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May. 3rd, 2012 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI saw Janacek's Vec Makropulos at the Met Wednesday night, with Karita Mattila singing Emilia. It was pretty thrilling. starlady saw her sing the role in a different production of the same opera at SFO last year, and she raved about Mattila, so I was looking forward to it. She didn't disappoint. Mattila was funny, charming, devastating, tragic, all as required. Her Emilia was Callas and Violetta and Kleopatra all rolled into one.
The Met's staging was maybe a little tired, but it was functional and really never wrongfooted. In some ways, Vec Makropulos is not a very big opera. It only has a few significant arias, the story takes place in settings like a law office and backstage after an opera, and mostly the opera moves forward on the strength of recitative.
But it's got such a neat set of characters. Moody Kristina, the diva in training, and nerdy Kolenaty who inherited from his father not money but the job of representing someone who is owed money. And absurd lover Janek, such a glorious parody of people like Rodolfo or Alfredo, and his father Jaroslav Prus, who is probably the best human in the play and gets one of the most beautifully devastating arcs. And at the center of it all, Emilia, who I described totealdear as "a manic pixie dream girl who's a nihilistic bitch." She comes into these peoples' lives in a whirlwind of beauty and song and sexuality and totally alters their lives in her wake, her motives are elusive and invisible and somewhat magical. And she teaches them about themselves and what they can be. And what they learn is that their miserable, ordinary lives which they desperately want to overcome are better than the alternative. Gregor is better off not getting his inheritance. Kristina is better off not mutilating her soul to become a diva. Prus is better off going gracefully into old age, not seeking some emotionless sexual escapade.
What's so fascinating about Emilia is how little she cares about the havoc and misery she creates. When she manipulates someone to get what she wants, it's a rote, mechanical process. She only puts in as much effort as she needs to. Her lies and put-ons to Janek are tedious and obvious, because he's a young fool and doesn't deserve or require any more attention than that. There is no joy in her machinations, only a mechanical, methodical motion toward her goal... even as the play's motion convinces her that the goal she seeks is not what she actually wants. I think that might be the true magic and genius of Janacek's story, that he gives the manic pixie dream girl an arc of her own, mysterious and inscrutable but in the end decipherable.
starlady saw her sing the role in a different production of the same opera at SFO last year, and she raved about Mattila, so I was looking forward to it. She didn't disappoint. Mattila was funny, charming, devastating, tragic, all as required. Her Emilia was Callas and Violetta and Kleopatra all rolled into one.The Met's staging was maybe a little tired, but it was functional and really never wrongfooted. In some ways, Vec Makropulos is not a very big opera. It only has a few significant arias, the story takes place in settings like a law office and backstage after an opera, and mostly the opera moves forward on the strength of recitative.
But it's got such a neat set of characters. Moody Kristina, the diva in training, and nerdy Kolenaty who inherited from his father not money but the job of representing someone who is owed money. And absurd lover Janek, such a glorious parody of people like Rodolfo or Alfredo, and his father Jaroslav Prus, who is probably the best human in the play and gets one of the most beautifully devastating arcs. And at the center of it all, Emilia, who I described to
tealdear as "a manic pixie dream girl who's a nihilistic bitch." She comes into these peoples' lives in a whirlwind of beauty and song and sexuality and totally alters their lives in her wake, her motives are elusive and invisible and somewhat magical. And she teaches them about themselves and what they can be. And what they learn is that their miserable, ordinary lives which they desperately want to overcome are better than the alternative. Gregor is better off not getting his inheritance. Kristina is better off not mutilating her soul to become a diva. Prus is better off going gracefully into old age, not seeking some emotionless sexual escapade.What's so fascinating about Emilia is how little she cares about the havoc and misery she creates. When she manipulates someone to get what she wants, it's a rote, mechanical process. She only puts in as much effort as she needs to. Her lies and put-ons to Janek are tedious and obvious, because he's a young fool and doesn't deserve or require any more attention than that. There is no joy in her machinations, only a mechanical, methodical motion toward her goal... even as the play's motion convinces her that the goal she seeks is not what she actually wants. I think that might be the true magic and genius of Janacek's story, that he gives the manic pixie dream girl an arc of her own, mysterious and inscrutable but in the end decipherable.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-03 09:41 pm (UTC)Who burned the formula at the end, may I ask?
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Date: 2012-05-03 11:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-03 11:42 pm (UTC)