I thought this was Mozart's last opera before the standard-repertoire ones, but no: La finta giardiniera comes after. I will have to see that one, and no mistake. But who cares? I know that Mozart was talented from the first.
This is set in ancient Rome. An opera seria in Roman times? What a concept! Cecilio wants to marry Giunia, but is believed to be dead. Lucio deceived her into thinking so because he wants to marry her, which she is extremely not down with. There's also Lucio's sister Celia who is in love with Cecilio's friend Cinna. When Cecilio reappears, he's going to be put to death, but ultimately, Lucio shows mercy, as opera seria rulers tend to do. Everyone praises him and is happy.
If this sounds like familiar territory, well, it is: the librettist, Giovanni de Gamerra, was advised by Metastasio himself. It's definitely less psychologically penetrating than you'd get from something actually written by Metastasio: you really get very little insight into Lucio, such that the ending feels a little abrupt. It's not the world's strongest libretto.
But what it is, is Mozart. As I've noted before, I have trouble saying <i>why</i> some music is better than other, similar music. Okay, sure, Mozart got better, but if I had to write an essay explaining why this isn't as good musically as La clemenza di Tito, I would have no idea where to start. "The tootling sounds in Lucio Silla aren't as melodious." Yeah, I think I'd get an F on that essay. Regardless, there's some astoundingly great music here. I basically loved it.
So the cast is very good, with Annick Massis really standing out as Giunia; that's no problem. I do have issue with the production, however. AND HOW. Firstly, it's really distractingly busy, with a bunch of random silent people sort of milling around and doing stuff in the background for reasons that aren't always clear. Still, you get used to that. The REAL issue doesn't come to the forefront until the end: after Lucio does his forgiveness thing, while the chorus is praising him, his flunky Aufidio assassinates him. There was stuff earlier on with him torturing prisoners--it wasn't especially well-done, but it was obvious what they were trying to do. Yup. Here we see the difference between Eurotrash and Regietheatre: you can change the setting of an opera, even to something weird, while remaining true to the spirit of the thing. Such is my belief. But when you're cutting against the intentions of the opera...that's where I have to draw the line. You would never, ever see an ending like this in an opera seria. The purpose of the production is to focus on what they see as justice, but justice is not the PURPOSE of these plots; mercy is. How about a version of Nozze di Figaro where Almaviva gets murdered in the end? Would that be to your liking? Who the hell are YOU to think you know best?
Who indeed: what really rankles is how damn self-satisfied the DVD notes are about this. It's pretty much all they're about. They say that the opera "was to be a tribute to the ruler and authority who exercises mercy, an entertaining opera seria that obeyed the conventions of the age." Okay. Next sentence "This was far too little for a director like Jürgen Flimm." Well THANK FUCK we have a genius like Jürgen Flimm! SOMEBODY needed to set Mozart, and indeed the entire baroque era, straight! The oblivious arrogance is really something. "If the original librettist...had said this ["Punish the tyrant! Restore justice to the stage!"] he would have ended up on the scaffold." I don't know if that's true or not, but regardless, are you suggesting that he would have liked to do such a thing, if he could have? Because THAT'S definitely not true. Given their unwillingness to accept and/or inability to understand the eighteenth-century mindset, I frankly do not think ol' Jürgen Flimm was in any way qualified to produce this thing.
Still, the fact is, Flimm's production isn't effective enough to be really distracting: you can easily see through it to the quality opera beneath, and the stabbing at the end just causes an exasperated eye-roll. For all that Jürgen Flimm tries to inflict on him, Mozart emerges largely unscathed.
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