Discord and rhyme

[muckefuck]

Unfortunately, I think my expectations were set a bit high for Fidelio. Nuphy warned me that it wasn't much with the drama and all, but I still didn't think the plot would be quite so...lame. Basically, it all hinges on a deus ex machina. The supposed heroine does nothing useful, but is lionised at the end for saving the hero with her undying devotion. The freed and happy prisoners sing "Love and courage saved the day!" when really it was dumb luck and deception. Yeah, I see why it's considered a "problematic" opera. In order to save her imprisoned hubby, our heroine dresses as a man and woos (to the point of engagement!) the warden's daughter, who is immediately and completely forgotten by everybody--including her father, who spent much of the first act worrying about and making arrangements for her security and happiness after his approaching demise--when the hero is freed. There may have been many details of the staging I didn't cotton to, but I found it refreshing the way the director literally foregrounded her plight by planting her just right of downstage centre, in plain view of the entire house, as everyone else is jubilantly carrying on.

Also, the happy mob brutally and summarily murder the villain, but someone (the librettist? the director?) doesn't have the stones to show this. It takes place upstage behind some radio tower thing. I swear, the whole thing is like a catalog of dramatic ironies. At least it was sung beautifully.

On the way out, we passed a trio of busking saxophonists at the corner of Wacker and Washington. Actually, "busking" is generous; they were really panhandling with instruments. What made them think they could get money from this crowd? We could hear the racket from a block off. It was an attempt at "Happy Together", but, as one of our companions put it, "They're playing side by side, but not together." Adding insult was the fact that they stationed themselves just outside the performers' entrance. Do you know the face a person makes when they suddenly and unexpectably encountre a horrible overpowering stench? That was the look on the orchestra members' faces as they exited. You couldn't have gotten a stronger reaction if you'd pegged each of them with a slushball the moment they opened the door.

I actually felt surprisingly good at that moment. Thanks for the karma, everyone! It certainly seems to be working so far! I was a little too wound up to sleep, of course, so I put up my New Year's couplets outside the door. (I'll toss the beans tonight.) My orange tree was feeling a little dry, so I doused it in the sink; tonight maybe I'll wash the leaves to bring out the gloss. Because, you know, it's not like I have anything important to do to prepare for Saturday!

Comments

[bunj.livejournal.com]

And I thought Tosca had a stupid plot (I kept thinking of Heathers and the 'ich luge' bullets). Glad to here the singing was good (Tosca was also saved by the music and performances).

We put out our decorations on Monday. Happy New Year!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

There's a whole brace of operas which have what I like to call "opera plots". I'm not talking so much about basic tearjerkers like Boheme as the eye-rollingly convoluted melodramatic train-wrecks of which Trovatore is the canonical example. (As Mme. Galupe-Borszkh famously said, "Even if you know Trovatore, you don't know Trovatore!") So far, La Giaconda wins the prize for the most opera plotty plot of any opera I've seen.