When I first saw there was an opera based on Tom Jones, I figured it had to be a contemporary British thing. Why contemporary? I don't know; I suppose because I have the irrational ingrained idea that anything I don't know about must be new. Which is obviously extremely wrong. As it happens, there IS a British opera, but it's from 1907. And it's not this. Obviously. I don't know a lot about the history of copyright law, but you do have to wonder: Henry Fielding's novel was published in 1749; he was dead by the time this opera appeared, but was any kind of licensing fee to his estate necessary? Well, I suspect that any copyright law in those days probably didn't cover derivative works, and in any case, it probably would've been hard to take international legal action. Who can say? Apart from people who know things. Man, what kind of weirdo knows about things?
I've read Tom Jones! It's great! But that was probably five-ish years ago, so many plot details are fuzzy in my mind. But of course, it's a thousand-page novel, so an opera is going to be severely abridged in any event. But it's basically the same: Tom Jones (who I think might never be referred to by first name in the opera) is a foundling, which is why the book's full title is The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. Dead giveaway! He's been raised by the benevolent Squire Allworthy. He and Sophie Western, the daughter of a neighboring squire, are in love, but her dad is dead-set that she marry Allworthy's nephew, the loathsome Blifil. There are complications, but then it turns out that Tom is actually Blifil's half-brother, and now him marrying Sophie is A-Okay.
(Tangent: you know why so many of these old narratives where a lower-class boy is in love with an upper-class girl are resolved when it turns out that he's actually secretly a noble of some kind? It's because they were written from a pre-modern mindset. These things upset our contemporary democratic sensibilities: wouldn't it be better for the world to just learn to accept interclass unions? But for older writers, it was undesirable if not unthinkable to do anything that would upset the stable foundations of society, which include classes being separate. Sorry, but that's JUST how it is.)
This is a fun piece of work. Maybe slightly too much yapping--this being an opera comique--but perfectly fine! Oddly, Jones himself doesn't really make that much of an impression; by far the most memorable character here is the, let's say, earthy Squire Western, as ably portrayed by Marc Barrard. The music is definitively classical; none of the baroque here, if that's what you were hoping for. But that's fine! There's nothing here you haven't heard a thousand times (though a French opera of this vintage is at least a little unusual), but it is fun as shit! What more do ya want?!?
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