La Traviata (an opera review post)

We all know that entertainment is subjective, right? Probably the most subjective thing there is, even more so than food. What's the best movie ever? You're not going to get any good agreement on that. Or the best book. Or pretty much anything else. Except, maybe, opera. If there is a "best" opera, La Traviata is probably it. At least that seems to be what the data suggests.

Not to get into the somewhat complicated history of the piece but, since its second performance  in 1854, it has consistently been the most performed, most requested, most viewed -- if there are other mosts you can think of, probably those, too -- opera each year. At this point, it's probably the most watched opera of all time. It's that popular.

Well, okay, to get into one piece of its complicated history, the first performance was -- I don't want to say sabotaged, because that wasn't the intent, but it was kind of sabotaged -- by the producers of the opera, because they insisted on a particular performer for Violetta and forced Verdi to use her over his objections. The audience found her less than compelling as the protagonist and reacted unfavorably to the performance. It was more than a year before Verdi allowed La Traviata to be performed again, this time with a singer of whom he approved. The second performance, as noted above, was a rousing success.

I find this particular opera fascinating, not least of which because it was based on a novel by the son of Alexander Dumas, also Alexander Dumas. I had no idea. So, now, I'm all interested in his work, which is not to say that I'll get to it any time soon, but I'm interested.

Having said all of that, I wouldn't say that La Traviata is my personal favorite opera, not that I could name my personal favorite, but I'm pretty sure this was not it. I didn't get lost in the performance as I have for a couple or few of the others. I did very much enjoy it, though. Top five for sure.

To some extent, that is due to the story, the story of a young woman who sacrifices her own happiness to facilitate the happiness of someone else. Which is not something I have a problem, because I think that too many people are unwilling to make even small sacrifices to help other people. However, in this case, she was asked to make a sacrifice to satisfy someone else's selfishness, and that's a thing I have a problem with.

"I know I have 1000 and you only have the one, but I really won't be happy unless I have yours, too."

"No, I could never give up my sheep. I love my one sheep."

"But I won't be happy unless it's mine."

"Are you sure you won't be happy? Well, okay, you can have my one sheep." >dies of a broken heart<

Actually, this sounds a lot like the Republican party, right now. "Look, we know we and all of our super-rich friends have all the money, but we really won't be happy until we take the tiny bit you have, too."

Yeah, sure, this is not a direct analogy, because the opera is a love story, but it's close enough. What I wanted was for Giorgio to do the right thing early enough to matter, like going and slapping the dude his daughter was supposed to marry and telling him to go fuck himself. Of course, that didn't happen.

Anyway...

SFO has been running this particular production of La Traviata for something like 30 years, and with good reason. It's definitely worth seeing. Not this production but the one prior, was, in fact, the opera that caused my wife to fall in love with opera, so I'd say if you ever get a chance to see it, you definitely should.

Rigoletto (an opera review post)

You want to talk tragedy? Let's talk tragedy.

My wife and I wrapped up our 2016-17 opera season with Rigoletto, a Giuseppe Verdi opera based on a play by Victor Hugo. Neither play nor opera were received well by "those in charge," so to speak. Hugo's play, Le Roi s'amuse, was banned after one performance and not performed again for 50 years. Rigoletto also fell prey to the censors, but Verdi worked closely with the censors to make changes to the opera, like removing the action of the plot to Mantua instead of France, so that it could be performed. Let's just say that the nobility didn't appreciate either work.

At this point, I'm really tempted to give you a rundown of the plot, but you can get that elsewhere, or read Hugo's play, which the opera is very faithful to (despite the changes Verdi made to satisfy the censors). If there was ever a tragic figure in literature, Rigaletto (Triboulet in the play) is certainly it, a man reduced to life as a court jester due to a physical deformity. Triboulet is an actual historical figure, just so you know, not that I know how accurately Hugo portrays him in his play. The play is fiction, after all.

The premise, though, is that nobility, due to their high station, are able to escape the consequences of their horrible behavior in ways that other people are not able to. The idea is comparable to Don Giovanni in that it actually takes a supernatural occurrence to hold Giovanni accountable for the horrible things he has done. There is nothing similar in Rigoletto to hold the duke of Mantua accountable for his abuses. Rigoletto is left to pay all the consequences, not that some of them are not of his own design, and therein lies the tragedy.

For this production, Rigoletto was played by Quinn Kelsey, and he was AMAZING! Not only does he have an amazing voice, but he brought a certain amount of sympathy to the character so that you actually feel bad for him in the end. Because, don't get me wrong, Rigoletto is not a nice guy and really (almost) deserves everything he gets. He would if it was not taken out on Gilda, his innocent daughter, who also suffers at the hand of the duke.

Nino Machaidze (Gilda) and Pene Pati (the duke) are also great. Their only detriment being that they had to perform opposite Kelsey. Actually, this production was full of great performers. And one who rose even above that. Kelsey is already being compared to Pavarotti, and Pavarotti is generally considered the greatest tenor ever to sing opera. I guess we'll see how things go with Kelsey.

The sets and costumes were also impressive, and I would say that this was a pretty great production of Rigoletto, not that I've seen other productions of Rigoletto, but this one was great, and I would gladly go back to see it again.

Fun fact:
The duke's aria, "La donna e mobile," is one of the most recognizable tunes in opera. Verdi knew what he had when he wrote it, too, and didn't introduce it to the cast and musicians of Rigoletto until hours before the premiere performance of the opera. They were given instructions to not sing, whistle, or even think the melody outside of the theater. The morning after the premier performance, people were singing the aria in the streets.

Aida (an opera review post)

No, the cat is not part of the review, but the cat insisted on being in the photos. Every single one of them. He just followed me around and sat on or next to the book every time I tried to frame the cover in the picture. Maybe he's trying to tell me something about Aida? Or wants to read the program? Or just likes the pretty picture? I guess we'll never know.

Aida is not the worse opera I've seen, but this presentation of it was far (FAR) from the best. I say "this presentation" not because I've seen some other presentation of it but because Aida is one of the most prominent operas in the world, and I have to assume there's a reason for that. [After each opera we see, my wife and I check the reviews to see how our views match up with the people who do that sort of thing for a living (so far, we're doing pretty well), and the reviews of this presentation of Aida  tend to say that it was below expectations and that it was mostly due to the musical director.]

So what was the problem?

It was too slow.

I don't mean there wasn't enough "action" in the traditional sense of "action," but this opera had a lot (a lot!) of that standing in place and singing thing that removes any potential action from a scene. Even to the point where one guy, Radames, the Egyptian general, is singing about how much he wants to be made commander of the forces while all of the other soldiers are just standing still watching him. Seriously, no one was moving. And it just went on and on like that. If the soldiers had been doing stuff in the background, like they were working or something, while he was singing, it would have added some life into something that was about as entertaining as watching someone take a nap.

Which is not to say that the quality of the singing was not as great as it always is -- the performers were all great as far as the singing went -- but there was obviously a directorial decision made that had the performers being rather static during the performance.

The other thing of note about this production is that the set was... disappointing. They made a big deal about working with Los Angeles artist Retna on the set design (he did the art for the cover of the program book in the picture above), and the art was cool and interesting, but, other than the art pieces worked into the set, the set was rather bare. It was very minimalist, so not even the set added interest to the performance.

The other thing that bothered me is something that may not be fair; I actually don't know enough about opera and the opera world to know. The setting of Aida is during a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, yet the cast was nearly all white. It's possible that there may not be any way around that as far as the primary cast goes; opera tends to be pretty white. However, it seems to me that they could have done something more diverse with the chorus characters and the few dancers. It would have been nice to have a something that looked like representative of a war between Egypt and Ethiopia. But, again, I don't know enough to say that definitively, and it's not like there is a tradition of Aida being performed any other way (despite the fact that it was commissioned for the opening of the Cairo opera house in 1870(ish)).

Still, and I sort of hate to always go back to this, it was better than last year's Usher House. At this point, I'm pretty okay with any opera I'm seeing as long as it's better than that.