Another from Operavision. It's based on a novel about Nikola Tesla. You know, Tesla seems like an interesting guy, but it's very hard to really consider him, what with his image having been coöpted and fetishized by those insufferable "fuck yeah science" people, not to mention world-renowned asshat Elon Musk. Dangit.
Well, not his fault. The opera (and novel, one presumes) redubs Tesla "Gregor," "to offer [the writer] a greater freedom of tone and direction." Opera librettists have never been overly scrupulous about biographical fidelity, but fine, do whatever. Also, in spite of his name being changed, the story seems to follow his life more closely than many an opera. Gregor comes to New York, works for a while for Edison, but eventually has a falling out with him and is employed by some tycoon, where his innovations make him super-successful. But Edison gets mad over their conflict over direct versus alternating current, prompting him to use the latter to electrocute sundry animals to try to discredit the latter (yes, that sounds extremely stupid and nonsensical, but my impression is that it's based on real history, so I'll give it a pass, I guess). Gregor's ideas win out, but he's stressed, so he goes off to Colorado, and when he comes back, he's more eccentric. He has this idea for producing unlimited free energy, but his employer hates it due to lack of opportunity to profit. As you'll recall, that was also Scarsdale Vibe's reason for wanting Tesla crushed. I don't think there's any such thing as unlimited free energy, but if there is, you can be one hundred percent certain that any and everyone with a financial motive would try to crush it. It's really difficult to overstate just how horrible our overlords are. But anyway. Now, Gregor is being supported by a philanthropist and unspecified businessman named Norman Axelrod and his wife Ethel. But his ideas are becoming arbitrary and impractical; it seems he's losing his touch; he wants to spend all his time hanging out with birds (the real Tesla did indeed have a strong bird affinity). Ethel conceives a passion for him (there's also a Girl Reporter™ with whom it seems there might be a love triangle, but that never goes anywhere). She eventually summons the wherewithal to tell her husband that she's leaving him for Gregor (which made me feel bad for Norman, who is portrayed as a real mensch). But Gregor is having a meltdown, and in the end, he either loses his mind or transcends human concerns, if there's a difference, and she is left alone.
So there you have it! The music here is kind of eerie, incorporating sounds meant to evoke electricity (which IS kind of magic, when you think about it), and also the sounds of birds. That last detail might make you think of Olivier Messiaen, and indeed, he seems to be a strong influence on Hersant, and not just for that reason. There's one particularly magical Christmas scene (maybe I should've seen this a month earlier), incredibly atmospheric, and also featuring an excerpt of "Go Tell it on the Mountain."
Yeah, this was a pretty good opera, I thought. At first I wasn't sure about it; a lot of the Edison stuff seemed kind of goofy, and it was hard to know what we were meant to think of the protagonist. But then I got into it. What can I say?
No comments:
Post a Comment