Yes! It's the other seventeenth-century opera called Orfeo. Actually, you've gotta figure there are probably more, but these are the most prominent [UPDATE: yup, this page lists five others, plus sundry more from later times]. This one two is at least somewhat historically significant: La finta pazza may have been first, but this one was actually specifically commissioned for the French stage. And it had wider political significance than just that: supposedly resentment at how expensive the staging was lead to the Fronde, a series of rebellions against Louis XIV that he ultimately crushed and used to consolidate his power. At least that's how I understand it. Look, I'm American; we don't do European history, except for things like World War II where we can insert ourselves into it and cheer about what great heroes we were.
You might ask, is this going to be basically the same as Monteverdi? Will I be able to easily tell the difference? The answers are no and yes. This is extremely different from that. Monteverdi, as you know, is rather stripped down, just telling the basic story. There is A LOT more frippery here, with extra gods banging around and featuring Eurydice's dad and just being...different. Momus and his satyr pal are there for comic relief, as is the skirt-role nurse (BOY did that ever kill in the seventeenth century!). But the biggest difference between the two is that this one seems oddly uninterested in its title character. The bulk of this is about Eurydice and this guy Aristeo, her frustrated, would-be lover (that's Aristeo there on the DVD cover with her).
Who is Aristeo? He's this guy, who supposedly invented beekeeping, among other things. There's a version of the story where he was chasing Eurydice and that's when she got bitten. This pissed off the gods and he wasn't allowed to beekeep any more until he made sacrifices. Which, fair enough. You've gotta wonder what his relationship with Orpheus was like after that, though; I'm guessing the answer is Not Cordial.
Anyway, he spends a lot of time pursuing her, and gods intercede on his behalf, but all in vain as she's bitten by a snake and then refuses the antidote he offers because she doesn't want to be implicated with him in any way. Then at her grave, he imagines her ghost yelling at him--seeing an opera character's inter turmoil externalized that way is not something you see every day. Or, indeed, any day. I mean there must be other examples, but they don't come to mind. Extraordinarily sophisticated stuff. Anyway, he ends up going mad, after which is narrative just kind of stops. I has this idea that he was going to somehow sacrifice himself after Orpheus screws up so Eurydice can live again, but I guess that's kind of a fan-ficcy idea (not that baroque opera isn't frequently fan-ficcy). This definitely has the darkest ending of any Orpheus opera I've ever seen, as, having lost his love, he laments and then just recedes into the darkness. Curtain. The wikipedia entry claims that Jupiter appears to tell him that he and Eurydice will be turned into constellations, but that entry seems very suspect to me, given how much it leaves out. We do learn that there's a prologue and epilogue, however, which are not featured in this production, which I suppose begun the tradition of glorifying France in general and Louis XVI in particular.
Terrific opera, at any rate. The unfamiliar elements to the story really keep you involved (me, at any rate); the whole thing feels so confident and self-assured, and the music is in turns funny, dramatic, and spine-tingling. It's a modern-day production, which could go either way, but it feels very natural and appropriate. Francesca Aspromonte as Eurydice steals the show; one of the many pleasures of watching this is that she feels like much more of a defined character than is normally the case, and Aspromonte really inhabits her.
Rossi only wrote one other opera, Il palazzo incantato (an Orlando Furioso opera--really covering the baroque bases here); unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available on video, but I hope it will be one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment