The Dangerous Liaisons

 

 

The latest entry in the unwatched video list is Conrad Susa’s The Dangerous Liaisons (1994). I didn’t see this opera when it played at the San Francisco Opera, and I don’t recall how it was reviewed.

The music has been described as post romantic. I would call it spooky movie music, such as might accompany "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." It would be spooky Strauss if Strauss couldn’t write a decent melody. The best part is the spooky movie orchestration which I happen to know was done by my son’s friend Manly Romero. Good work, Manly. I wonder, though, if spooky is exactly the right feeling here--perhaps decadent would be more appropriate.

The singers never sing anything even marginally pleasant. Melodic patterns never show up again, that is assuming there were any in the first place. Every now and then when things get tense, someone will break out into coloratura. It creates an unpleasant atmosphere, which may be exactly what was intended.

The story is an excellent example of the love as perversion plot type common in the twentieth century. Everyone is up to no good.

The Marquise de Merteuil (Frederica von Stade) is angry because her current lover is getting married, to Cecile as it turns out. He isn’t in the opera, but she takes it out on everyone who is. She has hooks into the Vicomte de Valmont (Thomas Hampson) and seems to be able to order him around. He is quite smitten with Madame de Tourvel (Renée Fleming) who appears to be religious and honorable, though married, and to have wandered into this opera from somewhere else.

There is also a young couple, Chevalier de Danceny (David Hobson) and Cecile de Volanges (Mary Mills), who are flirting heavily with one another, though Cecile is engaged. The cast also includes various mothers, aunts, servants, business acquaintances, etc.

Everyone is constantly writing letters to everyone else and then using these letters to control and blackmail the sender.

The Marquise takes the young man to bed while Valmont does the same with Cecile. Meanwhile, he continues to make love to Madame de Tourvel. At the end of act I he is seen to succeed with her.

The bitch Merteuil is bored and orders Valmont to dump Tourvel. He does. Tourvel goes back to her old convent and goes mad. Everything goes from bad to worse. What a sorry business. If I actually liked the music, I might think it would work as an opera. Singable melodies would have helped a lot.

The high-priced talent were excellent in their roles. Thomas Hampson is completely incapable of projecting the kind of sliminess managed by John Malkovich in the movie and seems more victim than victimizer. Frederica is admirably disgusting and loathsome. Renée is her divine self.

Cezanne

In my pile of unwatched videos is a film about the painter Cezanne. Watching it reminded me of a story.

My youth was not spent in the midst of art and music. I remember always the same old master painting of a windmill on the wall in the living room. I remember "Tales from the Vienna Woods" but no opera.

When I was in junior high school, we lived in Joliet, Illinois, and I had to walk quite a way to school every day, even in the cold, windy Chicago winters. I remember walking home one day bent at an angle against the wind. It was possible to let go and lie down on the wind.

One day my mother loaned me a silk scarf to wear to school. Where did she get it? I don't know. On the way to school that morning I took off the scarf and held it up to look at. Around the side it said, "Still life with a basket of apples," and the name of the painter, Cezanne. I looked at it for a long time, awed by the way the apples were painted. It is one of my most vivid memories of that period. What the school or the students looked like I remember not at all.

I looked in books for years for exactly that picture but didn't find it.

The brain and singing

This book, Robert Jourdain's Music, the Brain and Ecstasy, has a gaping omission: there is nothing at all on singing. He goes on and on about hands in performance, but what about singing? How does that work?

Renata Tebaldi

When I bought all those DVD’s from House of Opera, one of them was a Berlin Opera production of Verdi’s Otello with Renata Tebaldi as Desdemona.

She was an Italian lyric soprano who could bring steel into her voice when the occasion required. Her legato was exquisite, and she understood the music she was singing completely. She just was not the scenery chewing type. As a person she was clearly very inward. Renata Tebaldi’s was an inward passion. There is dignity in her body, in her voice, in the profundity of her phrasing, in her very soul. She will not come out and smack you with her emotions, but if you open yourself to her singing and listen for the musical depth that is in her, there is no one greater.

Francesca da Rimini

This is from Wikipedia on Francesca da Rimini:

• 1308-1321 Divine Comedy. (Inferno, Canto V), Dante
• 1819 Paolo and Francesca. Oil on canvas, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Musée Turpin de Crissé, Angers, France
• 1870 The Death of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta. Oil on canvas, Alexandre Cabanel, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
• 1876 Francesca de Rimini. Symphonic Poem, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• 1888 The Kiss. marble sculpture, Auguste Rodin, Musée Rodin, Paris.
• 1901 Francesca da Rimini, Gabriele D'Annunzio (tragedy, written for Eleonora Duse)
• 1906 Francesca da Rimini. Opera, Sergei Rachmaninoff

This is from a description of the opera video from the Met:

Legendary tenor Placido Domingo delivers an exceptional performance in this video, which records a 1984 performance by New York's Metropolitan Opera of Riccardo Zandonai's lush romantic story. Renata Scotto also stars in this production, which was praised for its elaborate sets and costumes, as well as the superb performances (and vocals) of Domingo and Scotto and James Levine's outstanding musical direction. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

So which is it? Rough guide says Rachmaninoff. House of Opera and the Met say Zandonai. How am I supposed to know? Are they two different operas?

Interview with Cecilia

This is a fragment of an interview with Cecilia Bartoli, the part I was interested in. [In brackets are my translations, such as they are.]

Early on she says "Ich liebe das Essen." [I love food.] This refers to the fact that she has lost weight.

I:Sie haben vor zwanzig Jahren Ihre Karriere begonnen. Hat sich der Starkult seither verschärft? [You began your career 20 years ago. Has the star cult intensified since that time?]

C:Nein, den Schönheitskult gab es in den Sechzigerjahren schon, bei Anna Moffo. Ich habe den Hype mit 23 erlebt, als ich auf dem Cover von «Vanity Fair» war und in der Letterman-Show auftrat. Das war sehr aufregend, auch nützlich, aber es hat mich auf Dauer nicht befriedigt. Publicity laugt aus. [No, in the seventies there was already a beauty cult, with Anna Moffo. I experienced the hype at 23, when I was on the cover of Vanity Fair and appeared on the Letterman Show. That was very exciting, also useful, but it was not satisfying in the long run. Publicity leaches out.]

I:Das hat auch Anna Netrebko erfahren die Sie übrigens sehr verehrt. [That happened to Anna Netrebko, too, who, by the way, very much admires you.]

C:Danke, wir haben uns gerade in London kennen gelernt. Ich sah sie in «Rigoletto», sie mich in «Il Turco in Italia». Was für eine herrliche Stimme! Sie hat Ihre ganz grosse Karriere noch vor sich. [Thanks, we just got to know each other in London. I saw her in Rigoletto and she saw me in Il Turco in Italia. What a wonderful voice. She has a very great career ahead of her.]

I:Fürchten Sie die Konkurrenz? [Are you afraid of the competition?]

C:Nein, es ist Platz für uns alle da. Für Angela Gheorghiu, für Magdalena Kozena und für Renée Fleming. Haben Sie Renée mal gehört, wenn sie ein «messa di voce» vom pianissimo ins forte hebt und wieder im pianissimo landet? Unglaublich. Trotzdem, solange ich fünf Millionen CDs verkaufe, mache ich mir keine Sorgen. [No, there is room for everyone. For Angela Gheorghiu, for Magdalena Kozena and for Renée Fleming. Have you heard Renée when she does a "messa di voce" from pianissimo to forte and then back to pianissimo? Unbelievable. When I sell 5 million cd's this does not concern me.]

DrB: Pardon my translation. Maybe I got it, maybe I didn't. I like knowing who she likes. I don't know Magdalena Kožená, but will look into it. We certainly concur on the subject of Anna Netrebko. This part answers questions from friends:

I:Haben Sie Ihre Flugangst überwunden? [Have you gotten over your fear of flying?]

C:Es wird besser. Man kann von oben auf die Welt herabsehen, fast wie im Theater. Aber die langen Flüge machen mich immer noch fertig. Ich werde per Schiff in die USA reisen, dann mit dem Flugzeug nach Asien. Von dort kehre ich hoffentlich mit dem Zug zurück. [It's better. One can look down on the world from above, almost like in a theater. But the longer flights still make me finished. I will travel by ship to the US, then take a plane to Asia. From there I will hopefully go back on the train.]

In the New York Times

The big opera item in the New York Times this week is that the Los Angeles Opera is doing Offenbach's La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein with Garry Marshall directing. Marshall is known to all as the inventor of Laverne and Shirley. What this means is opera as slapstick comedy. I must admit this has aroused my curiosity. Should we be shocked and appalled? Offenbach is only operetta, so I guess it's ok.

And still no one is interested in my Austin Powers Don Giovanni.

Love in the Twentieth century

This is the latest in the love series.

These operas from the twentieth century are about love, too, but it is love seen in a rather warped, Freudian way. Love is often a perversion, a mental disturbance that is seldom put right.

Richard Strauss started it all with his opera Salome. Salome falls in love with the prophet Johanahan, otherwise known as John the Baptist. Nothing is so white as his body. Nothing is so black as his hair. Nothing is so red as his lips. Salome’s mother wants him dead because he is spreading scandal about her. Her motives are purely political and would fit into the romantic political context of Verdi. Salome is caught up in a purely sexual obsession—she simply wants to kiss his lips. (Apparently she wants nothing else from him, since cutting off his head would obviously render that impossible.) When she has achieved this goal upon the decapitated head of her beloved, she complains that his lips have a bitter taste.

The contrast to Massenet’s Herodiade (1881) could not be more complete. In that opera John and Salome enjoy a traditional romantic love and die together. There is no dance, and of course, there is no perverse obsession. Strauss has brought us into the twentieth century where love is more likely to be a perversion than a romantic ideal.

There are two popular twentieth-century operas with similar thematic material: Káťa Kabanová (1921) by Janáček and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1932) by Shostakovich. Both involve unhappily married women who have affairs, both are driven to their unhappy state by interfering in-laws, and both leap into a river to escape their misery. Káťa commits suicide because her lover leaves for Siberia. Katarina kills herself immediately after murdering her rival. The similarity of the plots is striking. They also share the problem of staging a suicide that involves leaping into a river. It isn’t easy to make this look realistic.

A lot of people like Káťa Kabanová, but the first time I saw it, prior to surtitles, I found it quite boring in spite of the presence of Evelyn Lear in the mother part. However, I must say that productions of these kinds of sordid operas make an enormous difference in the impression on the viewer. The first production of Lady Macbeth that I saw was intensely sexual, emphasizing with visual elements all the powerful sexiness of the score. The second time in Pamela Rosenberg’s version they seemed to be trying to hide it. To what end? Káťa is more like Madame Bovary, unhappy and confused, while Katarina is a wild and wicked woman whose wickedness should properly be flaunted.

I’ve already commented on the love element in Barber’s Vanessa. This type of martyrdom for love I can’t find in other operas. La gioconda sacrifices herself for her lover’s happiness, but I can think of no one who just sits there waiting. Ariadne whines a lot at least--she can’t figure out how to get off the island—but Vanessa has no such excuse.

Britten makes frequent and varied use of the love theme in his operas which may go a long way toward explaining his continuing popularity. Death in Venice (1973) is based on the story by Thomas Mann which is in turn based on an anecdote told to Mann by Gustav Mahler. It was Mahler who fell in love with a boy on the Lido beach, lending the aura of celebrity to the story.

An older man, Aschenbach, notices a teen-age boy on the beach and falls wildly in love with him. The boy is a mime part, a danced part. It isn’t necessary for him to speak, but it is necessary for him to be very beautiful. The boy is always discretely accompanied by his mother. Plague comes to Venice, and Aschenbach stays and dies.

We can’t find our way to sensible loving, at least not as entertainment. The theme of cultural conflict between lovers is common in musicals. The plot of Madame Butterfly was successfully recast into Miss Saigon. West Side Story juxtaposes Puerto Rican immigrants against white Americans. South Pacific is about racial prejudice as a barrier to love. Then there's Phantom of the Opera which I suppose is about prejudice against the handicapped. I suppose. These things don't seem to inspire operas.

However perverse the love theme may become in these modern operas, they are still superior to most of their contemporaries and continue to increase in popularity. A perverse love plot is far better than no love plot at all.

Tosca movie

Jean and I were watching the Tosca movie with Placido Domingo and Catherine Malfitano, and Jean said "Dump that woman!" This was a terrible shock. "But Jean, Mario is the one who drags them down by getting involved in politics. If he dumps Tosca, he's still dead."

I love Catherine Malfitano's Tosca. She is so wonderfully out there. Tosca is supposed to be an opera singer. She is maddeningly jealous and passionate. And she leaps to her death in style.

This movie is famous for the wonderful cinematography used to film the locations in Rome. But it isn't just for pictures--the singing and acting are also very fine.

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Meter war

Robert Jourdain in his book Music, the Brain and Ecstasy at the end of the chapter on rhythm proposes a meter war. He sees ranks forming on each side with one group favoring regular meters with interest focused on harmony, while the other group leaves the harmony simple and emphasizes the meter.

The first group is represented by classical music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The obsession with tonality and its developmental implications made meter a not particularly significant feature.

The second group is represented by American pop of various genres. They bring along a lot of heavy equipment to help them emphasize the meter. Rhythmic elements predominate, especially in rock and roll and disco where an emphasized meter is virtually everything.

In the sixties were a group called the Swingle Singers who did Bach with a jazz style drum track. This was very workable and fun, and I recall buying their records. I also recall doing it myself on my synthesizer, producing a rather silly version of Bach’s “Sehet Jesu” from the St. Matthew Passion. The idea was to marry both worlds.

I guess I see these things as elements of style. One style—or more appropriately, sequence of styles—arose in civilized Europe where music served primarily to support authoritarian political regimes, while the other—also forming itself into a series—arose in America and emphasized informality and egalitarianism.

I guess I see a culture war. One is formal and intellectual, treasured and tax supported. The other is informal and left entirely to the forces of capitalism. It’s even railed against and blamed for all manner of moral degradation. One is seeping away into the past along with the culture it reflected, more valued with each successive loss of viability. The other thrives while hardly valued.

Theory explains the how of music, but does not explain the why.