Thursday, December 27, 2001
Opera - Puccini and the Bingle
These thoughts were prompted while watching Going My Way, the 1944 Christmas favorite that earned seven Oscars including those for Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. It has a scene where the Metropolitan Opera star Rise Stevens sings Carmen, and I was struck by the stiffness and woodenness of the sequence. No wonder the stalwarts are dying out. Younger people still think of the art form as stiff, formal and filled with false emotions, stout renors expressing undying love to even stouter sopranos
Opera certainly has come a long way since I spent hours in the standee line at Rudolf Bing’s old Met on Broadway and 38th Street in the 1950s. Think of Denyce Graves free-wheeling through the emotions of the gypsy girl, a dancer and nearly an acrobat, with an expressive face, body and voice. The experience can be more alive and charged up than any rock concert - except that the audience of elders does not jump up and shout quite that readily. But opera is getting that kind of charge-up, much to the dismay of traditionalists. Let’s face it, the art form is not sacred and must sell itself to today’s audience, used to movies and TV, not to speak of live stage, where the players have figures, faces and emotions appropriate to the scene, and mismatches do not succeed. And the scenery - lush and lively Franco Zefirelli designs bring ohs and ahs from the newcomers who want their $90 worth of presentation, while sparse modern designs do not attract. I am sorry, Robert Wilson’s Lohengrin of 1999 is inappropriate, although his designs might do for Philip Glass opera.
A recent issue of Opera News discussed the quest of opera impressarios for handsome and lithe singers. Purists cannot sneer at it if they want their beloved art form to survive, it will die if it has no under retirement age audience. And the singers recognize it, the last few years of Met finalists’ contests brought on younger and lithe figures on the stage, with movements.
This just by way of introduction for another subject, content. Up until recently opera fans, multi-lingual or not, had to rely on brief program notes for the content of the scene. Without details, the descriptions make the content insipid and banal. With the arrival of subtitles and supertitles, we have been given insights into the subtleties of the libretists’ and also comporers’ artfulness. Although sometimes distracting, the titles do enhance one’s appreciation. This is a pleasure, heretofore reserved for offline readers of librettos.
Take Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Puccini had a lively interest in America (Girl of the Golden West,xxx) and an understanding of the 1900 xxxWhen Lt Pinkerton rents the lovely house for a hundred years and marries the lovely geisha girl, both he and the cynical marriage broker understand that he has the right to break the contracts. He explains it to Sharples, the compassionate American consul, as the right of an enterprising and conquering eterpreneur, and that when the time comes, he will marry a pure US girl. In a sense that’s understandable, temporary arrangements apparently have been and continue to be the tradition in the East, not only for Americans but also for other emissaries of European and now Japanese capital markets. The girl was a geisha, presumed to have flexible standards. Unfortunately XX-San 16 years ol, saw the contract as one forever. When Pinkerton came back with a new wife, found that he had a son and was mostly interested in taking him away from San, the faithful xx killed herself. Pinkerton’s regrets did come across as perfunctory, and his wifes main interest, in the face of San’s deep anguish, was portrayed as selfish. For me, these were new insights in the characterization of the personages, pointing out the realism of their portrayal.
On the other hand, the villain in Verdis Traviata, Giorgio Germont, becomes more human as the dialogue progresses. Father of the courtesan’s lover Alfredo, he barges into their country hideaway, accusing the demi-mondaine of ruining his family, although he is instantly inpressed by the Violetta’s dignity, more so when he finds that she is selling her treasures to pay for their retreat. Nevertheless, he takes off his coat, practically rolls up his sleeves, and relentlessly barrages the woman with his demands to cease the relationship so that his daughter can get married.. The noble Violetta not only acquiesces but plays along, letting Alfredo believe that she has another lover. Mean Giorgio not only accepts her sacrifice but conceals the true reason of her departure. But his better feelings are coming forward, little by little, and when Alfredo demeans Violetta in public, he rebukes his son, still not revealing the reason for Violetta’s behavior. Obviously, a reconciliation still is to be avoided at all costs. By Act Three, though, he has revealed all to his son, by mail, and his emotions come true as he
Opera certainly has come a long way since I spent hours in the standee line at Rudolf Bing’s old Met on Broadway and 38th Street in the 1950s. Think of Denyce Graves free-wheeling through the emotions of the gypsy girl, a dancer and nearly an acrobat, with an expressive face, body and voice. The experience can be more alive and charged up than any rock concert - except that the audience of elders does not jump up and shout quite that readily. But opera is getting that kind of charge-up, much to the dismay of traditionalists. Let’s face it, the art form is not sacred and must sell itself to today’s audience, used to movies and TV, not to speak of live stage, where the players have figures, faces and emotions appropriate to the scene, and mismatches do not succeed. And the scenery - lush and lively Franco Zefirelli designs bring ohs and ahs from the newcomers who want their $90 worth of presentation, while sparse modern designs do not attract. I am sorry, Robert Wilson’s Lohengrin of 1999 is inappropriate, although his designs might do for Philip Glass opera.
A recent issue of Opera News discussed the quest of opera impressarios for handsome and lithe singers. Purists cannot sneer at it if they want their beloved art form to survive, it will die if it has no under retirement age audience. And the singers recognize it, the last few years of Met finalists’ contests brought on younger and lithe figures on the stage, with movements.
This just by way of introduction for another subject, content. Up until recently opera fans, multi-lingual or not, had to rely on brief program notes for the content of the scene. Without details, the descriptions make the content insipid and banal. With the arrival of subtitles and supertitles, we have been given insights into the subtleties of the libretists’ and also comporers’ artfulness. Although sometimes distracting, the titles do enhance one’s appreciation. This is a pleasure, heretofore reserved for offline readers of librettos.
Take Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Puccini had a lively interest in America (Girl of the Golden West,xxx) and an understanding of the 1900 xxxWhen Lt Pinkerton rents the lovely house for a hundred years and marries the lovely geisha girl, both he and the cynical marriage broker understand that he has the right to break the contracts. He explains it to Sharples, the compassionate American consul, as the right of an enterprising and conquering eterpreneur, and that when the time comes, he will marry a pure US girl. In a sense that’s understandable, temporary arrangements apparently have been and continue to be the tradition in the East, not only for Americans but also for other emissaries of European and now Japanese capital markets. The girl was a geisha, presumed to have flexible standards. Unfortunately XX-San 16 years ol, saw the contract as one forever. When Pinkerton came back with a new wife, found that he had a son and was mostly interested in taking him away from San, the faithful xx killed herself. Pinkerton’s regrets did come across as perfunctory, and his wifes main interest, in the face of San’s deep anguish, was portrayed as selfish. For me, these were new insights in the characterization of the personages, pointing out the realism of their portrayal.
On the other hand, the villain in Verdis Traviata, Giorgio Germont, becomes more human as the dialogue progresses. Father of the courtesan’s lover Alfredo, he barges into their country hideaway, accusing the demi-mondaine of ruining his family, although he is instantly inpressed by the Violetta’s dignity, more so when he finds that she is selling her treasures to pay for their retreat. Nevertheless, he takes off his coat, practically rolls up his sleeves, and relentlessly barrages the woman with his demands to cease the relationship so that his daughter can get married.. The noble Violetta not only acquiesces but plays along, letting Alfredo believe that she has another lover. Mean Giorgio not only accepts her sacrifice but conceals the true reason of her departure. But his better feelings are coming forward, little by little, and when Alfredo demeans Violetta in public, he rebukes his son, still not revealing the reason for Violetta’s behavior. Obviously, a reconciliation still is to be avoided at all costs. By Act Three, though, he has revealed all to his son, by mail, and his emotions come true as he
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:33 PM 
