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Apr. 8th, 2014 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretFor my birthday I saw Strauss's "Arabella" at the Met. I have updated my list of favorite operas accordingly, placing it 5th among the 20th century operas I have seen. It is not a coincidence that three Strauss operas number among that top 5. I really, really love Strauss operas.
Arabella is possibly, technically, a romantic comedy. It has elements of classical operatic farce, but very often they're played with psychological realism and sensitivity, so that they're not actually all that funny. It's probably better to say that Arabella is a thoughtful Modernist romance with light comic elements.
Strauss takes the classic crossdressing farce element and makes it something closer to genderqueer, with perplexing results. The Waldners' second daughter Zdenka was 'wild as a boy when she was a child', so they raised ze as a boy because two dowries would have been prohibitively expensive for their family of poor Viennese gentry. I'm honestly not sure what pronouns to use for Zdenka/Zdenko, though. Zdenko answers to male pronouns and Zdenka answers to female pronouns and when Arabella tells her hormonal, anxious and lovestruck sibling that perhaps it's time to drop the masquerade and come out as a female, Zdenko boldly proclaims "I will be a man until I die." Of course, tragically Zdenko falls in love with zir male best friend Matteo, who is himself in love with Arabella, so Zdenko must figure out how to masquerade as a female in order to win his love. All of this is barely, if at all, played for laughs.
And this is the less interesting love story. The top line billing of Arabella and her mysterious stranger Mandryka lives up to its promotion with gusto. Arabella is young and beautiful and flighty, and she is torn between her sheltered girlhood and the uncertain and risky future that awaits her once she finally stops playing games and chooses a husband.
Mandryka, meanwhile, is the best. He shows up with a letter from Arabella's father, but he apologizes for being unable to read it: "Right after I received it, I was hunting a bear, so it's covered in blood." He is something like Prince Charming meets Count Octavian, noble and sincere and generous and yet a little bit preposterous. His dialogue is full of goofy "In my country..." lines. My favorite Mandryka line is "When I was coming to Vienna, I called my broker and told him I needed to sell my forest now. In Vienna you have to spend money like you breathe air. It was a good forest, with hermits and gypsies, but it's okay, I have lots of other forests." SORRY LOLLING FOREVER.
Arabella pretty much instantly recognizes that he is both a good man and an adventure, and they are engaged in a love duet that completely melted me with FEELS. And I don't normally have FEELS about operatic love duets. There's usually a part of me that stays outside, analytical, thinking about the character dynamics. Not this time. I was basically gibbering after the second act was over. Boy can Strauss write for the soprano voice. And his orchestral music ain't half bad, either.
Then there are romanticomic misunderstandings, which don't feel funny because the music takes is seriously and the stakes are so high for these people, and then a gorgeous reconciliation sequence takes place that highlights why Arabella and Mandryka are so perfect for each other, so destined to struggle with their love for each other for the rest of their charmed lives. Seriously, I just love their love. Gibbering, I say.
Arabella is possibly, technically, a romantic comedy. It has elements of classical operatic farce, but very often they're played with psychological realism and sensitivity, so that they're not actually all that funny. It's probably better to say that Arabella is a thoughtful Modernist romance with light comic elements.
Strauss takes the classic crossdressing farce element and makes it something closer to genderqueer, with perplexing results. The Waldners' second daughter Zdenka was 'wild as a boy when she was a child', so they raised ze as a boy because two dowries would have been prohibitively expensive for their family of poor Viennese gentry. I'm honestly not sure what pronouns to use for Zdenka/Zdenko, though. Zdenko answers to male pronouns and Zdenka answers to female pronouns and when Arabella tells her hormonal, anxious and lovestruck sibling that perhaps it's time to drop the masquerade and come out as a female, Zdenko boldly proclaims "I will be a man until I die." Of course, tragically Zdenko falls in love with zir male best friend Matteo, who is himself in love with Arabella, so Zdenko must figure out how to masquerade as a female in order to win his love. All of this is barely, if at all, played for laughs.
And this is the less interesting love story. The top line billing of Arabella and her mysterious stranger Mandryka lives up to its promotion with gusto. Arabella is young and beautiful and flighty, and she is torn between her sheltered girlhood and the uncertain and risky future that awaits her once she finally stops playing games and chooses a husband.
Mandryka, meanwhile, is the best. He shows up with a letter from Arabella's father, but he apologizes for being unable to read it: "Right after I received it, I was hunting a bear, so it's covered in blood." He is something like Prince Charming meets Count Octavian, noble and sincere and generous and yet a little bit preposterous. His dialogue is full of goofy "In my country..." lines. My favorite Mandryka line is "When I was coming to Vienna, I called my broker and told him I needed to sell my forest now. In Vienna you have to spend money like you breathe air. It was a good forest, with hermits and gypsies, but it's okay, I have lots of other forests." SORRY LOLLING FOREVER.
Arabella pretty much instantly recognizes that he is both a good man and an adventure, and they are engaged in a love duet that completely melted me with FEELS. And I don't normally have FEELS about operatic love duets. There's usually a part of me that stays outside, analytical, thinking about the character dynamics. Not this time. I was basically gibbering after the second act was over. Boy can Strauss write for the soprano voice. And his orchestral music ain't half bad, either.
Then there are romanticomic misunderstandings, which don't feel funny because the music takes is seriously and the stakes are so high for these people, and then a gorgeous reconciliation sequence takes place that highlights why Arabella and Mandryka are so perfect for each other, so destined to struggle with their love for each other for the rest of their charmed lives. Seriously, I just love their love. Gibbering, I say.