Va là, che sei il grand'uom: Don Giovanni

In the three times I've seen Michael Grandage's new Don Giovanni for the Met, I've progressed from disappointment, to frustration, to outright resentment of its lack of substance. (Is there a modified Kübler-Ross model for coping with bad opera productions?) Its visual clichés I find increasingly reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera: red velvet, ostentatious chandeliers, torch-bearing crowds with pitchforks, and, not least, theatrical blasts of flame. For the sake of Gerald Finley's Don, and Bryn Terfel's Leporello, however, I went. Both gave vivid vocal performances of great beauty... and both had, apparently, decided to fill the dramaturgical vacuum with bass-baritonal hijinks. They were supported by very fine singing from the rest of the cast. Andrew Davis' conducting was fleet and energized, but alert to the dark undercurrents in the music. The dramatic propulsion provided by the orchestra (which could also be slyly insinuating, when such was called for) was most welcome.

L'Africaine: A Love Triangle and a Poisonous Tree

Principals of L'Africaine 1865 premiere in costume

L'Africaine is Meyerbeer's final opera, polished and premiered posthumously.  In my quest to read up on it, I found a site for the Meyerbeer Fan Club which shows its age, but contains discographies and links to scholarly articles, not to be despised.  There's a synopsis here.  It would seem not unstageable in the twenty-first century--see this detailed review of a 2004 production by the Opera du Rhin--despite the drama deriving from encounters between Europeans and an extravagantly exotic Other.  The identity of this Other is somewhat flexible; the libretto--by none other than  Eugène Scribe--started out with the action in Africa and Spain, but later revisions placed the story in Portugal and India.  No civilization has a monopoly on stock villains in the opera, as there is both a character who invokes Indian gods against sailors, and an Inquisitor; in fact, the dagger-wielding, pagan-gods-invoking Nelusko is a fairly complex character.  The only libretto I could find was an English translation of the hilariously ornate variety.  (Also impressively ornate are the headdresses worn by Selikas of the past.)  As far as I could judge from the text, there are both subtleties and ambivalences in how the characters are presented.  These uncertainties and inconsistencies, I would argue, make this fantasy narrative about Vasco de Gama, his ambitions, and the two women who think he's just the dishiest thing, more stageable rather than less.  My cursory investigation seems to reveal a dizzying lack of consensus among scholars as to the actual natures and motivations of the characters.  Naturally this entails a certain amount of disagreement as to the Point Of The Opera as well.  The Opera Orchestra of New York skipped past the historical-philosophical debates in the tagline: Torn Between Two Lovers--How Will It End? 

My impressions are of course hampered by the fact that this was my first hearing of the music, but I was favorably impressed, if not transported.  Eve Queler was--understandably and, I think, commendably--applauded with a fervor that acknowledged her role as the OONY founder.  However, while the orchestra gained in energy over the course of the evening, I suspected that the music could have been given more variation in dynamics and tempi to communicate the emotional drama of the score.  Maybe I'm looking for something that's not there, but the orchestration, the vocal characterization, and the libretto all seemed to suggest the possibility for more intensity than I experienced.  Still, the music was interesting and evocative.  Piccolos, soft cymbals, and a triangle may seem like a musical cliché in the introduction of the Exotic Other, but if everyone else was copying Meyerbeer, one can't blame him (except for Orientalism.)  The scene where de Gama's plans are debated in council was dramatically great--factions of a male chorus shouting at each other over an orchestra, with more important characters voicing their own motivations as well!--and the music of the mysterious island was lushly sensual.  I'm not familiar enough with the score to say whether or not there were cuts; the music and drama developed smoothly, though.