Romeo & Juliet (an opera review post)

I realize we had a rough opening act with the opera this season, but that ship has sailed (pun totally intended and, if you don't get it, you haven't been paying attention), but they've come back strong with Romeo & Juliet.

Romeo & Juliet may be my least favorite of Shakespeare's plays. At least of the ones I've read. Which is more than a few considering I've taken whole classes about Shakespeare. Look, I have a degree in English; what do you expect? But even as a teenager, R&J pushed all of the wrong buttons for me. My entire response could (and pretty much still can) be summed in, "Stupid teenagers." Yeah, that's how I felt about it when I was 14 and reading it for the first time. It actually put me off of Shakespeare entirely for more than a few years. I do have more of an appreciation for the play at this point in my life than I did when I was in high school but, still, stupid teenagers.

None of which is to say that I can't enjoy a good production of the story. It's not a bad story, though I don't get all of those gushy romantic feels from R&J that seem to be so common. For one thing, Romeo is a cad, but I'm not going to get into that right now.

R&J is not a commonly performed opera these days. It's French and, evidently, French is out as far as opera styles go at the moment. Honestly, I don't understand why. Maybe I just don't know enough about opera and music to understand but, having seen it now, R&J didn't seem much different to me than other operas of its time period. SFO, though, hasn't done R&J in decades until now (which seems to me to be another example of what I was saying in my SFO post about Shilvock). It's weird to me, though, that this opera in particular would fall through the crack. Because pretty much everyone knows the story, it seems to me that this should be a great opera to keep in rotation because it should accessible to people exploring opera for the first time. Even though they have supertitles, it still helps to know the story ahead of time.

I think this was a pretty decent production of R&J. Except for the set. They went for something which was barely more than a bare stage. I was unimpressed. Especially in comparison to many of the SFO sets. This one was just... kind of nothing. The costumes were good, but I sort of think the costumes and the set should complement each other, but maybe that's just me.

The performances were great. Nadine Sierra, whom I've mentioned before, played Juliet, and she was perfect. As with all good R&J productions, Mercutio steals any scene he's in, right up until he doesn't anymore, and Lucas Meachem (whom I've also mentioned before) did just that. The other real standout performance was by Stephanie Lauricella as Romeo's page, Stephano. She had a great scene where she taunts Tybalt and the Capulets that was a lot of fun.

I wasn't as sold on the Romeo, though my wife says that Pene Pati was a great singer. I don't disagree with that, and I enjoyed him in the production of Rigoletto we saw him in (see, I've mentioned him before, too!), but he never really grabbed me as Romeo. As I said, Romeo is a cad, and Pati never came off as such. It's got to be believable when all of his buddies are making fun of him that Juliet is just his flavor of the week, but Pati never rose above lovesick, which is almost right but not quite. I mean, he's trying to "meet" another girl when he discovers Juliet. Maybe it's a problem of the writing, though. It's difficult for me to tell since it's in French.

All said, though, I thought this was a fine production, and I think it's a great introductory opera for anyone who wants to find out what opera is all about.

"Danger, Will Robinson!" pt 3 (The bad boy)

Story Gimmicks I Hate
Pt. 3: The Bad Boy

Everyone loves a bad boy. From James Dean to Christian Slater (for all of you 80s people) to Wolverine. From Mercutio to Rhett Butler to Robin Hood. Cowboys. Well, I could go on, but I'm trying to stick to people and characters that are fairly recognizable. Everyone loves a bad boy. Even me. Seriously. Pick one: Superman or Batman? If sales can serve as the record for which we prefer, Batman has been winning that battle for decades. Han Solo. Need I say more?

I'm not going to try to get into why we love bad boys so much. There are too many theories to cover here. But the rampantness with which they run through our current fiction is testament to how popular they are. And that's kind of the problem. They're so popular, they've become cliche. They don't even make good anti-heroes anymore.

Part of the problem is the disconnect between reality and fiction. And we want to believe the fiction. Even in life. Okay, so, I lied. Here's my take on why we love bad boys: We want to believe there's a reason behind it. Something misunderstood or broken that if we could just get in there, we could make it all better (girls, you know that's true). Because we want to believe this, this is the way we write them. We give them some redeemable quality or incredible burden. Something that excuses the "bad boy" part and makes it okay. You know, Batman's parents were killed right in front of him. That kind of thing. And, oh, vampires. They're just so easy to do, because, well, you know they're people, too. It's not their fault they need to drink blood.

On a small scale, I can deal with this. I mean, Batman is a great character. I'm not dissing the Bat. I am dissing all the hoards who have come since then that have turned him into a cliche. But I get it. I do. It's interesting. I mean, seriously, how many times has Superman's origin been duplicated? Not the being the last survivor from a dead planet, but the being raised in idyllic circumstances by completely loving parents (adopted or not). For some reason, we want our heroes tortured. We need to give them reason to do what they do. Because, you know, simply doing what's right for the sake of doing what's right isn't enough.

The problem is that, if you look around at real people, bad boys are simply just that. Bad boys. Out for themselves. There is no underlying cause to the bad boyness other then selfishness and greed. We'd like to think there is, but, no. They really are just the jerks they look like. Seriously, just how many tortured vampires can there really be out there?

Speaking of vampires (again) and how bad boys are just really bad boys, Joss Whedon possibly handled this better than I've ever seen it done. You have Buffy and you have Angel, not the original tortured vampire but (arguably) the one that really got this new vampire craze going again. Angel's a bad boy. Cool. You can see he's tortured just by looking at him. On his own. Buffy's all into him. The classic bad boy with a heart of gold. Here's where the (very clever) metaphor comes in. Buffy succumbs to his charms and gives herself up to him, and, guess what, he really is just a jerk. Using her. Tossing her aside because he got what he wanted. And that is what bad boys are really like. See, Joss Whedon just proved it, so it must be true. And he didn't even use "like" or "as."

The problem here is that in the vast (VAST) majority of fiction, Buffy wakes up the next morning to find Angel snuggling with her (instead of being off on a murderous, vampiric rampage). Because that's what we want it to be like.

I understand the fantasy nature of the writing. The escapism. If we want real life, all we have to do is get out of bed in the morning. Who wants that, right? I mean, it's so much better when we can get up after noon, right? I guess what it boils down to is this: we all want our characters to stand out. To be identifiable. But when all of the characters look the same, act the same, they are all the same. Cut from the same mold.

Now, I'm saying this as someone who has not read Twilight (and I have no plans whatsoever to do so), but I know there are two camps. Two teams. But take a look at those two characters. What's the difference between them? Yeah, yeah, I know one's a vampire, and one's a werewolf, but that's like saying one wears a leather jacket and one wears a blue jean jacket. All I'm saying is that from the outside looking in, that seems to be the only significant difference between the two brooding male love interests.

Okay back to that whole "same mold" thing, bad boys are gingerbread men. We may decorate them differently, use different colors, different designs (even though the icing all tastes the same, too), when you get down to it, they're all still just gingerbread men. Cut from the same mold. Alike. When you're tired of eating gingerbread men (and I am), it doesn't matter how you dress them up, they all still taste the same.

Addendum:
Hope over to The Flying Cheetah, today, and take a look around. You might notice that I've done a guest movie review over there. You might also notice that it's a pretty cool blog. I follow it. And, you know, I have great taste and all of that, so, if I follow it, so should you!