Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Grand opera survives, thanks to attention-enhancing devices 0 and babes
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Operagoer applauds the subtitles as experience-enhancing devices
These thoughts came forth while watching Going My Way, the 1944 Christmas
favorite movie. 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 opera is dying. Younger people still think of the art form
as stiff, formal and filled with false emotions, with stout tenors expressing undying
love to broad-beamed sopranos
Opera certainly has come a long way since I spent hours in the standee line at
the old Met on Broadway and 38th Street in Rudolf Bing's 1950s. Think of Denyce
Graves, free-wheeling through the emotions of the gypsy girl Carmen, 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. But opera is getting that kind of upgrade, 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 - today's 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. A Robert Wilson's stylized Lohengrin of 1999 is, although perhaps a welcome changeover for the afficionados, jars with the sensibilities of a newcomer (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 afford to 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 have brought on younger and thinner figures on the stage, with movements.
This just by way of introduction for another subject, content. Until
recently opera fans, multi-lingual or not, had to rely on brief program notes
for the content of the scenes. Without details, the program booklet descriptions make the opera
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 memorizers of
librettos.
Take Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Puccini had a lively interest in America and an understanding of the 1900's. When Lt Pinkerton rents the lovely house for a hundred years and marries the beautiful geisha girl,both he and the cynical marriage broker understand that he can break both contracts. He explains it to Sharples, the compassionate American
consul, as the right of a conquering eterpreneur, and that
when the time comes, he will marry a pure US girl. In a sense that's
understandable, such temporary arrangements apparently 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 Cio-Cio-San, 16 years old, 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 the mother, the faithful San
killed herself. Pinkerton's regrets did come across as perfunctory, and his wife's main interest, in the face of San's deep anguish, came through as selfish. For me, these were new insights in the realistic characterization of the personages. Puccini, the master of melodies and verismo.
On the other hand, the villain in Giuseppe Verdi's Traviata (1853), 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 respectably 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 admits and confesses. Noble Verdi, creator of catharsis for the audiences.
On a different tack, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (1868), Richard Wagner's comic opera. Comic Wagner? Yes, up to a point. The shticks conceal a level of philosophy of egalitarianism and social order, and, on another level, a discourse of poetic form. Being able to follow the words gives the operagoer an insight that makes the six hours - longest quality opera on record - flow without any onset of boredom. The comic devices seem stretched out and antiquated, until one remembers that this is where some of those vaudeville routines originated. The comedy of "love conquers all" reveals Wagner's genius (he was the first great composer to write his own librettos), until the last 12 minutes, when a jarring and unnecessary, actually clashing section of German nationalism is inserted. Sort of "Oh, yes, I was having so much fun that I forgot to pay my dues." Poor Wagner.
Poor Mozart, too. Idomeneus, an early opera that was going to make some money for the 24-year experienced composer, has a Trojan War plot that leaves singers standing on the stage for minutes on end, making promises, or longing for love and death. The plot revolves around a king's attempt to escape a storm by offering to sacrifice the first persom met - who was his son.The subtitles revealed that the god Neptune had actually exacted the promise, and at the end, overcome by the nobility of the family members, retracted it. Mozart was left with an end scene of a diappointed Greek prioncess, Electra, crying betrayal and thrashing about. If it were not for the music, this loser would have been deep-sixed centuries ago.
Operagoer applauds the subtitles as experience-enhancing devices
These thoughts came forth while watching Going My Way, the 1944 Christmas
favorite movie. 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 opera is dying. Younger people still think of the art form
as stiff, formal and filled with false emotions, with stout tenors expressing undying
love to broad-beamed sopranos
Opera certainly has come a long way since I spent hours in the standee line at
the old Met on Broadway and 38th Street in Rudolf Bing's 1950s. Think of Denyce
Graves, free-wheeling through the emotions of the gypsy girl Carmen, 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. But opera is getting that kind of upgrade, 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 - today's 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. A Robert Wilson's stylized Lohengrin of 1999 is, although perhaps a welcome changeover for the afficionados, jars with the sensibilities of a newcomer (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 afford to 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 have brought on younger and thinner figures on the stage, with movements.
This just by way of introduction for another subject, content. Until
recently opera fans, multi-lingual or not, had to rely on brief program notes
for the content of the scenes. Without details, the program booklet descriptions make the opera
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 memorizers of
librettos.
Take Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Puccini had a lively interest in America and an understanding of the 1900's. When Lt Pinkerton rents the lovely house for a hundred years and marries the beautiful geisha girl,both he and the cynical marriage broker understand that he can break both contracts. He explains it to Sharples, the compassionate American
consul, as the right of a conquering eterpreneur, and that
when the time comes, he will marry a pure US girl. In a sense that's
understandable, such temporary arrangements apparently 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 Cio-Cio-San, 16 years old, 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 the mother, the faithful San
killed herself. Pinkerton's regrets did come across as perfunctory, and his wife's main interest, in the face of San's deep anguish, came through as selfish. For me, these were new insights in the realistic characterization of the personages. Puccini, the master of melodies and verismo.
On the other hand, the villain in Giuseppe Verdi's Traviata (1853), 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 respectably 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 admits and confesses. Noble Verdi, creator of catharsis for the audiences.
On a different tack, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (1868), Richard Wagner's comic opera. Comic Wagner? Yes, up to a point. The shticks conceal a level of philosophy of egalitarianism and social order, and, on another level, a discourse of poetic form. Being able to follow the words gives the operagoer an insight that makes the six hours - longest quality opera on record - flow without any onset of boredom. The comic devices seem stretched out and antiquated, until one remembers that this is where some of those vaudeville routines originated. The comedy of "love conquers all" reveals Wagner's genius (he was the first great composer to write his own librettos), until the last 12 minutes, when a jarring and unnecessary, actually clashing section of German nationalism is inserted. Sort of "Oh, yes, I was having so much fun that I forgot to pay my dues." Poor Wagner.
Poor Mozart, too. Idomeneus, an early opera that was going to make some money for the 24-year experienced composer, has a Trojan War plot that leaves singers standing on the stage for minutes on end, making promises, or longing for love and death. The plot revolves around a king's attempt to escape a storm by offering to sacrifice the first persom met - who was his son.The subtitles revealed that the god Neptune had actually exacted the promise, and at the end, overcome by the nobility of the family members, retracted it. Mozart was left with an end scene of a diappointed Greek prioncess, Electra, crying betrayal and thrashing about. If it were not for the music, this loser would have been deep-sixed centuries ago.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:23 PM 
