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.

Andrea Chenier (an opera review post)

How do you really know that fall is here? Because opera has started! Yes, the new opera season has begun, and my wife and I have begun our opera pilgrimages. We decided to become season subscribers for the 2016-17 season because that makes the opera fairly affordable. Honestly, as long as you don't mind sitting up where the air is thin, the opera actually is fairly affordable. Guess where we sit. Yeah, we take oxygen tanks.

It's not really that bad, being up in the top of the balcony, and, actually, doing the season subscription got us better seats than we could afford if we were buying seats for individual operas.

But I digress...

The first opera up was Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano. Chenier is the only opera of Giordano's more than a dozen pieces that is still ever performed, and with good reason, evidently. Not that Chenier wasn't good or watchable -- I'll get to that more in a moment -- but, if this is the best of his works, it's understandable why this is the only one that's still being done. I'm assuming it's being presented now because of the setting: the French Revolution, the ultimate disagreement, let's say, between the 99% and the 1%.

The problem with that as a reason is that the revolution is just a prop for the love story, so the class division is barely touched on. It's unfortunate because what could have been powerful social commentary is undermined by a rather ineffective love story.

Of course, looking at this love story, which was first performed in 1896, does at least slightly inform us as to why insta-love in stories is such a thing. The opera opens with a party at the home of Maddalena di Coigny (the female lead) at which Andrea Chenier is present. Now, Chenier is an actual historical figure, a French poet who got himself into trouble during the revolution and was executed for it. So Chenier is at this party in 1789 just before the revolution gets started, and our leading lady, Maddalena, makes fun of him for being a poet in front of all of her friends, all of whom get a good laugh out of it. Chenier responds by improvising some poetry on the spot, putting Maddalena to shame and causing her to flee the room.

Five years later, Chenier is an important figure in the revolution and Maddalena is in hiding. She decides to seek him out to help her, which she does initially by writing him anonymous quasi-romantic letters. However, when she finally comes face to face with him, she opens with, "Hey, do you remember me? I've always thought of you like a brother, so I was hoping you would help me." In my head, the responses go something like this:
"Sure, I remember you. You made fun of me in the middle of your party and made everyone laugh at me."
"I met you one time! What do you mean you think of me like a brother?"
"Ew! You think of me like a brother, but you've been writing me love notes? You're sick, lady!"
Again, "I met you one time! You're part of the aristocracy that we're fighting against. Why would I want to help you?"
All of those make sense, right? What we get, instead, is this:
"I love you!"
And she responds with, "I love you, too!"
Thus, we have a love story. That part was hard to swallow. And the two leads are about as interesting as their love story.

However, the opera is saved by the character of Gerard, who is also in love with Maddalena, and who is a fully formed and complex character. The actor playing Gerard, George Gagnidze, does a great job with the role on top of the singing. The two leads are fairly flat in their performances, but Gagnidze puts obvious emotion into Gerard and was well worth watching. His pseudo companion, The Incredible, played by Joel Sorensen, is also very good.

The ending is also difficult to accept for reasons I'm not going to go into other than to say that the character who shows that his love is true in the sense of wanting what is best for the other person is not Chenier. To say that the ending was unsatisfying doesn't really say enough about how empty it is, although I think it was supposed to be some "love conquers all" kind of statement.

So, yeah, there was some issues with the story, but opera is not all about the story. The singing was great even if it was almost all of the stand-in-place-and-sing variety. The sets and costumes were magnificent, especially the sets. I mean, the sets were impressive.

It wasn't a great opera, but it wasn't bad, either. Certainly, it was much better than last year's Usher opera. My wife and I have already decided that if this is the worst of the operas this season that we won't be disappointed.


[Make sure to check out yesterday's recipe post!]