Francesco Cavalli, Eliogabalo (1667)

This is Cavalli's last extant opera. He wrote two others after, but they are...not. I suppose you can't complain too much; compared to many of his contemporaries, he does pretty well in the extant-operas department, but STILL: his final opera, Masenzio, is especially a bummer, because wikipedia lists it as "unperformed and lost." So Cavalli created this art and nobody ever experienced it and now nobody ever will. Pretty disheartening. Still! We're lucky to have this one, which went unperformed in Cavalli's day also, because, Wikipedia speculates "Cavalli's style was considered too old-fashioned." My friend--Cavalli will NEVER go out of style. But in any event, it was first performed in 1999. There's a time lapse for you.

Heliogabalus doesn't get the same press as Caligula or Nero in the nuttily psychotic emperor sweepstakes, but he was apparently pretty well up there. But...give him a break. He became emperor at the age of fourteen (and was assassinated at eighteen). YOU try making a fourteen-year-old the most powerful person in the world and see how that works out. There's a famous story about how he murdered some guests at a banquet by smothering them with roses. This is depicted in a painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Roses of Heliogabalus:

It's an appealingly macabre idea, but would it actually be possible? If so, you'd need an absolute shit-ton of roses, and I imagine you'd have to pack them down really tightly. I can't help noting that the people allegedly dying in the painting don't even have their heads submerged. That's not gonna do the job!

Anyway! As for the opera: there's a production with French subtitles on youtube. With star countertenor Franco Fagioli in the title role! Again, I am utterly baffled as to why this hasn't been released on DVD/blu-ray. So as usually with these things, the plot is a bit shambolic, but basically: there's just been a military uprising, because the army hates Eliogabalo. But it's been put down by his...associate emperor?...Alessandro (who would become the main emperor after Eliogabalo's death, only to be assassinated himself so that the most terrifyingly-named Roman emperor, Maximinus Thrax, could take power. So it goes!); the army LIKES him. Alessandro wants to marry his sweetheart Gemmira, but the dissipated emperor decides that he wants her instead (without even having seen her). So he comes up with various plans make this work. He comes up with a weird idea to start a "congress of women" (this is based on actual historical incident, big fat "allegedly), so he can go in drag and get with her; when this fails, he decides to have a banquet where Alessandro will be given poison and Gemmira opium so he'll be out of the way and he can have his way with her. There's also another couple, of course, this being Eritea, a woman that Eliogabalo has previously loved and left, and Gemmira's brother Giuliano. Theyre all sort of dithering around thinking about how or whether they should assassinate the emperor, and finally--this might actually constitute a spoiler; it certainly took me by surprise--Eliogabalo is beheaded while he's trying to rape Gemmira. Even more surprising than that is that his hanger-on Zotico and the flippin' comic-relief skirt-role nurse are ALSO killed, by an angry mob! My goodness! I mean, yes, they've aided and abetted Eliogabalo, but still. That's not the kind of thing you expect to see in a baroque opera. And for the sake of completeness, there's also another woman, Atilia, who is in love with Alessandro and causes some complications but then at the end is just like, welp, easy come easy go, I'll find someone else; and also this comedy amoral gold-digger Nerbulone, who goes for any woman with money. Oh, and also, there's a scene at the end of the second act where the banquet hall is invaded by owls--birds of ill omen, apparently--and it features the line "My God, what terrible owls!" So that's a lot of fun.

This opera fucking rules, as we've come to expect from Cavalli. I hardly know what more to say. Fagioli makes a fabulous, glammy Eliogabalo--not exactly a deep character, but surely a fun one to play--and Nadine Sierra is a righteous and beautiful Gemmira. Also notable is Scott Conner as Nerbulone; it's a small role, but I'd never seen him before, I don't think, and his bass is extremely booming.

Cavalli certainly has his fans, but I can't help feeling that he is one of the most underappreciated composers around. The Met has never performed a seventeenth-century opera--amazing but true--and he would certainly be a good place to start.

Dmitri Shostakovich, Cherry Town (1959)

I feel like a lot of people don't know that Shostakovich wrote an operetta, but guess what? It was popular enough that it was made into a film in 1963; apparently it reshuffles parts of the story and cuts out some of Shostakovich's score, but on the other hand, he also wrote some new music just for the movie, so swings and roundabouts. Operetta was a big thing in the Soviet Union--it does seem like it would be a good thing to have around to distract people from various problems--but most of it is unknown outside Russia (I have no idea whether it's even regularly performed in Russia these days). But at any rate, because this one is Shostakovich, we have the opportunity to check it out.

The plot is sort of trivial: there are various young people in Moscow; mainly, a young man, Boris, courting a young woman, Liusia, and a married couple, Masha and Sasha. They are having trouble finding appropriate housing; it's especially hard for Masha and Sasha, who in spite of being married can't live together because apartments are so hard to come by. There are also some corrupt officials who allocate apartments in an unfair fashion and whatnot.

I'll say one thing about this: it is extremely fixated on real estate. I mean, I understand that it was a problem at the time, but it nonetheless come across as fairly bizarre, like a Monty Python sketch. There's one part here where Masha is super-psyched that the building he was living in has collapsed because it means he'll get priority for new housing. This reminded me of a part in Francis Spufford's Red Plenty where two workers sabotage a piece of equipment so it'll be replaced by the new, more efficient model and they'll be able to meet their otherwise-impossible production quota. Naturally, it does not work out as well there as it does here.

Both the operetta itself and the film are very lightweight and cheesy, in a way that kind of humanizes the Soviets, if you think they needed humanization: see? they liked trashy kitsch just like we did! It's kind of charming in that regard, though it sort of has darker implications if you think about it: here, the housing problem is really just an irritating but minor thing to be dealt with with in a good-natured way while still looking forward to a glorious future. In reality, I have to imagine it was much more unpleasant for people, and that future turned out not to forthcome, alas.

The music is fun enough, but not overly consequential: Shostakovich was definitely capable of more than this. And the way the producers did not make even a token effort to match the dubbed singers to the actors' speaking voices is...noticeable. Overall, the piece is sort of charming in a very flimsy way, and very interesting as a historical artifact, but not among the great operettas.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Il Flaminio (1735)

So here it is: Pergolesi's last opera.  And it's another comedy!  How could this be bad?  Well, it's NOT.  Stop putting words in my mouth, doggone it!

Here's the plot as I can make out: Giustina is a young widow, engaged to Polidoro.  There's this guy, Flaminio, who loved her and whom she scored while married, but now she's in love with him, only he's undercover using the name Giulio.  Polidoro's sister Agata is engaged to Ferdinando, but she's in love with Giulio.  There's also a comedy servant couple, Checca and Vastiano (pictured on the box).  Ultimately, Flamino and Giustina end up together, Agata goes back to Ferdinando, and so Polidoro's the only one left single, but he deals with the situation with equanimity.

I say "as far as I can make out" because, while that might not sound overly complicated, the way it's presented is pretty hard to follow in places, and while the production isn't intentionally confusing or anything, the fact remains, most of the characters are played by similar-looking brunettes, which doesn't help with the confusion.

However, yes, it's lots o' fun, obvz.  I think probably Lo frate 'nnamorato had more stand-out moments, but I can't and won't complain too much, notwithstanding that, really, the libretto is kind of shambolic.  There's also some humor based different dialects of Italian which was, naturally, lost on me.  The production is fairly restrained, to its benefit.  The standout to me is Laura Cherici (who also played a comic servant in Lo frate 'nnamorato--beware of typecasting!) as Checca.

People naturally wonder what Pergolesi's career would've been like if he hadn't died so young.  Would he have become a talent spoken of in the same breath as Handel?  And I have to say: I doubt it.  It's not that I don't like his work; I like it a lot, obviously.  But it's not normal for talent to just steadily increase throughout a composer's career.  Sure, Mozart's later operas are better than his early ones, and had he lived longer, he no doubt would have written more great music--but would he have written music that's massively, obviously, superior to anything he'd written previous?  Do you listen to Handel's last opera, Deidamia, and say, wow, this is clearly way better than his first surviving opera, Agrippina?  I don't think so.  So while it's extremely impressive that Pergolesi was able to compose as well as he did as young as he was, I doubt his later work would've improved that much.  If he'd lived another fifty years and written dozens more operas, I think he'd probably be known to about the same degree as other long-lived composers like Galuppi and Hasse; that is to say--somewhat to baroque music aficionados, but not as an ultra-rare standout talent whose name even non-fans might know.  I'd say, in fact, that the fact that all his operas are available in video form is a function of his short career; paradoxically, if he'd lived longer and written a lot more, I'd bet fewer would be available.

But, of course, there's no way to know, and that is sad.

Sergei Prokofiev, Semyon Kotko (1940)

Man, earlier I jokingly noted that I'd like to see this, but that given what blatant Soviet propaganda it looked like, it seemed unlikely I'd get the chance.  Well, it seems I wasn't paying attention, because I'm wrong: here we have this Mariinsky production on disc.  So let's check it out!

Semyon, a soldier, has returned to his village after World War I, where he is reunited with his mother and sister Froska.  He wants to marry his sweetheart Sofya, but her father Tkachenko, a rich landowner, is opposed, in spite of having previously agreed to it.  However, Semyon meets Remeniuk, the local Soviet chairman, along with his friend the sailor Tsaryov and Tsaryov's fiancée Lyubka; they agree to help, the idea being that with their authority on Semyon's side, Tkachenko will have to give in.  But they're interrupted when some Germans invade and occupy the village.  I thought the war was over?  Unclear.  But they're here, along with some anti-Bolshevik Cossacks, and it turns out that Tkachenko is secretly working for them: he betrays his countrymen, and Tsaryov and several others are hanged and the village set ablaze.  Lyubka goes mad; Semyon is able to escape along with his sister's boyfriend Mikola.  In the woods, they meet up with a Red Army unit commanded by Remeniuk.  Naturally, Semyon wants revenge, all the more so when Froska appears and gives the news that Tkachenko wants to force his daughter into a marriage with a former landowner who likewise helped to sell them out to the Germans.  So Semyon and Mikola return to strike a blow at the enemy.  They come just as Sofya's forced marriage is about to take place, and Semyon disrupts the proceedings by throwing a grenade into the church, but is then captured.  Tkachenko is psyched that they're going to be executed, but then the Red Army led by Remeniuk storms the village and everyone is saved.  Tkachenko is going to be executed, but he doesn't actually die on-stage.  And there you have it.

Phew.  So is this fairly craven Soviet propaganda?  Definitely.  It's also my favorite Prokofiev opera by an extremely wide margin.  You can't help getting involved in the story, and there are some truly jaw-dropping musical moments, notably the climax of the second act as the village is being burned.  Holy shit, is the only thing you can say.  Did I like the music more on account of I liked the story more, or is it the other way 'round?  Hard to say, but there you are.  As usual, the Mariinsky Theatre comes through with a lush, visually spectacular performance.  Viktor Lutsyuk is appropriately ingenuous in the title role, and possible nazi Evgeny Nikitin adds gravitas as Remeniuk.  It's probably not fair to note that he might be a nazi every time you mention him, but it's sort of hard not to.  Sorry!

I've actually seen most of Prokofiev's operas at this point.  Most of the ones I haven't are pieces of juvenilia that are incomplete and/or lost.  The only big one I'm missing is his last, Story of a Real Man.  Is this an opera about toxic masculinity?  Perhaps, but I'm still extremely keen to have a look should I ever get the chance.

Antonín Dvořák, Dimitrij (1882)

It's always a good day when you can see some rare Dvořák, you betcha, and of course, all Dvořák save Rusalka is rare. For whatever reason. It's another Fisher Center production.

This is a historical piece concerning the power vacuum created by the death of Boris Godunov. The people are divided: some are supporters of the Godunov family (which seems to just mean his daughter Xenia, the rest of the family having been killed), and some of the pretender Dmitri, or Dimitrij in Czech, who has returned to Russia with his new wife, the Polish princess Marina, and a Polish army to back them up. Supposedly though not actually, Dimitrij is the son of Ivan the Terrible. Though she knows it isn't true, Ivan's widow Marfa affirms that this is so, to allow him to consolidate power so she can get revenge on the Godunovs. Dimitrij's relationship with Marina is becoming strained because he wants her to assimilate to Russian ways but she's still committed to her Polishness, so when he meets Xenia, after saving her from some drunken Polish ruffians with ill intent, he falls in love with her and she him, maybe, although come on, he IS responsible for the death of her whole family, so she's, fairly, a little torn. Xenia is under the protection of Šujský, who is plotting against Dimitrij; when the plot is broken up, he's going to be executed. But Xenia intercedes on his behalf, and the smitten Dimitrij pardons him. Marina figures out what's going on and is pissed off; she tells Dimitrij she knows he's not really Ivan's son, but he remains undeterred. In retribution, she has Xenia killed (this isn't historically accurate; the real Xenia outlived Marina by some years). She confesses to the crime but also reveals Dimitrij's humble birth to all. Marfa reaffirms that he's her son but falters when asked to swear to this. As a result, the truth is known and Šujský kills him. The end!

I feel like you can easily encapsulate an opera like this just by quoting Boney M: "oh, those Russians." Apparently it's unlikely that Dvořák or his librettist would have known Boris Godunov, it not having been performed outside of Russian until the twentieth century, but it really is striking how this picks up exactly after Mussorgsky leaves off. It's also striking how it emphasizes the nature of Russian history with its superfluousness: if the message of Boris is that Russian history is just one unending tragedy, the message of this one might be, yup. That checks out. And I'm sure any hypothetical follow-up to this one would say the same!

Regardless, though, it's pretty great. It perhaps lacks something of the historical sweep of Mussorgsky, but at least musically, I'm not actually convinced it's the inferior opera. Really terrific stuff, including loads of absolutely massive choruses. There really is no reason the Met shouldn't put this on. The Fisher Center production is certainly credible, if a bit iffy in some ways. It appears to take place in the tail-end of the Soviet Union--though I don't know; you have various people wearing Ninja Turtles of Super Mario World t-shirts, and you think, okay, these things existed back then, obviously, but were they really on clothes? And even if so, would Russians have been wearing them? I have my doubts, and honestly, I think I would rather have seen a more historically authentic performance. It just feels like a story as specific as this one doesn't work that well in an anachronistic setting. Still, I got used to it quickly enough (although there's this little kid cavorting around the state at the beginning and end whose symbolism was lost on me), and ALSO! It features the return of Olga Tolkmit, whose Elektra I so appreciated in Oresteia, as Xenia. And she's great again, as the most sympathetic and tragic character here.

Great opera, anyway. Not that you'd expect otherwise from Dvořák, but this exceeded expectations.

George Frideric Handel, Hercules and Belshazzar (1745)

Handel was a busy little bee at this time: his oratorio Hercules debuted in January of 1745 and Belshazzar in March. And we have staged versions of both of them. Sweet!

Hercules is more or less the same story in Ercole amante, abeit in a less cartoonish register. Hercules has murdered some king and captured his daughter Iole and brought her home; he has designs on her, much to the distress of his wife Dejanira. Meanwhile his son Hyllus is also into Iole. Dejanira comes up with the great idea to give her husband a cloak soaked in centaur-blood, with the idea that it'll make him love her but, whoops, it actually kills him. She is full of remorse (her end is unclear); meanwhile, the gods decree that Iole and Hyllus should get married.

Belshazzar, meanwhile, is, of course, a Biblical epic, based on the Book of Daniel. The Babylonian king, Belshazzar, is oppressing the Jews, but Cyrus (the Great) comes up with the idea of rerouting the Euphrates to defeat them. This is possible because Belshazzar just likes getting drunk all the time. So...he does that thing. He kills Belshazzar, but everyone else is spared. And there you have it!

It's Handel, man. He's a superstar, and these are as good showcases of his talent as any. Which is better? That's tough. As I watched Belshazzar, at first I thought I liked it a bit less than Hercules, but now I'm not sure: I think the difference is that Hercules has a somewhat more immediate plot, with more clearly-drawn characters, and especially the character of Dejanira. In fact, the oratorio really should be titled Dejanira instead of Hercules. I suppose she just doesn't have the same name recognition. But! She definitely has the biggest part, and there's no point in denying it: Joyce DiDonato definitely steals the show. She can and does act up a storm. I sort of take issue with the implication that there's something wrong with her jealousy; her husband was indeed trying to cheat on her, and it's not like she meant to kill him, at least in this telling. OH WELL.

Belshazzar is a more communal kind of piece, making extensive use of the chorus for Babylonian and Israelites alike. Some really good singers I'd never (as far as I can remember) seen before: Kenneth Tarver is terrifically magnetic in the title role, and Bejun Mehta is great as Cyrus; I feel like it had been a long time since I'd seen a countertenor with a really meaty part, and he works it the heck out. I also like the fact that the ending is so compassionate (I mean, it's not a surprise; compassion was a huge thing in baroque opera--we might consider thinking about the possibility of bringing that back): Belshazzar dies, but no one else does, and Cyrus preaches mercy and forgiveness for everyone. Good.

Okay, so this is neither here nor there, but I have to puzzle over this, from the Hercules DVD booklet, by the producer Luc Bondy:

Once I had listened to the work, I wanted to find out more; to discover its origins.  And so I read Sophocles Trachiniae.  I then spoke to Martin Crimp about it.  He knows Greek and I asked him to translate Sophocles' test for me.

Wait...so you read it, but then for some reason the translation you read wasn't good enough, such that you had to demand that George Benjamin's librettist make you a bespoke translation?  What even IS this?  Is it just your weird, oblique way of bragging that you know someone who knows Greek?  Extremely strange.

Anyway, in conclusion, you should watch this Handel guy.  He's an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, David et Jonathas (1688)

This one is different from the other early French baroque operas I've seen in that it wasn't written for the royal court: it was written for the end-of-year festivities at a Jesuit college. That's why there's no prologue on the theme of the king's radness. Did your college graduation feature a specially-composed opera? Mine sure didn't. The commencement speaker was Anna Quindlen. She was...fine, I guess? I have to admit, I have zero memory of anything she said.

Well anyway! That's why we have this Biblically-themed work. It's kind of the usual thing, although the plot I found a bit choppy in places: maybe if I were more Biblically-literate, I would not have had that problem. There's David and Saul's son Jonathan, and they are in love (the production plays that up a little, but I think it was already kind of played up in the text). Saul is jealous of David's...martial prowess, I guess, although this does not include the ever-popular and ever-hilarious "Saul has killed one thousand, but David has killed ten thousand" line, so it's not wholly clear. Regardless, Jonathan and Saul die, and David is bereft, and then we have the inevitable thing where a triumphant chorus about him being kind sort of wrecks the mood.

Oh well! I still liked it a lot. Charpentier's music is rich and varied, and Jonathan's death creates genuine pathos. This production is a bit odd, but fine: it takes place in a number of wooden rooms, which can change dimensions seemingly at will. It also does this thing where instrumental sections are accompanied by tableaux of David and Jonathan as children; I didn't mind these, but they seemed rather pointless. I certainly didn't feel as though they deepened our understanding of or appreciation for the characters' relationship.

The question is, why can't I see more Charpentier operas? The second, more important question is, why is so much of his work, including his last FOUR operas, non-extant? Wikipedia explains: "virtually none of Charpentier's compositions from 1690 to 1704 have survived, because when the maître de musique died, the royal administration routinely confiscated everything he had written for the Chapel." And they...what, set it all on fire? I find that extremely vexing.

Robert Ward, The Crucible (1961)

To me, The Crucible is the ultimate high school text (along with The Scarlet Letter, I guess: why are we so fixated on Puritans?): you read it, you talk a little about witch hunts and McCarthyism, it's all very Worthy in the semi-pejorative British sense, and then you never think about it again. The play was written at the height of McCarthyism, which was certainly a gutsy thing to do, but I dunno. I'm certainly not implying that we're immune to that kind of panic in the modern world--remember the "Satanic Panic," that insane thing with supposed satanic sex cult in preschools, that was self-evidently nuts even at the time and yet destroyed a lot of innocent people's lives--but still, I find The Crucible kind of overly obvious and pedantic. Also, isn't it implicitly suggesting that, while witch hunts may be bad, that's just because there aren't any actual witches: if there were, all bets would be off (and as for Communists in the State Department, well, it could be worse.  They could be capitalists). Obviously that's not an intended reading, but really now. I think Death of a Salesman is significantly better.

But! I saw the opera, from Opera Santa Barbara, still watchable on facebook. You probably know the story, and if you don't--sucks to be you, I guess! Various girls pretend or really think they are possessed by the devil, and in the end, ol' John Procter bites it, along with some others. What more can I say?

I guess I kind of hoped that seeing it in a musical setting would kind of punch up the story for me, but I'm sorry to say, I didn't find this overly interesting, even if it did win a Pulitzer Prize (I feel like even more than Nobels, Pulitzers are a very tenuous indicator of actual merit).  There's probably a justifiable reason it's not commonly performed today.  The music is pretty generic stuff, with not much that I found memorable. Exception: "The Devil Say He's Coming," a haunting lament from the Barbadian slave Tituba. Why can't we have more like that? We just can't, durnit! And as I said, the story itself, eh. Someone should make an opera out of Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom. That's the kind of Puritan opera I could get behind!

Hector Berlioz, Béatrice et Bénédict (1862)

Here's Berlioz' last opera, and also the last of his operas I hadn't seen. He was a pretty dern great composer! I'm a fan.

As you can guess, probably, this is based on Much Ado About Nothing, but--as you would probably ALSO guess from the title--a streamlined version: the focus is on the title characters (which is the most interesting place for it to be, really); Hero and Claudio, the other couple, have much reduced roles; the wikipedia page claims that Claudio is a baritone, but I'm not actually convinced that he even has a singing role. There's no Don John (or any other villain); no one trying to trick anyone about anyone's degree of faithfulness. Basically, the title characters like needling each other and they never want to get married because they DO NOT BELIEVE in love. But of course they are hiding their true feelings, and when their respective friends contrive to get them each to "overhear" them talking about how much the other is into them, all bets are off. An old and simple story that remains tremendously appealing.

Of course, this being an opera comique, there is, alone among Berlioz' operas, spoken dialogue, of which I'm never a huge fan. Here a lot of it is this odd sort of semi-spoken/semi-sung stuff as a pompous maestro, Somarone, tries to get a chorus to perform to his specifications. Berlioz wrote the libretto himself, and honestly, I get the impression that he found this a lot more hilarious than I did.

But why cavil? Of course, the music is delightful. It's Berlioz; what more do you need? The production we have here, from Glyndebourne in 2016, is a trifle odd: it is dominated by grays and whites, with a bunch of abstract, boxy structures that look to be made of cardboard. It's not awful or anything, it doesn't really detract from the opera, but its purpose is a little inscrutable, and honestly, I sort of wanted more colors at times. My eyes get bored looking at the same dang ol' colors all the time! Of course, that could also be a criticism of black-and-white movies, but I think the difference is that you wouldn't expect anything else from those: here, you know there's at least the possibility of color; you're just not getting it. Dang it!

Ethel Smyth, The Wreckers (1906)

In addition to being a composer, Smyth was a writer and a suffragette of some note. But I think she is destined to be known primarily as the answer to the trivia question "who was the first female composer to be produced at the Metropolitan Opera?" (with her opera Der Wald). I've certainly been curious to see her work for a long time; it's not exactly frequently produced, but here is this.

The story is there's this village in Cornwall where the economy is based on letting ships crash on the rocks and then plundering them. Is that a better or worse economic system than capitalism? It's hard to say. But now there is a problem, because SOMEONE has been lighting beacons to warn ships away. So there's this fisherman named Mark who used to court a woman named Avis, but now he's in love with Thirza, wife of Pascoe the preacher, and she with him, making Avis jealous. She accuses Pascoe of having lit the beacons, but the truth is still unclear. However! Then it turns out that the actually guilty parties are Mark and Thirza. The villagers think Pascoe is guilty and put him on trial, but Mark and Thirza confess. Avis tries to save him, but no go. So the lovers are condemned to death, and that is that.

It's a kind of interesting premise: the sort of cultist-like villagers all frame the situation in religious terms; I've never seen an opera quite like it. But it doesn't really DO that much with the idea; you kind of expect it to do more in terms of questioning the morality of the situation, but it mainly just takes it for granted. Weird.

Well, but it's really not a great opera. The performance is fine, but I'm not sure any performance was really going to save it.  It does occasionally build up kind of a head of steam and get sort of dramatic, but the conventionally romantic music is mostly sort of anemic, and the libretto is extremely poor: it keeps trying to be "poetic" at the expense of actually saying anything interesting or drawing on real human emotion. You would think the reasons would be obvious, but from the text, it's difficult even to tell WHY Mark and Thirza are rebelling. And goddamn, the characters just babble on and on and on to little effect. I'd call this at best a C+ opera; I was glad to have the chance to experience Smyth's work, but I'm not overly taken with her as a composer.

Sergei Taneyev, Oresteia (1895)

The Bard Fisher Center apparently presents one large-scale opera production per year (even though it's at Bard College, these are not student productions; they're fully professional). They seem to generally focus on lesser-known operas, and they've recently stuck a bunch of their past productions on youtube, which is great. I shall watch many of them.

Starting, obviously, with this one. The plot is what the title would lead you to expect, pretty much, in three somewhat discrete parts. In the first act, Clytemnestra plots with her lover Aegisthus to murder the returning Agamemnon (and as a special bonus, they also murder Cassandra). In the second, Orestes returns home and has a reunion with Elektra. He kills Aegisthus, feels some compunction about killing his mom, but does it anyway and is immediately consumed with guilt. In the third act he's being tormented by a chorus of Eumenides (Elektra just having kind of disappeared); he takes shelter in Apollo's temple; Apollo decrees that he will be put on trial. There are an even number of votes to convict and acquit (shouldn't they have chosen an odd number of jurors?), but Pallas Athena appears and breaks the tie in his favor, declaring that from now on humanity will be ruled by love, compassion, and mercy. If only.

(I always though Aegisthus was just some random guy, but it turns out he was the son of a rival of Atreus and there's a whole tangled, bloody backstory. I guess I should've figured; people talk about superhero comics have excessively convoluted continuities, but they have nothing on Greek mythology.)

I'll level with you: this opera rules pretty hard. It has great dramatic romantic music, and it really captures the sort of bleak majesty of these stories and shows you why proved so persistent. In fairness, the last act breaks the momentum a bit--I suppose that when you cap off a tragic story with a more or less happy ending, that's inevitable--but overall I basically loved it.

The production is great, too. It appears to have the trappings of late Tsarist Russia, which is appropriate, but I really liked the way everyone acted the hell out of it. I was especially impressed by Liuba Sokolova as Clytemnestra and Olgta Tolkmit as Elektra. The latter in particular: at first it seems like she's more or less with it and in control until gradually you realize that she's not all there. There's a scene where, while Orestes is in the main room dealing with Clytemnestra, she's sitting at the kitchen table with Aegisthus' corpse eating and having an animated conversation with a portrait of her dead father that was just *chef's kiss*

This was Taneyev's only opera, which is a shame, as I would be happy to see more.

Tales from a Safe Distance (2020)

Good lord--MORE covid-inspired mini-operas? Do we really need these? Well, perhaps if you read this entry you'll find out, GENIUS!

These ones are a little different, however. For one thing, you have to pay for them--fifteen dollars for all four half hour episodes. For that reason, I'm going to expect a little more from it than I did from #OperaHarmony and those Opera Story pieces. And for another thing, this isn't just separate, isolated pieces; it's inspired, in fact, by the Decameron: a group of (socially-distanced) friends during a plague telling each other stories, each in the form of a short, ten-fifteen minute opera by a different company. It's clear that a lot of thought went into this.

Episode One: "Both Gladsome and Grievous"

Peter Hilliard, "The Happy Hour"

I wasn't sure about this at the beginning: wow, more friends talking on a zoom-like communications platform? How can something that's been ubiquitous for less than a year have calcified into such a hoary cliche already? And yet, here we are. It's not one hundred percent clear how they know each other; are they all meant to be opera singers? Regardless, as I watched, I realized, huh, it may not be hyper-original, but this is definitely the best execution of the concept I've seen: ten characters, all very good singers, and the music, arrangements, and libretto all seem a step above. Also, one of them (the Italian one) is actually a somewhat prominent singer, Luca Pisaroni, whom I know from the title role in Cavalli's Ercole amante and as Caliban in The Enchanted Island. Anyway, they're stuck and bored, natch, so they decide to tell stories. We return to this scene for brief interstitial segments amongst the other episodes.

Rachel J Peters, "Everything Comes to a Head"

Must I admit that I haven't read the Decameron? I fear I must. But I do sort of know the story this is based on from Keats' "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil." A woman, Rosemary, wonders where her boyfriend, Basil, is; her roommates call her, and they talk about how much they don't like him, what with him refusing to take proper covid precautions and all. Suddenly he begins speaking to her from somewhere beyond the grave; it turns out the roommates murdered him and stashed his head in a suitcase which she stashes in, wait for it, a pot of basil. But when they want to make a pesto...will he be discovered?!? I don't know! The original may be a grim story, but this is told in a consistently comic mode, and it's actually quite funny. Also, the production is very attractive, with the characters superimposed in front of and behind watercolor pictures of garden and kitchen. Very impressive work.

Jasmine Barnes, "The Late Walk"

Two roommates who've had an argument, Tamara and Natalie, are out walking in a park at night, discussing their situation and how much you can believe authority figures about what precautions to take, covid-wise. They meet two ghosts: the man came home from World War I intending to marry his fiancée, only she decided she didn't love him anymore; soon after, he died of the Spanish flu, but not before infecting her. So they're both still upset about this, and would it have happened if he'd worn a damn mask, and like that. And obviously this is an analogue to Tamara and Natalie's situation; it's interesting stuff, and then, surprisingly, there's an extremely creepy twist at the end that I won't spoil except to say that this would've been a good one to watch on Halloween. Great stuff!

Episode Two: "Prompted by Appetite"

Michael Ching, "Dinner 4 3"

One thing that happens during lockdown: people get horny. This and the next involve that, in varying ways. Here, we have a married couple lying in bed messing around on their phones. He's going out of town on a business trip the next day, so both of them arrange illicit assignations with people who are not their spouses. Her date shows up, but his cancels, to his irritation, so he goes back home early and, whoops, finds the two of them together, and there's a funny twist at the end. The whole thing is well-written and absolutely delightful. Loved it.

Marc Migó, "The Roost"

This is the least plot-centric of these so far, and I kind of realize I like plots. That's what I would've liked to see more of in the #OperaHarmony pieces. There's nothing wrong with being just a meditation, but you have to have something interesting to say, you know? And that ain't always easy. Well, this is an okay slice of life: a pregnant woman living in lockdown with her husband; she tries to initiate sex but is frustrated. She talks remotely to her mom, who has right-wing politics that are clearly a source of tension though it's not really dwelt upon. Then she and her husband go outside and reflect about this and that and do end up sleeping together. And that's about that. I wasn't a huge fan at first, but in retrospect, I actually like it more the more I think about it. It's a good, character-based thing that seems to capture something real.

Episode Three: "So Noble a Heart"

Elizabeth Blood, "Orsa Ibernata"

Blood both composed AND sang, which is undeniably impressive. I wish I had talent. But it's the sort of very abstract thing that sort of annoys me about these shorts: you have, I guess, a woman and her lover (same singer) wandering around the woods and singing about...plants. And stuff. Poison. I feel like maybe I'm a bad watcher not being able to describe it in more detail. I should read the story it's allegedly based on, though I feel that the connection must be pretty tenuous. The actual music and performances are very strong, however. Most of these are chamber operas with just a few instruments, but this is performed almost acappella, with just a few of what almost seem to be ambient sounds carrying the melody. For that reason I liked it, but still, I would prefer more of an actual dern plot.

Donia Jarrar, "Seven Spells"

Yeah, another inscrutable one.  This is what it's based on, allegedly, but I just DARE you to figure that out from watching it. A woman stands around in various settings in a ballgown and sings. For seven minutes; it's short. And it annoys me: I'm sick of giving a pass to pointless inscrutability! I'm smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb! And I can't be having with this. Well, the music's fine. But ALL the music's fine, so I'm giving this one my lowest rating so far.

Maria Thompson Corley, "The Sky Where You Are"

This one actually has a trigger warning up front for domestic violence, along with a bunch of resources and phone numbers. Goodness. A woman's friend calls her; she's reached the end of her rope in her abusive marriage. She relates what's happening and her commitment to escaping with her son. I do appreciate that this is about something, though the music may not be as interesting as the last two. I'm going to go ahead and say it: domestic violence is bad. I know, I know: you're thinking, why would he say something so controversial yet so brave? It's just one of those thing that's obvious, duh, and yet BOY we humans are good at doing shitty things to one another that are extremely self-evidently shitty. Jeez.

Episode Four: "The Bolts of Fortune"

Gilda Lyons, "Sourdough: Rise Up"

Yeah, so you may remember that earlier people were making a lot of bread during COVID. Maybe they still are. I don't know. But this features...three of them. People talking about making bread and living their lives during COVID and it's all over simplistic, stylized...I don't know if I should even call it "animation." Anyway, yuck. Seriously, of all the pieces here, this is the only one I really actively disliked. I find the it boring to look at and the subject matter achingly banal, and...blah. Sorry. Not a fan. Not even a little.

K.F. Jacques, "Corsair"

Yeehaw! Finally we have this: a hip-hop opera (please don't call it a "hip-hopera." You're only degrading yourself and those around you). Well, it combines hip-hop with soul/world music and sort of more traditional-ish opera. It's extremely arresting. The plot? Well...again. Not that much. There's a guy, I guess? And he's a hustler of some kind. But then he meets a woman. And maybe he's not? Hard to say. But honestly, this music is sufficiently striking that that didn't really bother me.

Okay! So overall? Yeah, pretty impressive. Honestly--with all due respect to them--it makes those #OperaHarmony and Opera Story pieces look pretty amateurish. Well, with notable exceptions. But this is really good, yo. It'll be streaming 'til the end of the year, so by all means check it out.

Jonas S. Bohlin, Tristessa (2018)

So here's how I came to see this: someone posted a link with a description on the Met Live in HD facebook group; I sort of scrolled past without really reading it but the sole comment caught my eye: "The music's [sic] better be over-the-top GREAT! Because this sounds appalling!" So of course I looked back at the post: what's so appalling? And it was quickly apparent that, holy crud, this is an opera based on Angela Carter's novel The Passion of New Eve.  Well...okay.  Fair enough.  I can see how certain people--probably the people in an opera group more than the general population, if I'm stereotyping--would find that "appalling."  But not me!  I'm not sure about the utility of changing the title--the original seems more distinctive--but still, no way I'm not watching THAT shit!

You know what The Passion of New Eve is about, right? No? You should read it. It's a great novel, and the opera is pretty faithful to it: streamlined in places, of course, but basically hitting all the main points. There's an Englishman, Evelyn, living in a dystopian New York who's obsessed with a silent movie star named Tristessa (Tristessa de St Ange in the book, but only her first name is given here). He has a dubious, exploitive relationship with a young prostitute before he goes west where he's captured and brought to the all-female city of Beulah and its leader "Mother;" there, he is forcibly given a sex change operation. The idea is to impregnate her with his own sperm to bring forth a new messiah, but she escapes only to be captured by an insane patriarchal cult leader "poet" named Zero who lives in a compound with a group of slave-wives. He's obsessed with Tristessa because he thinks she's somehow rendered him infertile.

Eventually...well, do I really need to go through the whole thing blow by blow? It seems unnecessary. Suffice to say, the novel is basically about gender relations being out of balance. And the opera does a great job of capturing the spirit of the original; even when there are small plot changes, the ideas are very faithful, which is the most important thing.

Do you get the impression that I liked this? Well, I loved it. You might expect some sort of jagged, atonal music for a story like this, but it's all tonal, neo-romantic stuff. Great! The production work is vivid and memorable. One thing I really appreciated was the way it uses the new medium to do things with characters that the original couldn't that advance the novel's themes: Mother and Zero are played by the same singer, as are female-Tristessa/Eve and male-Tristessa/Evelyn. Kind of genius. In the interest of full disclosure, one should probably put trigger warnings on it; it's definitely somewhat R-rated, though not as much as it could be. You can probably tell from that plot summary whether or not it would be distressing for you. I recommend it, however.

It's still available for like four days. The only problem I have is that, while sung in English, there are Swedish subtitles only. Burnt-in Swedish subtitles (seriously, why wouldn't you at least make them optional?) so whatever else you can say, I DID learn a few Swedish words, such as I ("jag"), beauty ("vacker") and bitch ("häxa"). There's probably some irony to the fact that if you watch an opera in your native languages with subtitles in another, native speakers of the other language are almost certainly going to be able to follow it better, and that's certainly the case here. Some parts are clear; some...not. It certainly helped that I was already basically familiar with the story.

You know, I'd never even heard of this 'til yesterday and then I saw it today and it was great. Opera!

Sergei Prokofiev, The Fiery Angel (1928)

Actually, this wasn't performed in full until after Prokofiev's death, in 1955. It has the reputation of having one of the wildest plots out there, at least of regularly-performed operas. Well, I don't know how "regularly," but it was going to be done in a new production at the Met this season before "this season" ceased to mean anything. But not presented in HD. Probably because of the last scene, which could be done in a non-R-rated way but probably doesn't lend itself to that very well. And considering that the HD of Akhnaten censored even brief, non-sexual nudity...well, you can see why they'd be gun-shy. I suppose.

Right, so this is the sixteenth century in Germany. There's a knight, Ruprecht, recently returned from America (which detail doesn't ultimately mean much of anything, but it stuck out). He meets this woman at an inn, Renata. She tells him the story about this angel, Madiel, that allegedly first appeared to her when she was a child and stayed with her through her teenage years until she tried to get him to sleep with her (the libretto is very frank about this); he was offended and left, but then--she thought--manifested himself again in the form of a count named Heinrich, with whom she had an affair (although he denied being an angel). He eventually left her and she's trying to find him. Ruprecht tries to seduce her until he gets bored with her at which point he can ditch her, but she rejects him. He agrees to go along with her in search of this Heinrich--it's never really made clear, but he seems to fall in love with her for real. He fights a duel with this Heinrich and gets injured. While this is going on there are also odd meetings with a fortune teller, an alchemist, and our ol' friends Faust and Mephistopheles. Renata, sick of all this shit, joins a convent. But strange things have allegedly been happening since she's been there suggesting demonic possession. An inquisitor comes to investigate and there's a whole big orgy with nuns and demons. In the end, he accuses her of being possessed and condemns her to burn at the stake.

Well, there you go. The last scene does perhaps raise a few eyebrows, but it's really not that extreme. The whole thing is undeniably pretty weird, though. I liked it; I feel like it's my favorite Prokofiev so far, at least musically. Frenzied music to match the frenzied action. But it does have to be conceded that there's not much of an emotional core. Not that that's necessarily a problem; you could say the same for a lot of good operas--like, say, The Nose, which was written 'round about the exact same time as this. But there is a sense where you watch this and you think, yes, okay, and what? who? when? where? why? It feels a little disjointed in a way that may not be intentional but if it is doesn't one hundred percent work.

Then again, I don't know, the spectacle alone is probably worth it. This production from 1993 features hairless, near-naked demons capering about through much of the opera, performed by local dancers and/or acrobats. And hey, maybe the furious, demonic confusion is juuuuust perfect for our current political situation! More and more people are saying it!

Adolphe Adam, Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836)

Due to election anxiety, I didn't watch many operas this week. I hope to get back into a more normal schedule forthwith.

Naturally, I started with a goofy comedy. This was apparently a mega-smash-hit in its time, but I don't think it was performed much in the twentieth century. But now we have this 2019 production, the first at the Opéra Comique since 1894. I am told. It concerns a newlywed young couple, Chapelou (the postillon of the title) and Madeleine. They're celebrating, when sho should appear but La Marquis de Corcy, aide to Louis XV, who wants him to find some better singers for the opera (I feel like Louis XV sort of slips through the cracks--we know XIV as the Sun King and XVI as the one who lost his head, but not so much the guy in the middle). He hears Chapelou sing, is impressed, and asks him to come to Paris to be an opera singer, with promises of fame and fortune. He is initially reluctant, but when he learns about the staggering amount of money he'll make, he ends up going along. That's the first part. After, it's ten years later; he's become a star and hasn't seen Madeleine since (I'm sort of skeptical about this--it seems a bit contrived that they were somehow completely separate from each other for ten dang years). She's become rich thanks to a big inheritance from her aunt. She comes to the opera and no one recognizes her from back home. Chapelou is smitten and tries to seduce her, forgetting about his wife. They agree to get married. But wait! Bigamy! Call the cops! Well, no, obviously everything works out and everyone is forgiven. And there you have it.

Light stuff, for sure, but a lot of fun. I suppose as always with things like this, I find myself wishing for slightly more gravity, but hey.  I got what I paid for (it's available on Medici).  Some infectious music, though I found I liked the first act best. I...am not sure what else to say. This isn't a piece that really lends itself to deep analysis. Good production, for sure, with very colorful, expensive-looking costumes. But really, it just made me want to watch more operas. It is possible that at some point in the future my passion will cool, but that does not seem to be imminent.

Umberto Giordano, Marcella (1907)

Giordano's just kind of there. I liked Andrea Chénier, not so much Fedora, but for whatever reason, I struggle to have any kind of opinion about him. He existed. He lived from 1867 to 1948. He wrote some operas. Those are my opinions about him. But in any event, I saw this lesser-known Giordano opera. The DVD was cheap, probably.

Pretty simple plot: there's this guy Giorgio, the crown prince of some foreign country who's in disguise slumming it in Paris. He meets Marcella, this virtuous woman, and they fall in love and they're living together for a while in a happy fashion, but DISASTER! A representative of his country shows up and explains that his father is sick and being influenced by the bad vizier and it's not good times and he needs to come back to sort things out. So, well, what can he do? He reveals his identity to Marcella, asks him to come with him, she won't because their stations don't match, there is angst, he leaves, she's sad.

I do think it kind of overplays Marcella's excessive innocence at the beginning in kind of an infantilizing way, and as for the climax, it reminds me of Puccini's La rondine, and with the same issues: first, do they REALLY need to be separated? Is the reason for this adequately justified? And secondly, even if so, I mean, is it really the end of the world? Sure it sucks when you have to leave someone you love, but it happens to most of us, an most of us eventually get over it! Anyway, presumably Giorgio can at least make sure she's not poor anymore. That ought to soften the blow a little.

But on the whole, I thought this was pretty good, actually. If you don't think too hard about it and just go along with the opera logic, the last act is quite dramatic and pretty affecting, and the whole opera goes by in a fleet sixty-five minutes, so it doesn't outstay its welcome. You definitely could do worse.