A huge influence on Wagner, this, apparently. Come to think of it, it was probably one of the more prominent operas I hadn't seen, so there you go (now, the most prominent ones are probably lesser-known Verdi works--I shall get on that in the near future, maybe probably).
So...right. There's this count, Adolar, who is engaged to Euryanthe, and he goes on for a while about how great she is. But this other count, Lysiart, is like, pah, no woman is faithful. So he makes a bet with Adolar that he can successfully seduce her (hoo boy). Adolar has a tragedy in his past: his sister Emma killed herself by taking poison from a ring after her lover was killed in battle. Euryanthe confides this to her supposed friend Eglantine--but Eglantine is secretly in love with Adolar and wants to use the secret against her. Lysiart realizes, dangit, I can't seduce Euryanthe after all; she's too faithful. But teaming up with Eglantine, he gets ahold of the fatal ring and shows it to Adolar as proof of his fiancée's infidelity (???). This leads to everyone condemning her. Adolar takes her out into the forest, where plans to kill her. But then a serpent appears and she's like "no! I will sacrifice my life to this serpent to save you!" And after that, he can't bring himself to kill her, so he just leaves her there, where she's found by the king and some hunters, who, hearing and believing her story, take her back to see Adolar again. Back at the castle, Lysiart and Eglantine are going to be married. Adolar is there too, and to punish him, the king tells him that Euryanthe is dead. Eglantine is like, whoo! Victory! and reveals the plot. Lysiart murders her, and Lysiart is presumably going to be executed. Euryanthe comes in and is joyfully reunited with Adolar.
Hmm. Yes. Indeed. The wikipedia claims that this "is rarely staged because of the weak libretto." There's no citation for this claim, but the libretto is indeed dogshit dumb: how is the ring meant to be evidence of Euryanthe's betrayal? Why doesn't she just tell how Lysiart got it from the start, since she clearly knows, and avoid all this trouble? What's this idiocy with the snake? Why do the people, after having instantly condemned Euryanthe, then just instantly forgive her? It's a real mixture of the nonsensical and dumb.
But you know, none of that really bothers me much. Credulity-stretching libretti are common, and even with an egregious example like this, you can generally just roll with it. The more pressing problem here is that Adolar is a reeeeeal piece of shit. Betting on the fidelity of your lover is never good form, be it here or in Così fan tutte, but I'd have to call this significantly worse than Così in that regard. I mean, the guys there behave extremely badly, but really, they're just dumbass kids, and anyway, isn't the whole point of comedy (in the Dantean sense) that we're redeemed even though we don't deserve it? But here, man alive: Euryanthe should absolutely leave him, not as a matter of punishment but of simple self-preservation: this is a man who has demonstrated himself willing to believe accusations against you on incredibly flimsy evidence, and then he will murder you. It doesn't get much more straightforward than that! Sure, he gets a very mild slap on the wrist in the form of thinking she was dead for a few minutes, but considering that he'd previously been willing to make her dead...that ain't much. Also, the whole chorus of men self-righteously condemning her is pretty sickening. We're supposed to be on her side, of course, but only because we know she's innocent. If she actually HAD slept with Lysiart...presumably all this would be okay. BAH, I say! It's too bad, because there really is dramatic potential here. Lysiart and Eglantine are effective villains. But of course, the real villain is Adolar, and the REAL real villain is The Patriarchy. The problem is, Weber doesn't know this.
It's a shame, because musically, this really kicks ass. Love that early German romanticism, and I also appreciate that this isn't a Singspiel like Der Freischütz; it is sung throughout. There was recently a performance on Operavision, but I went with this Fisher Center version. They've always done well by their material, and they do here also, with a handsome period production. Probably about the best version you could hope for of a problematic opera. There is one weird thing that I got hung up on, though: during the overture, we see a tableau of Emma getting the news of her lover's death and killing herself--only she does it by slitting her wrists, even though the poison ring is very explicitly how it's supposed to have happened. Dunno what the deal is there. Also, the serpent is visualized as a mass of roots from a tree hanging down onto the stage, and Adolar whacking at with his knife looks pretty goofy. But ASIDE FROM THAT! I really like this German romanticism. It's too bad that Weber's operas other operas are rarely performed.
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