Gioachino Rossini, Otello (1816)

Those of you who resent Rossini for shouldering out previous operatic versions of ll barbiere di Siviglia and Guillaume Tell with his own can take some comfort in the fact that he got a taste of his own medicine with Verdi's Otello.  Blam.

Well, you know the story of Othello.  Or maybe you don't; I feel like it doesn't quite have the cachet of a Hamlet or Macbeth where most people can at least give you a very basic summary.  Also, this is substantially different from Shakespeare.  You still have the general idea of Iago planting doubts in Othello's mind about his wife Desdemona's fidelity, leading to murder, but a lot of stuff is stripped out.  The main thing is that Rodrigo is upset about Othello and Desdemona's secret marriage: HE was supposed to marry her!  And also, her dad Elmiro (Brabantio in Shakespeare) wants his daughter to marry him.  Iago's deceptions are also much more straightforward: there's an intercepted love letter and that is IT.  Also, here Iago is depicted as another spurned lover of Desdemona, which makes his motivations seem much more comprehensible and banal.  The ending is pretty funny: Otello has stabbed and killed Desdemona, and then on the other side of the door, everyone's like, hey, Otello, we all discovered Iago's deception!  Now he's dead and everyone thinks you're totally great!  Now I, Elmiro, am totes cool with you being married to my daughter!  Hooray!  Aaaaaawk-ward!  Anyway, he opens the door so they can see the corpse, then stabs himself.  In this production Rodrigo and Elmiro both kick his body as the opera is ending, which seems a little goofy.

There are some great musical moments, as you'd expect.  Most of them, I daresay!  So when I'm judging this against Rossini's other operas, I kind of have to fall back on the libretto, which really isn't too great, especially in the latter half.  There is a lot of Desdemona just mucking around in a fairly non-compelling way.  And as much as I like Cecila Bartoli, she look really distractingly too old for this part.  And as much as I like John Osborn, he plays the title character in blackface *screeching brake sounds*.

Now, you might say to me: really, man.  Are you actually saying this offends you?  It's manifestly obvious that there was no malign intent here, and the character being black does play in to the story, so aren't you just virtue signaling, even if you can come up with some reason to be against the decision in the abstract?

And the answer is: no, I don't quite agree with this.  True enough: this performance may not be intrinsically offensive, and I'd say that in an ideal world that contained no racism--in which the very concept of racism was alien--there would be no problem with this sort of thing.  It would be a neutral act.  But we don't live in that world, and even taking into account that blackface may not have the same cultural baggage in Europe as it does in the United States, the best-case scenario--which, honestly, this probably is--is that the audience is get distracted every time they see the character.  If he has to be black, cast a black tenor; it's a very good rule of thumb that you don't use blackface unless you're creating a historical depiction of people who used blackface.  Harumph.

Well anyway.  I will say that that issue wasn't so big that I can't appreciate the opera on its own or not, and I'd say that my final verdict is: eh.  I don't think Rossini was capable of writing bad music, but the opera itself as a whole, I can take or leave.

Leonardo Vinci, Didone abbandonata (1726) and Saverio Mercadante, Didone abbandonata (1823)

It was interesting to see two versions of a Metastasio libretto that debuted at more or less exactly the same time--Artaserse--but it might be even more interesting to go to the opposite end of the spectrum: these seem to be about as far apart as you can get.  Vinci's wasn't the first version--that was Nicola Porpora in 1724--but close enough.  And I suppose I can't say for sure that Mercadante's was the last--I always get in trouble making sweeping statements like that--but, again, close enough, one would think.

This was only Metastasio's second libretto, and I feel like he was still working things out--it's a bit of a jumble.  You know the story of Dido, don't you?  You do.  This version skips over the whole of their romance, beginning just as Aeneas is steeling himself to tell her that it's been real, but now he's gotta go found Rome.  She tries various ways of getting him to stay, but none of them work, obviously.  In the end she dies, and there's really nothing to soften the blow--it's not the sort of thing I expect from operas of this period.  Naturally, there's a lot of other stuff going on: Iarbas, who wants to marry Dido, shows up, along with his servant Araspe.  Iarbas tries to kill Aeneas, but obviously fails at this.  Araspe falls in love with Dido's sister Selene, but unfortunately for both of them, she's secretly also in love with Aeneas (in Virgil, her sister is named Anna--there might be a Classical source for "Selene" but I think it's just Metastasio's invention; all the google results point to this libretto).  And then there's her servant Osmida, who's also plotting to take the throne.

As I said, a bit of a jumble.  I do like the fact that it does stuff with the story that I hadn't seen before--this is one of those narratives that can get a bit boring to me from overfamiliarity.  And yet, I don't think it works particularly well as a drama.  All the other characters and their issues never really amount to anything, as it feels like they would in a more mature Metastasio work.  It's all about Dido, and eh.  Again, not the most exciting story to me.

Ah, but what about the music and the differences between the two?  Glad you asked.  Or is that a lie?  The world may never know.  I thought the Vinci was pretty serviceable.  It's standard music of this type, comparable to Vivaldi, with some standout moments.  My favorite thing was Raffaele Pe as Iarbas.  He was hilarious and awesome as Nerone in Agrippina, and he has a very appealing singing voice--I could be totally wrong about this, but I get the impression that there's more variation between countertenors than there is between other voice types.  This isn't a comic role, but his sort of bug-eyed look suits it well, and brings some degree of sympathy to a not very sympathetic character.

Of course, opera seria like this tends to have a pretty basic aria/recitative/aria/recitative structures, with just one short chorus in the end--and this one lacks even that.  It ends strangely abruptly, without any sort of big, climactic number.  So the Mercadante version substantially reworks it to add a bunch of choruses and all kinds of numbers for multiple singers, including a few sextets for the whole cast.  That's kind of interesting, as is the fact that the vocal roles are substantially scrambled--in Vinci, Aeneas is a tenor and Iarbas a castrato/countertenor (which seems odd--the "barbarian" characters in these things are generally baritones), whereas in Mercadante the former is a trouser role and the latter a tenor.  So whatever else you want to say, you do get some variety.  I will also note that for this production, the director decided to tie loose ends by having all the characters who per the libretto would just kind of vanish explicitly die.  I can see how that would be tempting, but it really doesn't appeal to me, and it makes Iarbas more psychotic than I think was intended.

It's not the first Mercadante opera I've seen; that would be Il bravo, about a guy forced to be an assassin to protect his father, which sounds cool, but ultimately left me underwhelmed.  This is...well, similarly "okay but nothing special."  Hearing an opera seria transplanted to a liminal classical/romantic space is a good novelty, but the piece does nothing to convince me that he's not a pretty minor composer, and neither opera convinces me that this is a major libretto, in spite of its popularity.

Cornel Trăilescu, Motanul Încălțat (1964)

Finally found a Romanian opera to watch. I know you'd been waiting with bated breath to see if I'd manage this. "Motanul Încălțat" just straightforwardly translates as "Puss in Boots," and that's what this is. "The recommended age for this show is 4 years," per this page. I cannot help but think I have been insulted. But, I saw it!

You probably know the basic story here: there's a poor guy (here named Ionică) who has a cat and that's about all. But fortunately, it's a pretty great cat! He, the cat, helps him out: he saves the King from a would-be usurper, earning his admiration. Then, he tricks an ogre into turning into a mouse and eats it so his master can be a proper lord. And he, Ionică, gets to marry the princess. Whoo! As far as I can tell, that ogre wasn't actually doing anything until the cat just comes along and murders him. Is this the moral of the story? If you're poor, kill a rich person and take their stuff? I mean, it's not a bad lesson, but it seems surprisingly radical.

This was a lot of fun. You can see that it was designed for kids; there's a guy who does a few magic tricks between acts to create a fun, carnival atmosphere, which is reflected by the sets. I especially like how the ogre is visualized:

Just cool. Also, you can hear a bunch of kids chattering in the audience. It could indeed be a good first opera for young'uns. The music is fun, neo-romantic stuff, often with a kind of circus atmosphere to it that fits well. I'd love to have the chance to see this with subtitles, but even just working from a summary...the fun shines through.

Also, I probably shouldn't say this, but here I am, no one can stop me: Motanul is a trouser role, and I unexpectedly find the soprano playing him, Gloria Tronel, almost heartstoppingly attractive in that cat costume. I'm not a furry...am I?

Georges Bizet, Le docteur Miracle (1857)

I'm not seeing as many operas lately because I'm teaching three nights a week this summer.  Also--I must confess--I've been watching some things that are not operas.  I feel like I'm confessing to an infidelity.  My shame is unbounded.  Don't imagine that I'm losing interest in the form, though.  It's just the way it is!

But I did see this short Bizet piece, another MT project.  Is it about the most villainous of the Four Villains in Les contes d'Hoffmann?  OF COURSE it's not!  What kind of an idiotic question is that?!?  Yeesh.  There's a woman, Laurette, who's in love with a soldier, Silvio, but her parents are having none of it.  A man named Pasquin shows up, and offers his services to help around the house and keep out any damned suitors.  He makes an omelette for the family, the praises of which they sing until they try it, and then they sing about how gross it is.  Pasquin is revealed as Silvio in disguise and chased away.  But Laurette's dad feels sick and thinks he's been poisoned by the omelette.  The only one who can save him?  The amazing Doctor Miracle!  But he won't do it unless he's granted Laurette's hand.  This being done, he reveals himself as that damn Silvio again.  The omelette wasn't poisoned; no need to fret.  But dad knows when he's been beat, so...that's that.

I can't say I exactly understand Silvio's machinations here: was this fake poisoning thing always the plan?  It seems needlessly complex.  I cannot be having unrealistic operas!  I have very high standards!Okay, whatevz.  The truth is, this may have the lightest plot imaginable, but Bizet's comic music is as witty and fun as it comes.  The omelette song in particular is a trip.  As for this M T production...well, I hate to complain, but the subtitling does leave a bit to be desired.  The spoken parts (which are in Spanish in this production) are barely if at all subtitled, and even the singing...hmm.  Part of why it makes so little sense may be due to problems with that NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING.  Okay, obviously I am.  But not too much.  

Anyway, Bizet.  

Antonio Salieri, La cifra (1789)

I don't know why it took so long for it to occur to me to check Salieri on Operaonvideo, but I just did.  And yeah, there are a few things worth checking out, most notably this, which is a holy grail as these things go: an obscure opera with English subs.  Slightly weird ALL-CAPS ENGLISH SUBS which get bigger and smaller depending on the line, which I think just depends on how long the given line is, but looks like the character is meant to be shouting when it gets really big.  It's slightly strange, but who cares?  Also: a Da Ponte libretto, if you care about that sort of thing.  Incidentally, it's kind of goofy that if you search for Da Ponte, google characterizes him as an "American librettist;" it's true that he became an American citizen later in life, but that was long after his libretto-writing days.  Regardless, it seems like he was an interesting guy; might be worth reading his memoirs.

So there are some peasants in a Scottish village.  Eurilla and Lisotta are sisters; the former is the conventional heroine, while the latter is all loud and brassy.  Their dad, Rusticone, is the mayor.  Currently, the lord of the, I don't know, province, Fideling, is looking for a wife.  And a specific wife: see, his father usurped the government seat, but then repented of his ways and wanted his son to marry the missing daughter of the previous lord.  This seems to be conveniently evading the fact that, if I understand this scenario aright, this daughter should be in charge, and his son shouldn't have anything to do with it.  Of course, the rascally Rusticone is concealing the fact that Eurilla is the daughter in question (his motives are a little murky).  Fideling figures that one of the sisters is secretly the old lord's daughter, and correctly figures it must be Eurilla; the two are in love so that's great, but complication: Rusticone claims it's actually Lisotta.  There's a box that Rusticone has containing her legacy, but it doesn't seem any help, until the characters realize that there's actually a secret compartment and a code (cifra).  This reveals the truth.  So Fideling is with Eurilla and Lisotta is with her old lover Sandrino.  And there you have it!

Yeah; fun libretto.  Da Ponte had IT, for sure.  There's one particularly notable scene where the men are out hunting wild boar and Eurilla picks up a gun that's lying there and semi-accidentally shoots one.  GIRL POWER.  As for the music, well, if this is the kind of thing you like, you will definitely like this. It sounds like...well, like Mozart-era classical music.  It may not be an all-time transcendent experience, but it's a solid, entertaining opera.  I will hear no slander of Salieri from anyone.

Juan Hidalgo de Polanco, Celos aun del aire matan (1660)

This may or may not be the first extant Spanish opera. You get all kinds of conflicting information about these things. It is, at any rate, older than El Prometeo, which I thought was such. It's good, I'd say, that, whether this is first or not, the first one isn't just Italian with Spanish libretto.  I think not many people would guess that Spanish opera predated French, but here we are. Presumably. I was kind of surprised to find that there's a video of this online. The picture quality is fairly abominable (it was clearly ripped from a VHS recording), but the sound is adequate, at least to my non-audiophile ears. And you can get a bilingual libretto cheap. It's not a paperback, whatever the listing might say; it's a big ol' chunky hardback from 1981 that looks like someone's dissertation (though I don't think it is), and it includes a lot of useful background information.

This is sort of based on the story of Cephalus and Procris in Ovid, but certainly not that closely. Aura is one of Diana's nymphs, and she's fallen in love with a dude named Eróstrato, in contravention of Diana's regulations. Her co-nymph and alleged friend Pocris rats her out, and she's going to be put to death, which makes her mad, as you'd think, and she curses Pocris to fall in love herself. Another dude, Céfalo, appears to protect Aura In the confusion, Venus (who never appears) saves her by turning her into air. Meanwhile, Céfalo falls in love with Procris at first sight. Other stuff happens, and honestly it gets pretty darned confusing, even with the complete text, but ultimately, Pocris and Céfalo are married. Diana still wants her revenge, however, so she enlists the Furies to fuck with their shit. Pocris thinks Céfalo is seeing another woman, maybe, on his constant hunting trips, so she follows him. Céfalo is asking a nice breeze to come and cool him when he says "come, Aura, come," but Pocris assumes it means he's in love with Aura. Eróstrato, who is wandering around now in a mad state, appears, and Tisiphone makes everyone perceive him as a wild beast. Pocris doesn't want Céfalo to follow him, so she gets in his way, but he throws his spear at him and accidentally kills her, and then dies of grief (Eróstrato's fate is unknown, and what happened to Aura being in love with him, anyway?). Now that she's had her revenge, Aura takes pity and revises the two of them as a breeze and a star. And that's that, although I skipped over A LOT, mainly the comedy servant characters, notably Rústicano, who is cursed by Diana to appear as a different animal to anyone who sees him (he gets uncursed in the end, though). But that's basically it.

The title means "jealousy, even of the air, kills" (this phrase appears a number of times in the text). Because Aura, who had become, like, air, made Pocris jealous and led to the tragedy, you see. Only it really didn't if you think about it for three seconds. She was just there. Presumably she would've stood in Eróstrato's way in any case. You can make the argument that, oh, she wouldn't have been there at all if not for irrational jealousy, but that doesn't mean that the "Aura" confusion had anything to do with it. Hmph!

Well, the music is...fine, but not as interesting as I'd've hoped. The libretto involves a lot of really long holdings-forth by characters, and there are no arias or, really, even discernible arioso. It's more text-based than your average opera, which might, I suppose, make it more appealing to a Spanish-speaking audience. I must admit, however, I found it a little boring, though still of historical interest. One thing that's interesting is that, though none of the central cast was familiar to me, it does feature a young (23-24) Philippe Jaroussky in a very small role as Alecto.  Even though the video quality isn't enough to afford a good look at him, it's recognizably his voice.  See where it all began, more or less!

Charles Gounod, La colombe (1860)

Gounod: we all like him!  As a result, we watch operas that he wrote.  OR DO WE?!  Well, some of us do.  And in so doing, we discover how essentially arbitrary it is that only Faust and Roméo et Juliette are in the common repertoire.

So there's this guy named Horace who used to be rich but spent all his money in vain pursuit of the Countess Sylvie.  Now he lives a penurious existence in the country with his manservant Mazet, and his super-intelligent dove (colombe), which he has also named Sylvie.  A guy named Maître Jean shows up to buy the bird on behalf of his master, but Horace ain't selling.  We learn that Jean's master is actually his mistress, Sylvie herself, who wants the bird because she has a social rival, Aminte, who has a really awesome parrot, and she feels she needs a bird of her own to compete (?).  She shows up in person at Horace's place, and it become apparent that he's still carrying a torch for her.  She thinks she can manipulate him into giving her the dove, but she also starts to admit that maybe he's a good guy and she treated him badly.  She's going to stay for dinner, but being poor now, Horace has no fowl to give her, and hs doesn't want to just make beans.  So he makes the ultimate sacrifice: cook Sylvie the dove.  During the meal, she reveals why she's here, and he reveals, whoops, dove cooked.  This makes her understand the depth of devotion and accept him.  As the coup de grâce, Mazet reveals that actually, Sylvie the dove is fine; they found another bird to cook instead at the last minute--which happened to be Aminte's parrot.  Pwned!

I don't know; maybe this Aminte is a very unpleasant person, but still, it seems unfair for the parrot to have to suffer.  That notwithstanding, this is a very likable piece: a light plot, clearly, but charming, and with some great music, as why wouldn't there be?

There are two productions online to choose from, but I went with this one, said to be the opera's Israeli debut.  I can buy it.  It's very nice, with the orchestra on one side of the stage and the singers on the other, with just some furniture and whatnot as scenery.  The production does one interesting thing: while Mazet is a trouser role, here he's just a she, and her interactions with Maître Jean are highly flirtatious--in fact, in spite of the fact that obviously none of this is specified by the libretto (though some of the spoken text is massaged a bit to take it into account), I'd say they have better chemistry than the "real" couple.

Gounod!