Clari

👍🏻

This DVD of Halévy's Clari (1828) comes with something I've never associated with opera before:  a comic book.  This is apparently essential to the production which is called a photo-novel.  Another first for me is an opera plot about internet dating.  The comic book skips over some parts of the story.  We'll see.

It starts off with Oliver Widmer cursing out the orchestra.  This is good.

Cecilia Bartoli's attraction to Clari is based on the fact that the opera was written for Maria Malibran and forms part of the Maria project.  As with most opera lovers, I am only familiar with La Juive of Halévy's works, and was unprepared for the fully bel canto style of the opera.

Rather like Pinkerton, the hero declares that the demands of honor mean nothing to him.  Hmmm.

Cecilia pops out of a cake.  You are wondering, of course, how do they work the pink gorilla into the plot?  I'm not sure I should tell.

The comic book that comes with Clari tells us that we are "in a beautiful but poor country far away," a country that looks a lot like Switzerland, where the production takes place.

Clari with her new lover whom she met on the internet and who does not offer to marry her is reminded of home, has a nervous breakdown and ends up in the hospital.  They do a fascinating job of integrating the "Willow Song" from Rossini's Otello into the second act.  Clari, in despair, sees a hypodermic, shoots herself up with perhaps morphine, and sings the aria while on an extended high, thus turning the aria into a mad scene.  This is apparently what Malibran sang in this same place in the opera.
 
Papa sits back at home watching football on tv with his pet pig and complaining loudly.  First Clari and then her Duke, very well sung by John Osborn, show up at the old farm house and resolve the problem with the help of a suitcase full of money for papa.  Another aria, this time by Halévy himself, is inserted for Cecilia. The score contained only the words.

Let's be clear: this opera would not be a suitable vehicle for either Maria Malibran or Cecilia Bartoli without these two aria additions. It is, perhaps, not ideal to be reminded here of what true genius actually sounds like, but both arias are suitable to their contexts. Something that cannot be said for the Mozart that appeared suddenly in the middle of Nina.

The opera ends with a stage full of lovely cows.  I am almost tempted to call it the original verismo opera.  It is a special event for a special person.  She stands at the end next to Oliver holding her roses and smiling.   The pictures will be hard to forget.  Perhaps it is love that makes it work.
#ad

Clari

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am more than happy to advertise opera chic by showing this picture from Clari. I once knew a guy who had a giant oil painting of a cow in his living room, so this seems quite plausible to me. We are asked to believe that Cecilia Bartoli is milking a cow.

Is that a wig, or has Cecilia lightened and cut her hair? If so, that is a first. Would it work for her to be a blond?

Sigh. If I hadn't spent so much money last month, I would have gone. The Zurich production of Clari seems to have been quite silly, virtually Monty Python-like in its silliness. There were not enough arias for Cecilia Bartoli as the title character, so more were interpolated, including the Willow song from Rossini's very serious Otello. One critic called it a failure. Others found it much ado about nothing. One thing we can be sure of: we will never hear it again. Except if it comes out on DVD. This entire style of opera is very seldom revived. We prefer that an opera clearly make up its mind--comedy or drama. This blogger has an audio clip.

La Juive

I bought a copy of Halévy’s La Juive presented at the Wiener Staatsoper and have started to watch it. I know that it was part of Caruso’s basic repertoire at the Met. Indeed, it was during a run of La Juive that he died in 1920. The other thing it’s known for is the first use of valve horns and trumpets in 1835 – a fact to memorize.

The European solution to heresy has always been just to kill all the heretics. Protestantism survived because the political forces were simply too strong for the defenders of the catholic church to defeat. Europeans wonder over America even now. How can there be hundreds of religions, they ask? America is founded (even if Americans sometimes forget this) on the idea that your religion is your business. We believe deeply in letting everyone exist side by side with us. Our diversity is our one great strength. It’s why we are constantly trying to overthrow other assumptions that people take for granted. It’s what makes us us.

The Holy Roman Emperor has just finished massacring the members of a heresy, and everyone is looking around for others to persecute to make themselves feel better. Jews always make likely targets for people with this perspective. The general viewpoint is very shocking to us. Maybe WWII made this simply too hard to watch. Whatever the reason, the opera isn’t part of the standard repertoire any more. It is shocking to hear hatred so openly expressed.

The plot is similar to Il Trovatore – the persecutor turns out to be destroying his own daughter/brother. The false parent feels simultaneously sorrow and vengeance at the death of the child, a combination that feels like a perversion. The difference is that La Juive is about the hatred between Christians and Jews. The designer has chosen to emphasize this almost exclusively by dressing the Christians primarily in white and the Jews primarily in black. When transacting business, the Christians don’t cross over into the Jewish space. The production also emphasizes the religious elements by dressing the priest in his vestments and Eleazer in his prayer shawl. It’s stark and cruel and utterly unambiguous.

Also like Trovatore, a man from one side and a woman from the other fall in love, and this forbidden act is enough to create tragedy. The Christian man pretends to be a Jew, in this production merely by dressing in black. All that is necessary to show his bad intentions is to show him also dressed in white.

I am interested in this. The production should explain the opera, and this one is outstanding. It hardly matters that the crowds are in black and white dirndls and lederhosen. Ach! Isn’t that reason enough for moving a work to another era? Aren’t there already enough productions with dirndls and lederhosen? The Jews are dressed in ordinary suits and dresses.

It is good to see this opera, to remind ourselves of a world not quite gone. There is also a lot of nice melody you can really sink your teeth into, mainly for soprano and tenor. It is called a Grand Opera, but I see no ballet.

#ad