants to control her. The dynamic is the same. That said, I found the irony kind of forced: oh look, he switches to being pro-hedonism just as she's becoming all religious. Woo. Nor is she a very compelling character, even if--it is alleged--the role is difficult and the opera's generally put on when there's a big-name diva (Renee Fleming here) who wants to sing it.
There are a few things here that I thought were, you know, okay: there's some kind of fun sort of orientalist, "exotic" music. And there's a long instrumental bit called "Meditation" with a prominent solo violin part. I like that the guy who played it got a bow at the end. And yet, I was underwhelmed, and left with a question: why don't I like Massenet? Seriously, it's weird. I keep watching his stuff, thinking that at a certain point it's bound to click with me. That happened with Lully. But having at this point seen five Massenet operas--trying as much as possible to keep an open mind!--it sure doesn't look like it's happening.
There's no REASON I shouldn't like him: if I say I don't like Stockhausen, say, well, you can tell me, you just don't get him. Your ears and mind are not properly attuned. And...yeah, okay. I'll accept that. But with Massenet, what is there to "get?" He's writing late-romantic music like many another composer whom I like just fine. But for whatever reason, I never seem to find Massenet compelling. It's just weird that I would be so off-putten (I have for some reason decided that "put" shall from now on have a new past participle) by the guy, given that I don't really have other composers in this milieu that I dislike. But so it goes, apparently. We can still be friends, Jules, but I'll have to ask you to lay off the music.
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