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Mar. 11th, 2022 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI was back at the Metropolitan Opera this week, for the first time(s) in over two years. Twice! I finally felt like it was a reasonable risk to take, and I dunno, I guess we'll see, but I really enjoyed it at least.
Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss
I dunno, I remember liking this production more the last time I saw it, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway. The premise of the show is that at the last minute, the duke has ordered that a opera seria company staging a very Important opera based on the myth of Ariadne and a commedia dell'arte troupe doing silly clown stuff perform simultaneously. Initially they are performing two different shows in parallel, but as time goes on their stories become more and more entangled. It is very, very silly and yet it has that Straussian way of sneaking up on you with profundity. Every time Ariadne sings one of her tragic arias, you are aware of Zerbinetta's mocking, you are aware that Ariadne is taking herself too seriously... but those feelings she has are still real, and Strauss makes you feel them deep in the feels.
I saw it withghost_lingering, and I also was seeing her for the first time in two years, so that was great too.
Don Carlosby Giuseppe Verdi
This was... a lot. It was four and a half hours, and yes, it really needed to be four and a half hours, but also, did it really need to be four and a half hours?
I mean, it was great, no denying that. Musically, I found it a little surprising? It's definitely Verdi, but it felt closer to the Requiem than to any of his operas I know. There's so much religion in it, and that connection to the sublime and the infinite gives it a continuous, almost oppressive heft. There's so much of everything in it, it's an incredibly complicated exploration of the complexities of politics and love and family and religion, yes, it's about all of those things.
Also it is the tinhattiest history ever. Like, as far as I can tell, the actual history is that Philip II had a tweenage son Carlos and Henry II had a tweenage daughter Elizabeth and people said "Maybe marrying them in a couple years would be a good political idea" and then what actually happened is that Philip II married Elizabeth when she was 14, because yikes... In the opera version, this becomes Carlos had an all-consuming love for his fiancee Elizabeth and his father stole her from him. You keep shipping your weird RPF rarepairs, Schiller!
Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss
I dunno, I remember liking this production more the last time I saw it, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway. The premise of the show is that at the last minute, the duke has ordered that a opera seria company staging a very Important opera based on the myth of Ariadne and a commedia dell'arte troupe doing silly clown stuff perform simultaneously. Initially they are performing two different shows in parallel, but as time goes on their stories become more and more entangled. It is very, very silly and yet it has that Straussian way of sneaking up on you with profundity. Every time Ariadne sings one of her tragic arias, you are aware of Zerbinetta's mocking, you are aware that Ariadne is taking herself too seriously... but those feelings she has are still real, and Strauss makes you feel them deep in the feels.
I saw it with
ghost_lingering, and I also was seeing her for the first time in two years, so that was great too.Don Carlosby Giuseppe Verdi
This was... a lot. It was four and a half hours, and yes, it really needed to be four and a half hours, but also, did it really need to be four and a half hours?
I mean, it was great, no denying that. Musically, I found it a little surprising? It's definitely Verdi, but it felt closer to the Requiem than to any of his operas I know. There's so much religion in it, and that connection to the sublime and the infinite gives it a continuous, almost oppressive heft. There's so much of everything in it, it's an incredibly complicated exploration of the complexities of politics and love and family and religion, yes, it's about all of those things.
Also it is the tinhattiest history ever. Like, as far as I can tell, the actual history is that Philip II had a tweenage son Carlos and Henry II had a tweenage daughter Elizabeth and people said "Maybe marrying them in a couple years would be a good political idea" and then what actually happened is that Philip II married Elizabeth when she was 14, because yikes... In the opera version, this becomes Carlos had an all-consuming love for his fiancee Elizabeth and his father stole her from him. You keep shipping your weird RPF rarepairs, Schiller!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-11 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-11 05:01 pm (UTC)and yes, it really needed to be four and a half hours, but also, did it really need to be four and a half hours?
Yeah, I actually come down on the side of "you know, it's really okay to skip the entire first act." Unpopular opinion -- I've just been reading articles where the purist authors are like "but if you skip it you don't have context for Carlos/Elisabeth!! if you skip it you don't have important Elisabeth characterization! if you skip it you don't have the symmetric structure of the first and fifth acts!" All true, but also. Four and a half hours. I have a short attention span! And a particularly short attention span for love duets!
There are other cuts (when compared to the Italian 4-act that I'm more familiar with) that I think make a lot of dramatic sense even though I"m glad we have the 5-act version. Like, Rodrigue's whole monologue to the King is straight from Schiller and I love the music and it's super awesome, but I think the cut version is both dramatically cleaner and also more in-character with the changes Verdi made to Rodrigue's character (who is less of the scheming idealist than Schiller's Posa). And the duet between Elisabeth and Eboli is awesome and yay more women duets, but it sort of doesn't make a whole lot of dramatic sense given that right after this moving duet of forgiveness Eboli is "oh whoops, also I did this other worse thing and had an a affair with your husband." [ETA: Oh wait, I looked up what they did and it looks like they used the cut version of Philip/Posa's scene and didn't use the Elisabeth/Eboli duet (but did keep in the Lacrymosa I referred to later, yay), so never mind this! Good choice on their part, imo.]
It's definitely Verdi, but it felt closer to the Requiem than to any of his operas I know.
This is the French version, so they must have done the bit where Philip mourns for Rodrigue that he later cut from this and stuck into the Lacrymosa of the Requiem instead, and which I loooooove and do NOT think ought to be cut, and think all versions of Don Carlo/s ought to do <3 (Now it's stuck in my brain! :D )
Ugh, it seems like half the people are gone -- I assume Yoncheva was excellent? I am interested in her Elisabeth -- the other time I've seen her in it (in video of course), she was a very canny, cool, practical Elisabeth, facing tragedy head-on. But it was a regie production and I've been wondering how she would come across in a more traditional one. I'd been looking forward to Garanca as Eboli, how was Barton? Also of course interested in Dupuis and how he managed the duet with the King, and his death scene -- and Owens, how was his big solo and Also want to know about his duet with Dupuis (it's my favorite scene, I think it's a pivotal scene, and it's SO good when the singers have chemistry) and also Philip and the Inquisitor, the most riveting and spooky scene?? It looks like Relyea (whom I've never heard of before) might actually have enough heft for the role??
Also it is the tinhattiest history ever. Like, as far as I can tell, the actual history is that Philip II had a tweenage son Carlos and Henry II had a tweenage daughter Elizabeth and people said "Maybe marrying them in a couple years would be a good political idea" and then what actually happened is that Philip II married Elizabeth when she was 14, because yikes...
It's even worse than that, Philip II married Elisabeth instead (at least such is my understanding) because Don Carlos was... rapidly deteriorating mentally. On the bright side, Elisabeth and Philip seem to have actually had a very happy marriage! (Until she died early having babies because ARGH.)
But also, fun fact, Schiller might also have been channeling Prince Frederick (later the Great) and his friend/lover Katte, who was executed by his father, King Frederick Wilhelm. (No het love triangles, though.) (This is the genesis of how I somehow got pulled into 18th-century historical fandom!)
And of course I want to see Ariadne too! But, uh, Don Carlos has my heart.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-11 08:14 pm (UTC)I think I can buy this. You'd have to do a little more exposition to cover for the loss, but yes, even for something as brilliant as Don Carlos it's a lot to ask for me to see the whole thing in one sitting.
All the singers were amazing. Dupuis was probably my favorite, Rodrigue is such a complicated character and he had a great combination of charisma and calculation. Actually in general I love how the story forces everyone to balance personal relationships with big political questions, it's really neat. I loved Owens's solo, and his scene with the Inquisitor (how is it so heartbreaking when they're both such awful people?) though I really wish there were another scene in Act II with Philippe and Elizabeth duetting together, I felt like the biggest narrative weakness in the opera was that we don't get enough of a window into their marriage.
Even without it, I bumped on the way the confession sort of comes out in spurts, but I was kind of okay with bumping on that. The weird thing about the opera that I found hilarious and kind of moving is that for something almost totally ahistorical, it felt like it had some of the bumpiness of real history- things didn't seem to twist in the ways that lead directly to either pure tragedy or pure romance, but took a more circuitous path. It made human sense to me that Eboli's confession would dribble out, and I loved Yoncheva's Elizabeth having to process and then reprocess on the fly, she showed such emotional intelligence in that sequence. It's not the best dramatic approach, but it felt right.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-12 05:44 am (UTC)Heh, you didn't think that Philippe ordering out Elisabeth's best friend was window enough? I liked that we got that public face in Act II, and then the private face in Act IV which isn't much better but shows more of the complexity.
Actually in general I love how the story forces everyone to balance personal relationships with big political questions, it's really neat.
YES THIS. Public and private duty, and the way they intersect and contradict, it's fabulous and totally my jam.
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Date: 2022-03-11 05:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-12 07:24 am (UTC)Oh, I'm so envious.
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Date: 2022-03-13 02:21 am (UTC)