Contemporary operas tend to be on the short-ish side, no doubt due to the way film has altered our perceptions of how long an audiovisual narrative "should" be. But all the opera I've watched has changed my own: now when I hear people talk about a two-hour film being excessively long, I think, huh. That's actually kind of on the short side if anything. Nevertheless, I do have my limits, and Dalbavie's decision to write, in 2021, the longest opera I've ever seen (at four hours and fifty-one minutes) is both impressive and slightly intimidating. But! Apparently the Paul Claudel play on which this is based runs over ten hours when performed in its entirety, so I guess we must simultaneously applaud the composer for his ambition and his restraint.
The title means "the satin slipper," but zero slippers of any sort are seen or alluded to. So...okay! What is this about? Good question. It takes place in Spain in the 1600s, which milieu will never not make me think of Carlos Fuentes' gigantic Terra Nostra. But, also like Terra Nostra, it may be difficult for me to describe the intricacies of the plot in any detail. There's Rodrigue, some kind of conquistador, and Doña Prouhèze, a married woman he's in love with. They may have a child together, or may not, it's sort of hard to tell, and then we skip ahead ten years and she's dead and their alleged daughter wants to help liberate North Africa from the Moors. But also, there are A LOT of other characters, many of whom seem like they're going to play a big part in the proceedings before just disappearing--like an apparently-Amerindian woman; and one named Doña Musique, whose name makes her seem like she should be some sort of allegory; and Rodrigue's Chinese squire/servant/something. I dunno--maybe you need the full ten hours to tell this story adequately.
In spite of not really getting it, I actually sort of liked it. I do enjoy the overall atmosphere. It feels like one of those things where they basically set a play to music without really making that many concessions to it being, like, an opera. The music is mostly fairly unobtrusive, though there are parts where it comes in bigger. I think it's overall pretty subtle and interesting stuff. There are no arias, as I may have indicated, but somehow the whole thing has a bit of a hypnotic appeal. Oh yeah, and it features an almost unrecognizable Luca Pisaroni as Rodrigue, so that's fun. One does have to note a contradiction, though: if the opera's too short to support the story, it make also somehow be too long to support ANY drama as well as it could. I was not super-sad when it was over, though I certainly didn't hate it.
You can watch it on Opéra de Paris. For how long? Not specified. Kind of hard to imagine it finding a place in the repertoire, but you could do worse! Or better! You decide! What am I, your mom?
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