Hey look, after everything I've watched, here we have my first nineteenth-century Ukrainian opera! Go. Figure. Almost every opera with a woman's first and last name for a title is a tragedy. The only exceptions I can think of are obscure-ish contemporary operas: Harriet Tubman and Dolores Claiborne. But: Adriana Lecouvreur, Anna Bolena, Anna Nicole, Beatrice Cenci, Francesca da Rimini, Kátja Kabanová, Lucrezia Borgia, Luisa Miller, and Manon Lescaut, in terms of things I've seen. There is a clear pattern! Let's see where this one falls.
Well, it's again a peasant thing. Natalka is in love with Petro, but she's sad because he's been working abroad these five years. A rich bum named Vozniy comes and asks for her hand, but she refuses. The village elder Viborniy turns up and Vozniy asks him to intercede on his behalf. Which he does. Natalka's mother Terpilikha is annoyed because they're poor and their problems would be solved if her dang daughter would just go with Vozniy. So for her mother's sake, she agrees, sadly. But then, Petro shows up. Natalka declares that she loves him and she is NOT marrying Vozniy. But seeing Terpilikha's outrage, Petro decides to nobly(?) give up his claim. Vozniy is touched by this and decides to let him have her anyway. All right. That's it.
So...simple plot. Not a tragedy, obviously. Actually, what might not be so obvious, it's an operetta. Lots of spoken dialogue, which isn't great for me--as you know, I'm kind of lukewarm on spoken text in any event, and if I can't even understand it, it becomes REALLY pointless. I dunno, though--I'm not really convinced I'd be very impressed by this in any event. The music I found pretty thin, the same as Tarus Bulba--it's possible that, like Massenet, Lysenko is shaking out to be a composer that I don't like that much for reasons I can't quite understand (I did like Koza-dereza, his short children's opera, however). Of course, I can't say much for the story here either: in particular, Petro is pretty darned weak as a romantic hero. He doesn't even appear until the third act, and then, this idea of him just giving up Natalka? I mean, it would be one thing if she had fallen out of love with you; that would suck, but you would probably just have to accept it, lest you become an MRA/"nice guy" type. But when she's explicitly telling you she only wants to be with you? Well, I kind of get the impression you wanted out of this relationship in any case. At least I hope so, because if you're really folding because you don't want to upset her mother, let's face it, you're too much of a chickenshit to deserve her.
In fairness, there may be intricacies to this that, for obvious reasons, I'm not getting. I don't know, though. I doubt there are any circumstances under which I'd love it. Which is too bad, because it marks the end of the Ukrainian Opera Marathon, the reason being: I've seen every Ukrainian opera I can find. Counting the three I'd previously seen, that's ten total. I searched as thoroughly as I could, but I'm coming up empty at this point. It's entirely possible--probably, I would almost say--that there's more that I just haven't found because it's obscure enough that there's no information on it available outside the Ukrainian or Russian internet. If so, please let me know. If not, that is that.
I know, I know, it doesn't really mean anything. Me watching Ukrainian operas helps the Ukrainian people in no way. Still, nothing wrong with highlighting the artistry of a culture currently under attack. I wish I had something pithy to say in closing.
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