A while back, a production of this was going to appear on Operavision, but at the last minute, with no explanation, they replaced it with a Butterfly--going from a relatively rare opera to one of the most common does not seem like a step in the right direction. But SO IT GOES! I had to see the old Met on Demand production. Pity me!
So. Fedora, a princess, is engaged to marry Count Vladimir, but then, abruptly, somebody murders the hell out of him. The main suspect is Loris Ipanov, felt to be a Nihilist sympathizer. He is exiled to Paris (it's unclear why exactly since he doesn't seem to have even been formally accused of anything at this point), to which Fedora follows to get her revenge. She's at a party, and Ipanov immediately arrives and is all "I love you!" Had he ever even met her or seen her before? Or is this just a "hello I love you won't you tell me your name" situation? Operatic convention is what it is, but this seems goofy even by those standards. But anyway, he tells his woeful tale: he killed the Count because he'd been his wife's lover (his wife then wasted away and died, apparently--the time frame here is not very clear). So now she's totally cool with it, and they're in love. Hurray! They're living together in an isolated villa, BUT! Trouble! This guy, Di Siriex (just a guy. That's all I know.) arrives to deliver some bad news: before she knew the truth about Loris, she had sent a letter accusing him to the police in Russia, as a result of which his brother was arrested (what?) and imprisoned. One night the river around the prison flooded and he drowned (what?). The news of this cause their mother to die (okay.). When Loris hears this and learns that Fedora was responsible, sort of, he is hell of pissed off, so she poisons herself. He forgives her, but she dies anyway. So it goes.
So yeah, the plot here is pretty dodgy, I have to say. I find the whole thing extremely hard to take seriously. The music is...okay. A kind of cool aria that's meant to mimc a Russian folk dance, and a good final death scene. But I can sort of see why Giordano is not that widely-staged nowadays.
The Met performance features Mirella Freni as Fedora and Plácido Domingo as Loris (they're both really too old for the parts, but in this case it didn't bother me much). It just goes to show how little I know about previous generations of opera singers: I had never ever heard Freni's name before, but she's a huge deal, it seems; she gets a long standing ovation when she first appears, before she even opens her mouth. I say, don't suck up like that! It's okay to applaud after a significant aria, but I think these people's egos are probably big enough as it is! She is given the Key to the City during one of the act breaks. Okay. The two of them are fine; I just don't feel they were given a lot to do. I really liked Ainhoa Arteta as Fedora's flighty, coquettish friend Olga; she's funny and charming, although it really does feel like she wandered in from a completely different opera.
As you can tell, I wasn't overly impressed by this. BUT HEY, it's on Met on Demand, so, you know, we can check off another one. Hurrah.
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