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Rossini's La Donna Del Lago was better than expected, though admittedly I never expect much from 19th century opera. Juan Diego Florez and Joyce DiDonato were excellent as Giacomo/Uberto and Elena. That hardly says enough. They were spectacular. I've seen Florez once or twice before, but never in a role match that let him sparkle with life the way this one did. (I have seen DiDonato as Rosina in Barbiere, so I can't say the same of her, but she was great, too)

It's a story about a beautiful, headstrong young Scottish girl, Elena, whose father was a significant noble in King James's court until he allied himself with the rebels and was exiled to the Scottish highlands. The King disguises himself as a hunter named Uberto to try to make time with Elena, but she is SO not interested. She's in love with the warrior poet Malcolm, who's been away fighting the rebellion for months. Meanwhile, her father is trying to get her to marry the rebel warrior prince Roderigo, since that marital union between Roderigo and Elena will unite the highland clans and help their rebel cause. So she interprets Uberto's praise as him being a friendly stranger she has no interest in, and he's enough of a Nice Guy that he doesn't realize he's been friendzoned until Act II.

What makes all of this tension interesting is that this is an opera with no bad guys. Roderigo is the closest the opera comes, since he is trying to have Elena's father force her to marry him, but he doesn't actually carry through with it and it's pretty clear that when he realizes she doesn't love him, he's upset about it. (And Rossini cares so little about his manpain that he kills him off-screen and mentions it as an aside in the general litany of everything going bad for the rebels.) And everyone else has faults and flaws, and those faults and flaws cause conflict and pain, but everyone has reasons for what they're doing that in a vacuum seem pretty sound. And in the end, they all get together and work it out so that nobody else has to die!!!! Wait, this is an opera seria?

My favorite part of the opera was the Act II opening duet between Uberto and Elena, in which he confesses her love and she rebuffs him. Because it is completely not about Uberto. Elena has just received word that her father has gone missing and she is frantic with worry, so the confession of love is besides the point to her, especially since she's not interested in him romantically. Rossini's music for the scene emphasizes her anxiety, with dizzying, skittering coloratura lines. And as she is frantic to the point of dismay, Uberto goes through this litany of Nice Guy moves, complaining that she led him on, telling her that he'll kill himself if she doesn't date him, threatening to go completely out of her life, trying to force himself on her... and then finally he snaps out of it, decides he's never going to win her over and realizes that he's been making this person he cares about deeply very upset, and... tells her he's giving up his claim on her and will just be a loyal friend like she wants. And he's not lying. Like a a Nice Guy turning into a nice guy. In a 19th century opera!

But that's not even the point. The point of this scene is that war is terrible and yet it makes you realize what you value in the world. Elena spent the whole first act furious with her father, and he with her, for their inability to agree on her marital plans. But with the war come close to home, and with the two of them separated and aware of the danger the other faces, their love for each other comes to the forefront, painfully starkly. Even though it's ostensibly a courtship duet, what Rossini is really talking about here is families coming together. Uberto's part in the duet would almost be comic relief, if it weren't so pathetic.

And the choices Elena struggles with are so rich and complicated. She is no Juliet revolting against her parents' incomprehensible decrees. She understands exactly why her father wants her to marry Roderigo, and she is torn between her love for Malcolm and her willingness to be miserable with Roderigo for the sake of her duty. It's very quietly a story about politics. In the end of the opera, when she goes to appeal to the King for her father and lover's lives, and she realizes that the King is Uberto, she is presented with a really stark and horrible choice.

She can beg him for their lives as a friend, and hope that he really wasn't lying about turning from a Nice Guy to a nice guy. Or she can make the same deal she was about to be forced to make with Roderigo, to unite all of Scotland instead of just the Highlands by offering to marry King James in exchange for peace and the lives of the people she cares about. The libretto never mentions this choice, but it sets it up so well it's not necessary to mention it. And though she chooses the former and emerges with the opera's happiest possible ending, the ending is not a certainty for her by any means until it happens. (Though I think I would enjoy happy polyfic for this fandom where after Elena and Malcolm are married, they let James into their relationship, the fic I most want is the Marriage of Figaro fusion where James tries to sneak in a prima noctis as King of Scotland and Elena outsmarts him.)

In short, gripping, beautiful, morally complicated opera with a fantastic heroine and several other wonderfully rich characters. Considering the last Rossini opera I saw was Le Comte D'Ory, that's way more than I'd dared to hope for.