A new-to-me Vivaldi opera! Hooray!
So here we have Anastasio, a Byzantine emperor, and Giustino, a peasant who became captain of the imperial guard and later an emperor in his own right (though not through murder, surprisingly--anyway, the opera doesn't get that far). There's also the queen and a woman in love with Giustino and cross-dressing and romantic misunderstanding and an enemy king--all very typical opera seria stuff.
Musically, this is...well, it's not as though I have THAT clear a recollection of the specifics of the music in all the Vivaldi operas I've seen, but I had the subjective impression here that this may be the best. It's just an absolute cavalcade of one musical delight after another. It's staggering, really. Great cast, as well; I was especially excited to see Raffaele Pe, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite countertenors, as Anastasio.
The production, however...hmm. So it definitely looks like a very traditional thing, and in some ways it is. But in some ways, it's not, and I think it mainly just makes a the plot harder to follow. It's unclear to me how much of the confusion stems from the libretto itself and how much from how it's presented. It is very strange to me how many of the insufferable traditionalists who moan about any opera being placed in a new setting are praising this to the stars for being, well, traditional. Really? So the baffling business where Anastasio is presented as an opera composer and several scenes are presented as being from his work and it's just generally kind of baffling and presents the emperor as an extremely modern, non-baroque sort of character? Or the fact that it ends with a possible assassin or something pointing a gun at him? I mean, DAMN, is your criticism of non-traditional productions REALLY so surface-level that nothing beyond the costuming even registers with you? Sheesh. And this is one instance where, if you DID criticize the production, I'd actually be on your side. You've lost a powerful ally in me!
Well, never mind. Still an incredible piece of work. GOD, I love baroque opera. Why isn't Vivaldi more commonly staged? He's brilliant.
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