Inky Horizons

Un Ballo in Maschera (The Masked Ball) is one of those operas in which the music is better than the story. In fact it's one of those operas in which the story is extremely lame.  Very lame.  Lamey lame.

Lame -O- McLame.

It's all about the assassination of Gustave III of Sweden during a masked ball. That much is historically accurate.  The rest of the opera...not so much, even down to the last scene when the king is dying and forgives his assassin. Moving, yes, but not accurate. It's also one of those operas that can succeed or fail on the performance of a single character. In this case it's the aria of the gypsy witch Ulrica who prophesies the king's death. If she's believable the opera rocks. If not...it's even lamer than it already is.  At least as far as the story goes.

This opera was written by Verdi. It has all the usual Verdi touches: forbidden love, flashes of humor, jealousy, assassination, plans within plans.  And it's not a bad opera. It's just not all that great, either. Except for the extraordinary music which blows you away.

It's the music that makes this opera memorable. It's as beautiful as anything Verdi ever accomplished, and that's saying a lot. 

Opera is funny. You don't have to listen to a lot of them or watch a lot of them to get a feel of what the art form is about. There aren't that many operas anyway so if you listen/watch to about half a dozen you can develop an appreciation for what's going on artistically. Having said that Un Ballo in Maschera isn't a beginner's opera. You would do better to watch Aida or Tosca or maybe even Madame Butterfly if you're just starting out and want to learn about opera.

But if you already kind of know something about it, or at least have been exposed to opera on some level, then I think you will appreciate Un Ballo in Maschera.  But only with that caveat, and because the music is so moving, can I recommend it.

Give it a peek.

I saw an amazing opera yesterday.  Elektra is a modern expressionistic opera full of angst and anger and remorse and revenge.  I'm not a huge fan of expressionism (though I love Edvard Munch's The Scream and the silent film version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), the art form which distorts reality to engender emotion.  But, boy, does it ever work in this opera by Richard Strauss.

But it's hard to watch because it's so disturbing and... unrelenting.  It's a modern treatment of the Sophocles tragedy by the same name. Strauss wrote the opera in 1905 when Freud's theories were beginning to take hold. So father-daughter complexes and female hysteria run rampant throughout this opera. The music is discordant, scraping the nerve endings and laying them bare.  The sets are bizarre and other-worldly, the makeup horrifying -- all to bring about an overwhelming feeling of dejection and remorse.

Elektra, mourning the death of her father, Agamemnon, looks dead herself. Her skin is grey, her hair snarled, and her eyes are yellow with lack of sleep as she plots her revenge and scrabbles at her fathers grave. Her murdering mother, Klytamnestra, confronts Elektra in a key scene and confesses she, too, hasn't been sleeping since the murder of her husband.  "I have had bad nights," she says.  It makes your skin crawl -- it's that powerful.

Finally, Elektra's brother, Orestes, shows up and kills everybody, even the servants, because he's pretty pissed.  Klytamnestra screams off stage as Orestes strikes her down, and Elektra screams back, "Stab her again!"  Finally, Elektra is revenged and as blood drips from the walls of the castle she dances in the gray rain, her bare feet splashing in puddles of bloody rainwater, until she falls dead.  When the screen goes black you sit there for a few moments trying to get your brain into gear and back to reality.  Or what you thought was reality. You're actually kind of relieved the opera is over because it was so goddamned oppressive...but you also realize you have just witnessed something that, in some small way, has also contributed to your growth (and destruction) as a human being.

I'm not kidding.  This opera really is that powerful. It changes you, turns you inside out, and not necessarily in a good way, but in a necessary way. It's hard to explain, but that's expressionism for you.

I highly recommend this opera to anyone who wants to be disturbed. Give it a peek if you have the time. I think you'll be impressed.

ELEKTRA

When Puccini's opera Tosca was first performed the critics savaged it.  They called it a "tawdry, little shocker."  Puccini had tremendous success with La Boheme the year before.  What kind of success? Imagine Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and American Idol all wrapped into one...and you still wouldn't come close.  So everyone was looking forward to his next opera. Could he ever top La Boheme? they wondered  The critics were certain he could not so they were predisposed to hate Tosca before it was ever staged

The public, on the other hand, had very different ideas.

Tosca is an opera about a flawed woman.  Tosca is a deeply jealous woman in love with a painter.  But there's a chief of police, Scarpia, who is also in love with Tosca.  He's a real snake, Scarpia, and one of the best evil characters in opera.  Intrigue, deception and violence are the foundations to this opera.  It's the quintessential opera: people are either singing about their undying love for one another or they're screaming pure hate at each other.  There is no middle ground.  Nor, in this story, should there be for Tosca examines violence and brutality on a very fundamental level.  Puccini is saying, "This is violence, and, no, it's not pretty."

Eventually Scarpia arrests Tosca's lover and through his machinations gets her in his lair.  In a memorable scene he says he will relent if Tosca will yield her sexual favors.  Tosca sings a heart breaking aria which questions her religious faith since she spent her life loving art. Finally, she's had enough, and as Scarpia tries to feel her up  she grabs a knife and plunges it into his heart with the revengeful cry, "This is Tosca's kiss."

Scarpia, as one may imagine, is somewhat surprised by this unfortunate turn of events.  But Puccini isn't done with his "tawdry, little shocker."  He has Tosca stand over the dying Scarpia and ask triumphantly, "Are you choking on your own blood?"

Are you choking on your own blood.  That's not a line you often hear in opera. Any opera.

Lesson learned?  Don't fuck with Tosca.

So she grabs a note Scarpia wrote which will free her lover, she runs to the castle where he is incarcerated, a mock execution is held but it's not mock after all because Scarpia is finding revenge from beyond the grave.  Soldiers run onto the parapet to arrest Tosca for murdering Scarpia but she's had enough and she flings herself off the parapet and screams all the way down and splatters her brains out in the street below. End of sublime love.  End of Tosca.  End of opera.

The public loved it.  And why not?  It had intrigue, deception, torture, extortion, blood, rape, murder, suicide all wrapped around a pretty good love story.  So what's not to like?

Tosca has had a bit of a funny past with some of its productions as well.  In one of them the director told the soldiers on the parapet, "Just react and take your cue from Tosca."  So when Tosca leaps to her death they all fall in line and jump after her!  The audience liked that, too, though it was unexpected.  In another production a trampoline was hidden behind the wall so the actress wouldn't hurt herself when she jumped. So the soldiers rush onto the stage, Tosca bids farewell and jumps...she hits the trampoline and bounces back into sight!  Pretty funny, and one of the little stories that make this opera so delightful.

I really liked this opera a lot. If you like blood and violence and torture and sexual perversion, you'll love Tosca.  Give it a peek.

Tosca.

Yes, this again.  "Der Holle Rache".  We've looked at Diana Damrau's exceptional, emotive interpretation and Lucia Popp's clear-as-a-bell rendition.  But there is one woman who sang this song from Die Zauberflote so perfectly, so wonderfully, so beautifully...it was included on the Voyager spacecraft record which is now winging its way to the stars.  It's that good...that perfect.

Her name was Edda Moser and she's pretty well known among the operatic crowd for how she sang this incredible song with the impossible High F notes.  After listening to this it's easy to understand why it was included on the Voyager record.  It really is perfection. The aliens who find Voyager are in for a real treat.

Here it is.

The more I study opera the more I learn about suspension of disbelief at least as far as writing goes, and the human propensity for engaging in it. 

Suspension of disbelief is a big thing in opera.  It's a natural given you are to suspend a lot of disbelief so the opera can move on.  So what if the woman singing the role of a Viking is Asian?  So what if two characters meet and fall in love in five seconds to set up the tragic ending?  So what if a brother and sister, from the very same parents, are black and white?  So what if Brunnhilde's horse, Grane, NEVER makes an appearance during Gotterdammerung, even when she sings an aria to him and leads him into the funeral pyre at the end?

It doesn't matter.  You take it on faith Grane is there even if you don't see him.

Now I'm not saying you can get away with this sort of blatant disregard in fiction.  You can't.  But you can get away with a hell of a lot besides.  Fantasy is chock full of stuff like this: magic, dragons, elves, demons, etc.  SF is, too: time machines, faster-than-light spacecraft, stellar empires.  All that stuff is garbage.  The physical limitations the universe imposes upon these tropes are real and immutable.  You can't travel faster than the speed of light because it violates causality. Period.  But we happily accept FTL spacecraft and other nonsense elements like telepathy for the sake of the story.  That's suspension of disbelief on both the part of the writer and the reader.

And that's what fascinates me from a human perspective.  Our willingness, or innate need, to want to believe things that are manifestly and demonstrably not true intrigues me.  Okay, you can kind of understand why someone would want to do it in order to be entertained.  They are entering a contract with the writer when they pick up a story. But you can't cross that line in such a way the story jolts them out of that prepared place they've put themselves in.  Opera gets away with a hell of a lot, more than written fiction can, and I've yet to understand why, though I suspect it is because reading is entirely mental and opera has dependent qualities of visual and aural cues married to imagination.  But both depend on the audience willing to put aside some degree of skepticism so the story can continue in a logical way. That's the important thing to remember.

I guess what I'm trying to say is people can be manipulated a lot easier than I originally believed.  That's a pretty strong lesson for any writer to have learned, and I'm glad I have learned it.  Though there are still boundaries you can't cross, suspension of disbelief is not the Rubicon I once thought it was.

Lucia Popp was another opera star known for her stunning Queen of the Night rendition.  She never brought the menace and angry venom Damrau did to the role, but her singing was absolutely exquisite.  That's why I wanted to provide this link so you could at least make a sound comparison between the two.

Lucia Popp sings "Der Holle Rache"

I ask you, what better time to talk about unmitigated evil than Christmas Eve...?

You know the song even if you don't know anything about opera or even HATE opera.  You've heard the signature notes even if you don't know the name of the song.  What I'm talking about is "Der Holle Rache" (The Vengeance of Hell) from Mozart's Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute).

The Queen of Night is the most evil character in all of opera, if not all fantasy.  That's a big field, I know, but name me another character who comes close?  Sauron is a chump.  Cruella Deville is a piker.  The Queen of Night is absolute evil down to her ice-cold bones.  She has no redeeming qualities and she's willing to shove her only daughter into doing murder so she can strike back at her enemy -- and if Pamina doesn't do it the Queen of Night will disown her forever.

And that's a long time.

Many divas have tried their hand at this role.  No one can match Diana Damrau.  She is the Queen of Night.  She's both beautiful and evil and she scares the living hell out of you which is what the character is supposed to do.  When she comes at you  with those eyes you can't help but soil yourself.  She not only sings the part, she plays the part to the hilt and will tear the stage apart in the process to make her position known.  Other women sing the role but they don't act it.  Or vice versa.  Damrau does both to perfection.

I've seen Damrau twist arms, throw Paminas across the stage, force them to their knees and generally browbeat them into sobbing puddles.  If you're cast as Pamina against Damrau's Queen of Night then you're plain fucked.  You don't have to act and pretend to be scared.  You will be scared. Here is the song:

The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart,
Death and despair flame around me!
If Sarastro does not through you feel the pain of death,
Then you will be my daughter nevermore.
Disowned may you be forever,
Abandoned may you be forever,
Destroyed be forever
All the bonds of nature,
If not through you Sarastro becomes pale! (as death)
Hear, Gods of Revenge, hear a mother's curse!

Poor Pamina.  Well, we don't get to choose our parents. By the way, those are High Fs Damrau is hitting in the signature notes.  I know.  Hard to believe a human voice can reach that high.  And she's so menacing and exudes such venom when she stalks Pamina across the stage.  It sends a chill up the spine.  She's ready to devour poor Pamina, it seems.

Die Zauberflote isn't a true opera. There are spoken parts in the production and a lot of idiotic Masonic ritual garbage.  But no one goes to Die Zauberflote to see that, they go to hear Mozart's music.  I think it's safe to say if you don't believe in the Queen of Night character the entire opera suffers.  Some queens you can't help but laugh at when you see them.  You'll never laugh at Damrau in this production.  She was made for it, and it for her, and it's well known throughout the operatic universe this was one of her best performances as Queen of Night.

Damrau retired this singing part in 2006.  Most opera stars sing the role for a while and then put it away forever because it's so hard on the voice.  Well, like I said, those are High Fs.  A lot of them.

Here she is. Diana Damrau as the deliciously evil Queen of Night in Die Zauberflote.

Leontyne Price was a famous African American singer.  She was best known for her role as Aida, the black slave girl in the opera of the same name.  During the 50s and 60s she endured racism and other humiliations like not being allowed to sleep in the same hotel as the white singers.  Nevertheless her voice and her talent endured and she became one of the best known and best loved singers in the entire pantheon.

Her signature role, as I said, was as the slave girl in Aida.  During this opera Aida realizes she will never return to Ethiopia and she sings of the love and the heartache she has for a land she will never see again.  It's heartbreaking.  When Ms. Price left the stage, of course her signature song was going to be "O Patria Mia".  Everyone was waiting for it.  Everyone throughout opera knew how much the song meant to her personally, and to what emotions were raging inside her because this was to be her final curtain call as Aida -- she was leaving the world of opera.  And then the time came when she had to sing the song on stage...and endure the fantastic reaction she knew was going to come.

Yeah.  It brings the house down.  Amazing.  Simply and utterly amazing.

I have included two links.  The first is the song itself sung in another venue.  The recording is a good one and I think you'll like it.  The second link is at the end of the song on stage, on her last night.  Watch as she endures.  She's about to completely crack open and begin sobbing incontrollably -- the audience is already sobbing and shouting "Brava!" -- but she can't breakdown because if she does the opera is ruined and she has to go on to sing the following song.  Watch it yourself...and try not to cry.

O Patria Mia


Leontyne Price's Farewell after singing O Patria Mia

Anna Netrebko is hot.  (Oh, she's a Russian opera singer, too, with an absolutely beautiful voice.  I guess I should have included that. Sorry.)

Last year, she appeared in I Puritani.  I actually saw this production.  This opera has a famous "mad scene" in which the heroine unravels in a big way. She's not spattered with blood on her wedding night because she shanked the groom, like in Lucia di Lammermoor, but she loses it all the same.   --Albeit in a more controlled fashion.  The part where she lies down on the stage with her head back is astonishing.  Not many singers would risk that.

Mad scenes of one type or another are famous in opera.  Netrebko garnered some serious attention for the way she played the scene, and deservedly so.

Part I Netrebko's Mad Scene


Part II Netrebko's Mad Scene

It's Friday so that means it's music time again. 

Anyone who reads my blog knows I like opera.  But unlike some stuffed shirts I don't believe opera necessarily has to be Wagnarian in concept to be opera.  That's why I want to give you a link to one of the first rock bands to incorporate operatic themes and classical sounds in their music.  When Electric Light Orchestra first started out they were a true orchestra.  In fact, they were more orchestra than rock band which gave them such a signature sound.  They weren't ever referred to as ELO but as Electric Light Orchestra. It was only later they moved away from those classical roots and became simply E.L.O.  As a result they were never as good and they quickly vanished.  Deservedly so.

But nevertheless this song, and the blend of rock and classical music, still endures. "Livin' Thing" has a deep orchestral arrangement that not only sweetens the song but makes it one of the most memorable hits ever.  Give it a listen.


Livin' Thing

Even if you're not an opera buff you know this opera, and the song.  It's about the clown that cries.  That's an iconic image in America if not the entire world.  Hell, I would argue anytime an image makes it to a painting on velvet sold at a flea market then it's indispensable to the human monkey milieu.

The name of the song is "Recitar" which means "to act", and that's what the clown does. He's wearing happy makeup to fool everyone, but he's really crying on the inside. 

Here's the link to one of the most important, and emotional, songs in all of opera.

These are the original lyrics:

Recitar!...mentre preso dal delirio
non so piu quel che dico e quel che faccio!
Eppur...e d'uopo...sforzati! Bah, sei tu forse un uom?
Tu se' Pagliaccio! Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina, ridi, Pagliaccio...
e ognum applaudira! Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto;
In una smorfia il singhiozzo e'l dolor...
Ridi Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol che t'avvelena il cor!

And again in English:

Go on stage, while I'm nearly delirious?
I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm doing!
And yet, chin up! I'll try harder. Bah, you think you're a man?
You're just a clown! On with the show, man,
and put on your white-face.
The people pay you and you must make them laugh.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine, laugh,
you're Pagliaccio, and the world will clap for you!
Turn into banter all your pain and sorrow,
and with your clowns' face hide grief and distress...
Laugh loud, Pagliaccio, forget all of your troubles,
Laugh off the pain that so empoisons your heart.

Enjoy!

Yesterday I dug and planted a vegetable garden with my bare hands.  I expect to get high marks from the Universe for that someday.  Just sayin'.  And it wasn't difficult digging the garden.  I mean, I'm so incredibly powerful my muscles make pig iron look like cookie dough.  I planted cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, strawberries and cabbage.  Hooray for the Green Thumb Me.

Today I edited chapter seven of my new novel, "Blue Fire."  This is in preparation to bring something to my writing group tomorrow night.  I meant to bring this earlier, but I kinda got busy rewriting "A Sea of Silent Stars" and then rewriting it again to be followed up by rewriting it once more.  So it was a pleasure just to fiddle around with a single chapter today....

.............

I have from time to time commented on operas I have heard and then pass them along to promote the general discourse.  You know, something different from the usual LJ post detailing what kind of cheese sandwich someone had for lunch. While I was getting close to Nature yesterday I listened to the rock opera Tommy by The Who on my mp3 player.  (The fact I even own an mp3 player is a post for another day.) If you haven't heard this opera you should.  And, please, stay away from the movie soundtrack.  Okay, Elton John's rendition of "Pinball Wizard" isn't bad, but stick with the source material if you can.  (There was also an album with The Who accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra.  Not bad, and worth a listen if you have the opportunity.  The movie soundtrack is just plain awful.)

This is a good opera.  Even if you don't like opera it's a good opera.  It's episodic but the deep emotion and arc of the main story holds it all together.  That's because it's well written.  And is there a better piece of instrumental music by The Who than the "Underture"?  Okay, there probably is.  But the point I'm trying to make is opera isn't always what you think it is.  Sometimes you have to dig a bit beneath the surface.  Like you have to do with this opera.  Listen to it and you think, "Okay, it's about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who plays pinball."  Nope.  Not even close.  Listen closely to the final track entitled "We're Not Gonna Take It" and then you'll know what the entire opera was really all about.  And God help you if you can't figure it out.  (That's your hint, by the way.)

Tommy by The Who.  A ground breaking opera.  It even has a few memorable tunes.  Plus, there's no fat lady to bring down the curtain.  Give it a listen if you haven't already....

Not much accomplished writing wise.  Eh, but that's okay.  It's not like I didn't need the rest and I'm not behind on my writing so I could afford it.  I've got another chapter slated for this week which shouldn't be a problem.  I'll catch up.  My Muse calls.

Usually when I have extra time like that I read a ton.  It really bothers me I am not able to read as much as I used to.  Even though I have readers they don't really help.  Magnifying blurry text only gives me blurry text for my limited brain to decipher.  So it looks like I will have to go to the optometrist and get a new pair of glasses.  This really makes me happy because I spent 4 thousand dollars on Lasik surgery already.  Sucks.  Plus I get to go to the doctor and have an annual checkup.  I hate being poked and prodded.  Even under the best of circumstances I despise people in general (except for my intelligent and lovely readers) I certainly am not looking forward to being poked, prodded and sampled on Wednesday.  Sucks.

But there was one highlight this weekend.  I went to see I Puritani featuring Anna Netrebko.  Not only is she lovely her voice is fantastic.  I've come late to opera.  I appreciate it but I don't know that much about it.  I was stunned at how beautiful her voice is.  The opera itself was short on story because it's a bella canto which means "beautiful singing" or "beautiful song" takes precedence over the story.  And, boy, was the singing memorable as was Netrebko's mad scene as Elvira, the jilted lover.  This isn't my favorite opera, not by a long sight, but the singing was super and Netrebko has a brand new fan.

Oh, and after the opera I had tandoori chicken at an Indian restaurant.  This is the second time I've had Indian food.  It's not on my top five either for ethnic, but I did like it.  Hooray for me for trying new things!

This weekend I saw a DVD of Verdi's Aida. I highly recommend it.  I like the productions put on by The Met and Levine is old school himself.  No Boulez reinterpretation for him...he's very traditional which is a quality I like in opera.

This opera starts off like any other, setting the stage.  Because this is a Levine production you immediately get the sense of how small the actors are compared to the grand sets.  You know they will be ground into dust by the Egyptian empire before the opera is ended.  As each act ends Aida and the other characters slide deeper and deeper into disintegration until she and her lover are entombed forever.

This opera is very well written, too. (It is by Verdi after all!)  We never really like Radames, the Egyptian general Aida the Ethiopian slave girl is in love with. He's kinda stupid and easily duped.  But we REALLY hate Amneris, the King's daughter and Aida's rival.  But by the end of the opera we realize how wrong we were about Amneris and we're almost moved to tears by the revelation of HER love. 

Aida is one of the best known operas around.  There's a reason for that: it's good.  And, best of all, when the fat lady sings in this opera it really is over!

Seriously, give it a look if you have a chance.  It's well-written, the music is memorable, especially the song where Aida remembers her homeland, and the final scene where Amneris is off stage, singing about her loss.  Very, very moving.