Getting a Grip on Rossini

Chez Buce has enjoyed the viewing of two Rossini operas in the last couple of weeks, with  lot on common. One, we'd never really heard of either. Two, they both showcase Juan Diego Flórez who (among other achievements) is on the shortlist of Mrs. B's operatic heartthrobs.  And three, they both come from the Rossini Festival at Pesaro, Rossini's  birthplace, on the east coast of Italy, downhill from Urbino and south of Ravenna.    Mr. and Mrs. Buce have never set foot in Pesaro.  I guess I've breezed by at 55 mph but without so much as a how d'ya do.  

But our inattention doesn't seem to have impeded them in any particular way.  Seems like they have established themselves as a major-league summer festival venue, with three theaters, a comfy state subsidy, and the mandate to keep alive--or better, to revivify-- some of the overlooked items among the 40-odd entries in Rossini's operatic catalogue.

The two new entries in our consciousness are Matilde de Shabran, #32 (1821)  if my count is correct,  and Zelmira, #33,  a year later in in 1822.  Zelmira gets a place in the larger constellation because it was the next-to-the last Rossini opera to open in Italy, and also the first to introduce him to a more general European audience (months later, in Vienna).

This makes about a dozen Rossini operas we've seen live or on disk.  We've perhaps as many Verdis, so we've reached a point where it is possible to put these individual items in a more general framework. Let me see what I can do.

One, it's increasingly clear how much Rossini must have dominated the Italian scene in his own time.   Stendhal brackets him with Mozart although the compliment verges on the back-handed:

I have bracketed [Mozart and Rossini]  together for, under the combined influence of distance, of he difficulty experienced in reading Mozart's scores, and of the average Italian's utter scorn for any artist of foreign origin, it ma legitimately be claimed that Mozart and Rossini made their début simultaneously in the year 1812.

So Stendhal, Life of Rossini 125 (Richard N. Coe trans. 1970).  It's actually not entirely clear what Stendhal has in mind here: of Mozart's juvenilia were produced at La Scala in the 1770s, and the Rossini catalog assigns five operas to the year 1812.  But the drift is right: Italians don't seem quite to have got the point of Mozart, at least in the 19th Century.  And at him, so it is said, even Donizetti and Bellini,  worked in Rossini's shadow (though poor Bellini, who died so young, scarcely had a chance).  

But the other side of the coin is to marvel at the things Verdi learned how to do that his predecessors, even at their best, simply didn't know how to do.   You can see the point on full display in Matilde di Shabran.  It brims over with wonderful ensemble work--even a love-duet with two active onlookers, all four participating in the music.  There's some glorious music here but almost invariably, what you see each character assigned to a role and then permitted to interweave their vocal lines without  breaking type.  This is precisely the sort of thing that Verdi figured how not to behave, as he learned to fill is characters with more nuanced and more nuanced destinies.

Remarkably, you see just a hint of what you might call Verdian character development in Matilde di Shabran--specifically in Flórez role as Corradino, the lord of the manor.   The plot point is that Corradino has the public face of a monster but we learn in the first act that he's actually a pussycat.  The upshot is that Flórez, for one, is able to put some nuance and variety into his character in  way that it nobody really found again until Verdi smoked it out 40 years later.

Fun fact:  if I read the notes right, this is Flórez' third appearance in this role in this place--and that his first one came classic storybook opera fashion in 1996, when he got his great breakthrough by stepping in (at age 23) for a more established talent who was taken sick.  The other singer was Bruce Ford who had a respectable run in the Bel Canto repertoire, although a skim of his webpage suggests that  he may be out of action.

Here's a good review of Matilde di Shabran.  Here's an enthusiastic appreciation of Zelmira.

An Old Man's Challenge

Verdi's Otello opened at La Scala on February 5, 1887. Verdi would have been 73. It was the capstone of a great career. Many Verdians would have endorsed it as his greatest achievement.

They say that one of the governing principles for a respectable old age is to leave the party before you hear the sirens. But one more project lured Verdi on after Otello: by 1890, in his 77th year, we find him at work on what would in fact be his last opera—Falstaff—in collaboration with his indispensable librettist, Arrigo Boito.

The decision to go forward was not automatic. “Did you never think of the enormous number of my years?” Verdi wrote to his collaborator. “Suppose I couldn't stand the strain? And failed to finish it? You would then have wasted your time and trouble to no purpose.”

Boito's response is a model of subtle persuasion:

The fact is that I never think of your age either when I'm talking to you or when I'm writing to you or when I'm working with you.

The fault is yours.

I know that Otello is little more than two years old, and that even as I am writing to you it is being appreciated as it should by Shakespeare's compatriots. But there is a stronger argument than that of age, and it's this: it's been said of you after Otello: "It's impossible to finish better."This is a great truth and it enshrines a great and very rare tribute. It is the only weighty argument.

Weighty for the present generation, but not for history, which aims first and foremost to judge men by their essential merits. Nevertheless it is indeed rare to see a lifetime of artistic endeavour concludes with a worldly triumph. Otello is such a triumph. All the other arguments—age, strength, hard work for me, hard work for you, etc., etc.—are not valid and place no obstacle in the way of a new work. Since you oblige me to talk about myself I shall say that notwithstanding the commitment I should be taking on with Falstaff I shall be able to finish my work within the term promised. I'm sure of that.

I don't think that writing a comedy should tire you out. A tragedy causes its author genuinely to suffer; one's thoughts undergo a suggestion of sadness which renders the nerves morbidly sensitive. The jokes and laughter of comedy exhilarate mind and body. ... 

You have a great desire to work, and this is an indubitable proof of health and strength. "Ave Marias" are not enough. Something else is needed.

All your life you've wanted a good subject for a comic opera, and that is a sign that the vein of an art that is both joyous and noble is virtually in existence in your brain; instinct is a wise counsellor. There's only one way to finish better than with Otello and that's to finish triumphantly with Falstaff.

After having sounded all the shrieks and groans of the human heart, to finish with a mighty burst of laughter—that is to astonish the world.

So you see, dear Maestro, it's worth thinking about the subject I've sketched; see whether you can feel in it the germ of the new masterpiece. If the germ is there, the miracle is accomplished.

And Verdi:

Amen, so be it!

We'll write Falstaff then! We won't think for the moment of obstacles or age or illness! ...

Falstaff opened on February 9, 1890, just a few months shy of Verdi's 80th birthday.   It was to be his last opera, although he continued to compose until as late as 1897.  He died in 1901, at 87.

Update:  Apologies for neglecting to credit this. It's almost entirely a ripoff from  the indispensable Operas of Verdi by Julian Budder, vol. III 424-6 (1984).

Verdi v. Verdi (and the Role of the Orchestra)

European opera managers must smile with contempt at their American counterparts for giving away programs.  It's almost as silly as an airline letting you board luggage for free.  But we might as well enjoy it while we can; it gives us stuff like this:

For a poet as complex as Shakespeare, the musical language of the first half of the nineteenth century was not really adequate.  There are wonderful things in Rossini's Otello of 1816 (which is based on a French eighteenth-century translation, far from the original Shakespearean text), in I Capuleti e I Montechi of Bellini (which has very little to do with Shakespeare) and Verdi's Macbeth of 1847 and 1865, but the language of the period did not permit the composers and the librettists to enter fully into the thoughts of the English writer.  Rather, their aim was to transform the drama into a series of closed numbers, arias, duets, etc., of the kind that Verdi was writing and the public expected in 1847.

So musicologist Philip Gossett in "Giuseppe Verdi and Falstaff," in the (free) program for the current San Francisco opera season.  I suppose one way to grasp his point would be to listen to a (pretty good) early Verdi like, say, Nabucco, or an (excellent) Rossini like The Barber of Seville and reflect on the range and variety of devices available to the Verdi of Falstaff that simply wouldn't have been on offer for his earlier self.

Part of it, surely, is the influence of Verdi on Wagner--a complicated topic by any measure, but on even the narrowest reading, the influence is there.  Mrs. B points out wrinkle: the role of the orchestra as a virtual character in the opera itself.  Wagner is partly responsible here, but Mrs. B points also to Puccini, with a notable wrinkle.  That is, in Puccini, the orchestra can be downright obtrusive, whacking you over the head with its own interpretations, leaving nothing to imagination or chance.  The orchestra in Falstaff is a vivid presence, but here I'd say it is not a hindrance.  Rather, you really need the orchestra to keep you on track among the torrent of vocal possibilities under exploration on stage.

Terfel's Falstaff

You know I'm not a serious opera fan because I've seen only one performance of Bryn Terfel in Verdi's Fallstaff.  Not the three, or five, or ten, or 100, which may be the gold standard for the real fans.  I am thus unable to confirm that the new version at the San Francisco Opera (which we saw last night) is, as represented, more somber and correspondingly less comical than some of its predecessors.  I'm sorry I haven't, though.  Terfel is an appealing, engaging, accessible singer by any standard and if last night's performance is any evidence (and it probably is) then a whole catalog of Terfel Falstaffs would be great fun indeed.

A couple of other loose ends about Falstaff: One, it occurs to me that maybe this is an opera more fun for the singers than the audience.  Or at best, it needs an audience with pretty strong musical chops.  I guess I've written before that it was, ironically, the first opera I ever saw--and I was told I probably wouldn't get it and I didn't get it.  I've seen it several times since and I've come to enjoy it and I think I have some sense of what it is about. But my own musicianship never gets above the sing-in-the-shower level and I suspect that there is stuff I will  never appreciate as well as someone who, say, sings every day for money, and once in a while gets a chance really to blow it out with this masterwork.

Related point: I think there is a sense on which Verdi's Falstaff bears comparison with Shakespeare's Hamlet.  No, no, bear with me for a moment.  In Hamlet, Shakespeare tells us everything he knows about theatre, everything he has learned in his entire career.  So with Falstaff and Verdi and opera.  The notable difference is, of course, that Shakespeare was in his 40s when he wrote Hamlet; he'd been in the game for a dozen year to so and had perhaps a dozen more to go (is that all?  Yes!).  Verdi, of course, was in his 80s, with his entire life to look back on.

And one more: people always talk about Falstaff as a comedy.  I suppose it is as a sense: it is also, at best, rather mean-spirited, unkind.  And has anybody noticed that it is a "comedy" mocking as a foolish old man, written by, yes, another old man?

Tchaikovsy Update: Met HD Onegin

In the event, we did catch up with the Met HD Eugene Onegin last  night and we render a split decision:   I mostly liked it; Mrs. B thought it rather  mess, and wishes she could go back and redo the all-Russian version we saw in St.  Petersburg a few year ago.  

Well.  With Valery Gergiev in the pit and Anna Netrebko on the stage, this was plenty Russian enough for me, especially in the fine first scene at the country house.  Although I confess I persist in being the outlier on Netrebko: apparently she reigns as the Met's flagship superstar but she still seems to me so often lazy and lackadaisical--as for example in the big letter scene here which is, I suspect, for most viewers, about the only reason they go to Onegin anyway.  On this I admit Mrs. B had a point: neither of us can figure out what Netrebko's Tatyana is doing in what seems to be a glorified cowshed--if this is a time to sleep, why isn't there a real bed?  Or is it that Netrebko just loves to wind up on the floor?  And if this is a letter scene, why don't we see her write a letter?  Whatever; the fact remains, she just can't play ingenue (in fairness, she was a lot better as the older and wiser wife-of-the-rich-guy in the final act).

But in lieu of yet one more review, let me offer two of the most memorable moments of the evening, both from an intermission interview with Deborah Voigt.  One involves Marius Kwiecien, the Polish tenor in the title role.  In the break just after the crisis where we had just seen Onegin blow off the heroine with a puff of hot air, Voigt asked him how he understood is character.  Oh, he is really a nice man, said the star, trying to be kind to her and let her down easy.  

Boy, what a hoot.  The whole point of the scene is that Onegin is a total shit, one of the best so represented in all of opera.  The odd thing is that this is exactly how Kwiecien played him, i.e., just as it should be and not at all like his avowed understanding.

The other was Netrebko herself.  Voigt kept trying to draw her out and learn how she saw her character, how she prepped for her role and got--nothing.  For all I could see, Netrebko simply didn't have an idea.  Mrs. B says I should give her a break here; that her English isn't that great, and anyway, she was trying to maintain a character of dignified reserve.  Could be, but my guess is that she really hadn't given the topic much thought.  

Oh,  no wait, she did make one point, firmly and loudly: that she didn't learn it from Gergiev.  That for you, Valery.

How (and Why) Tchaikovsky is Different.

We missed the Met opener HD of Eugene Onegin last Saturday--just too much going on and truth be told, it's not a favorite, although it certainly is a worthy piece of business.  We saw a marvelous performance in St. Petersburg a few years ago, just full of seemingly non-exportable Russian-ness, which might have capped out motivation to see another.

Still, we may get to the encore tomorrow night, if for no other reason than to test it against this provocative offering from one of the most remarkable opera books I ever read:

[By the late 19th Century] romantic emotion had itself become a sickness.  This is the judgment of Tchaikovsky in his two operas based on Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (1879) and Queen of Spades (1890)... .   Pushkin's Onegin [is a figure] from the first age of romanticism.  ... Onegin is too worldly to [kill himself] and, proudly, miserably guards his loneliness in the middle of an incessant social whirl.  Now, at the end of the nineteenth century, these poetic solitaries are redefined by opera as neurotics.

Tchaikovsky's operas are terrified of a dangerous desire which in the composer's case (and in that of his brother Modest, the librettist for The Queen of Spades) was homosexual.  The more violently the musical emotion pours out--in Tatyana's impulsive love letter to Onegin, or the obsessive vows of Herman in the later work--the more prudently or vindictively society in the drama represses it.  ... Tatyana is aloofly spurned by Onegin, and in turn regretfully spurns him; they must both learn to live without desire.  It is as if Tristan and Isolde had agreed not to love each other in deference to Marke. The unoperatic conclusion is dictated by Tchaikovsky's dread of feelings which can be expressed in music but not in action.
At first Onegin is frigidly proof against emotion.  He mocks the susceptibilities of his friend Lensky, and Olga teases her sister Tatyana for wandering off into literary and musical fantasies.  A superficial life is best. The long scene in which Tatyana writes her reckless letter telescopes a whole night from bedtime to dawn, and thus listens in on her unconscious mind.  She ought to be asleep and harmlessly dreaming, rather than entrusting her fantasy to print.  Her aria ends in a swelling musical triumph; another operatic heroine could look forward to having her wish come promptly true. Tatyana, instead, is cold-shouldered by Onegin. Later she is grateful: his cruelty has taught her the self-preservative virtue of the social forms.  Her elderly husband Gremin extols in his aria a very unoperatic kind of love.  He admires her goodness, and is cheered by her kindness; neither feels passionately about the other.  Social duty is their salvation.  The only outlet for musical impulse which society approves is dance, because it obeys strict rules and precludes intimacy--the rustic jigs of the peasants, the jolly waltz at Larina's party, the strutting polonaise which leads a conducted tour of the nobleman's house in St. Petersburg.

Peter Conrad, A Song of Love and Death: The Meaning of Opera 191-2 (1987).   But I'd quibble on one point: I think Gremin does feel passionately about Tatyana.  He can't believe his good fortune in having acquired such a young and lovely wife, and he is besotted by her.

Sellars' Theodora

Theodora is one of Handel's last works.  I read that "the public did not react favorably" to it, and I suppose I can see why.  It is about the persecution of Christians by Romans, and it is composed with all the austere dignity the subject would seem to require.  Handel himself apparently saw things differently; by the account of his librettist, Handel thought the aria "He Saw the Lonely Youth," at the end of Act II,  superior to the "Hallelujah Chorus" in the Messiah. 

I think I can see (or her?) what is going on here.  In fact, Theodora contains a thousand fragments that you can recognize as inimitable Handel.  But in ordinary times they are decked out with jewels and feathers; here they are stripped down to their essence.  A fun-loving, distractible London audience may be thought not quite worthy of it.

Mr. and Mrs. B have now finished a superb (and widely acclaimed) version by Peter Sellars from the Glyndebourne Festival, and it is everything you might hope it would be.  Here's Willliam Christie (who must be one of the luckiest men in contemporary opera) conducting David Daniels, Dawn Upshaw and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, all at the peak of their power.  Especially Lieberson, who died at 54 (in 2006) and all you can think is--my God, what a loss.

And did I mention that it took us three evenings?:  Perhaps we weren't quite worthy of it either.

Here's a Youtube rendition of "He Saw the Lonely Youth" with libretto though oddly, without any context--I have no idea who is singing or playing:

[Background and quotation from Choral Repertoire by Dennis Shrock.