I went to see this Rossini opera at my local cinema, in a transmission from the New York Metropolitan opera.
I rather wish I had trusted my instincts and not gone. I don't like Rossini and was only tempted by a superb trio of principals - Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce di Donato and Diana Damrau. All three sang excellently - as far as I can tell in an opera I didn't know and with music I didn't like. Well, I say I didn't like it, but in fairness there were a few good bits, because, it seems Rossini's rip-off of Gluck is slightly more enjoyable of his rip-off of Mozart.
As I say, the leading singers were excellent and I didn't notice any particular weak links in the lesser roles. The production contained a lot that was stupid, with my particular low-light being the various occasions when various people carried plastic trees around.
It was basically played for shit and giggles as low rent slapstick. I'm not sure that it could have been played any other way. It was the slightest of stories with very little characterisation, so having both JDF and DD in particular camping it up in the style of Victorian melodrama was probably very sensible.
I was actually enjoying parts of Act II. There was even a storm scene with some hints of Gluck in it, during which I revised my axiom about operatic storms.
All great operas have a storm scene.
Except for Le Nozze di Figaro (imagine what a great opera that would be with a storm scene)
Having a storm scene doesn't make an opera great
Then they went and spoiled it all by having a rape - or attempted rape - scene (I don't know, I didn't stay) which was played entirely for its comedy potential. I'm afraid I got up and walked out at the point where the soprano sang (I paraphrase) "Yuck, he's pressing my hand against his heart" and the mezzo en travesti sings "Go on, Go along, indulge him, for your own good".
I have long been someone who argues for reality in drama, be it opera, plays, film or TV. I don't believe that you should censor a rape (or attempted rape) any more than you would a murder or other forms of violence.
I don't have too great a problem with them being graphically explicit, providing there are adequate warnings so that people can choose not to see them. It's almost impossible to be historically realistic without including rapes, so even if it's not written into the original libretto I don't have any great objections to rape being portrayed as a weapon of war, as it inevitably was through history and still is today. Perhaps I was made more sensitive by having read just this morning Kath Viner's superb piece, City of Joy: New hope for Congo's brutalised women
I simply don't like rape being played as comedy. In a decent opera, or even in Anna Nicole, there would have been an opportunity to stop the tomfoolery and make the audience stop, think, and re-examine the motives and behaviours of the characters, and perhaps themselves. That's what Great Art, and Anna Nicole, does.
It's like life: you've been fooling around, then someone says "Actually that happened to my best friend" and everyone starts shuffling their papers or exclaiming "Is that the time?". It would be weird if people carried on laughing and joking - only that's what happened in this.
I think partly, I suspect that most of the people giggling away (by no means a majority of the audience) lack the capacity to understand what is happening. It's just a series of moves they fail to compute. Similarly to when there are erotic scenes, there are are certain people who insist on guffawing, parlty because they consider it their moral duty to do so but largely because they are incapable of understanding beyond the most functional aspects of sex. Even worse are the people who laugh because their head tells them they ought to, rather than it being an irrepressible reflex action as happens with genuine comedy.
Still, the costumes were nice, and I guess, that's all that matters!
Someone's doneablogpost on the dresses Diane Damrau wore. By 'done a blogpost', I mean she's posted some photos
The Met Winks Its Way Through Rossini: Bartlett Sher’s Sorry 'Le Comte Ory'
As a by the way, Juan Diego's wife Julia had a baby boy Leandro 35 minutes before curtain up.
