Franz Schubert, Fierrabras (1823)

Schubert was hugely prolific in his sadly abbreviated life, but his operas really get short shrift. He wrote quite a few of them, but they aren't much performed nowadays--in fairness, a lot of them are incomplete and/or partially lost. But here's this, the last one that he completed. It's kind of a bullshit story: he and Carl Maria von Weber were both commissioned by a theater to write operas so as to increase the German repertoire. Schubert wrote this and Weber Euryanthe. But the public just wanted Rossini, so Euryanthe was a failure, and Schubert's work wasn't staged until after his death; he never even got paid for it. Screw that crud!  Shouldn't he have been able to sue someone?

Right, so it's Charlemagne (or Karl, as the German has it) Times. Christians vs Moors. Fierrabras is the son of Boland, the Moorish king. He's currently a prisoner of the Christians, but he's allowed his freedom in that context, what with them being so chivalrous and whatnot. He's secretly in love with Charlemagne's daughter Emma, but that's not going anywhere because she and one of the local knights, Eginhard, are already in love--but there are problems because Charlemagne doesn't want his daughter marrying a lame regular knight. He mistakenly believes that Fierrabras was seducing his daughter and has him locked up; meanwhile, his troops are going over to fight the Moors, Eginhard filled with guilt at Fierrabras having been so treated. They're captured by the Moors, but another complication: another of Charlemagne's knights, Roland, and Boland's daughter, Florinda, are also in love. She helps them escape; they're recaptured, but Eginhard gets away and goes back to give the bad news. The confusion about Fierrabras is cleared up, and he's freed. All the Christian knights are going to be executed, but Charlemagne & co save the day. Boland is last-minute reconciled with the Christians (a very baroque-opera resolution, I feel), and the two couples can get married. Whoo!

If you're keeping score, there's actually not a whole lot of difference, morally, between the depiction of Christians and Saracens here. Both kings are more than willing to disown their daughters over their romantic choices. I suppose Boland is a little more savage in that he appears willing to have Florinda killed as well (although ultimately it's never put to the test). Well, there's not much in the way of genuine religious content to be found here.

People talk about the weakness of the libretto here, and admittedly it has its issues. Some of the stakes really aren't well-delineated, and there are a few goofy moments: like where the Christian knights are locked in a tower and one of them remarks "if only we had weapons!" and then Florinda's immediately like, hey, I just remembered that there are some weapons buried under this exact room! Handy. And then she gives a sort of play-by-play of the off-stage escape effort, which is a bit comical. And SERIOUSLY, Roland and Boland? Like Mario and Wario? What are you playing at here?

But you know, there are bad libretti and bad libretti. Sometimes they can cripple an opera, but sometimes they're such that the drama can still be successful, thanks to great music, and that's definitely the case here. I love this early German romanticism. Would I actually be able to distinguish between it and Italian music of the time? Well...since there's no way you can really prove I wouldn't, I'm just going to go ahead and say: yes.  But whatever it is, it rules. Good production, too. There's another one that feature Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, which seems tempting, but then you realize it's a gimmicky performance featuring Schubert on-stage composing the opera in real-time. That's the sort of thing that sounds like it wouldn't be fatal to one's enjoyment, but would definitely undermine it. The only thing I don't like about the one I saw is that the Moors have been made up in unobtrusive yet still obvious brownface. Look, I realize that that seems fairly harmless in the context, but just in general, DON'T DO THAT. If we lived in a world without racism, that sort of thing would be unobjectionable, but we don't and we never will, so...cut it out.