It was good fun to stay up last night and listen to the webcast live from New York. I say stay up, the staying up was preceded by a three hour opera nap, nearly an hour of that spent dozing in the bath. I set my alarm wrong - for 12.30 rather than 00.30, so it was a good thing I woke up.
Would I have stayed up if I had had to be in work today? Yes, for Plácido, but I'm not going to make a habit of listening to these live webcasts.
I joined in the chatroom hosted by La Cieca. I think probably about fifty or so other people did so for at least part of the evening. I don't know the extent to which my opinion was subconsciously influenced by that of other people listening as I listened. Or of the reviews I have read since. I think I probably liked it more than anyone else in the chatroom.
Obviously, listening to an opera is only part of the story. The point about opera is that is a staged dramatic medium, otherwise it is oratorio. So I don't think one can draw conclusions from an audio-only experience.
First of all, I thought that Plácido sounded good; in the second act he sounded very good indeed. And I was certainly not alone in thinking that. I think that I would prefer to hear him sounding that good in something else. Something better.
So what do I think of the First Emperor?
Cards on the line - I liked it, but not as an opera. The stuff I really liked would have made a fabulous and exciting piece of orchestral music. An orchestral suite from "The First Emperor" would be a very special evening out. The vocal lines did not do it for me at all. I think all the singers sounded good, but that was in spite of the writing rather than because of it. I didn't feel any great concern about the storyline, not could I really care about the characters. In the end, it was this supposedly horrible horrible tyrant, who didn't sound particularly horrible, wanting a national anthem. Through the twists and turns of plots, the denouement is that the composer bases the national anthem on the slave song sung by the slaves building the Great Wall. Well, all I can think is, so many tunes come originally from 'folk' music, and I can't see how adapting a slave tune especially counts as revenge on the Evil Emperor. Unfortunately, the anthem was nothing special. Okay, it was exponentially better than God Save the Queen but just because I was the first person to mention Va pensiero, as in it's not, does not make that my own special insight. The point is that Va pensiero is such a moving and rousing tune, literally a show-stopper, that one is forced to think: all this fuss for something that just isn't up to much.
I think the composer was the most interesting character but only because he fucked the Princess so hard she miraculously regained the use of her crippled legs, then later, he cut his own tongue out, which doesn't happen in your average everyday opera.
So, the music.
I have mixed feelings. I really liked the use of percussion and could listen to it again just for the percussion. A special percussion version of the orchestral suite would find itself a prominent place in my collection. And in general, I did enjoy the orchestral textures and the rich harmonies. There was a bit of a game of 'spot the reference' . The Sharks/Jets derivations were very obvious. I could swear I heard Tara's Theme from Gone With the Wind, and also something very like the storm that opens Die Walküre. But any hint of a melody, or a coherent musical line being developed was cruelly stopped. As I say, I liked the music. Not loved it, but liked it. There seems to be some disagreement about whether it's atonal, and I'm not sure I really know what atonal is, but it was certainly well within my comfort zone.
So, will I go to it at the cinema? First of all, as someone has pointed out, the Picturehouse website is only currently advertising The Magic Flute, so we can't be sure it will be shown. Because it's Plácido, I'm determined to make my way to Notting Hill to see it. If he wasn't in it, I wouldn't travel, but I would consider it if shown in Brixton or Clapham.
And it certainly isn't the worst opera I've heard this year...
