opera, a touch of it

[calimac]

Lisa Irontongue wants everyone to buy a ticket to the SF Opera production of Berlioz' Les Troyens. A 5 1/2 hour opera based on one of the most boring books I've ever read? Not for me, thanks.

But, while it's true that "opera" is not much more enticing a word to me than is "5 1/2 hours" or "boring", there are some things operatic I'll attend. I've already proven my devotion to the greatest of all opera composers, Sir Arthur Sullivan, having been to productions of two of his lesser-known operas this year alone; and tonight I was more than pleased to attend, at Stanford, a piano recital of a few arias and duets from a new legal opera, Scalia/Ginsburg, by composer and lawyer Derrick Wang.

I'm glad I took the trouble to go. It was so clever and witty and erudite, both musically and (in its libretto) legally. The law is based on precedent, right? Well, Wang composed based on operatic precedent, with quotations and pastiche all over. To tell their backgrounds, Ginsburg sings a Mozartean aria for her favorite composer; Scalia's, for his Italian ancestry, is based on Puccini. (Voice from the background: "Puccini's too good for him!") Wang said he was initially inspired by Scalia dissents which read to him like Baroque rage arias: full of strong emotion exposed on the surface, and firmly rooted in the 18th century. So he gets one of those too.

Comments

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Whether a libretto's source material is dull or not has little to do with whether the opera itself is dull. That has a lot more to do with the music. As well, Troyens is based on a small part of the Aeneid, and the libretto is by Berlioz, not Virgil.

And I was under the impression that you like Berlioz! There are excerpts and whole performances on YouTube, so you can judge for yourself whether you'd find Troyens boring. Start from the very beginning, would be my suggestion.

Whether you care to sit through the whole epic is another matter.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I beg your pardon, but I find that the interest level of the libretto, the quality of the acting, and other purely dramatic elements have a great deal to do with the dullness or lack of same of my experience of an opera.

This is why I class opera as a different genre from concert music, even though it's often composed by the same people: in opera, it's not just about the music. It's music plus drama plus spectacle, and they all have to work, and work together. (The problem with Regietheater is that the third element has gotten out of hand from the first two.)

I do like Berlioz! (At least in aspects: his problem is structure, which can sink a bad performance, and the lack of the kind of structure that concert music has is my biggest aesthetic hurdle in appreciating opera.) Even parts of Troyens: I'll listen to the "Royal Hunt and Storm" any time. It's "whether you care to sit through the whole epic" that's the rub, and that's what's on offer at SFO.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I continue to encourage you to listen to, say, 20 minutes of Troyens, starting from the top. And you could certainly take a look at the libretto to see whether you find it boring. It's here:

http://operalively.com/forums/content.php/729-les-troyens-libretto-in-english?s=90fb239112b9ca9b97891b06407ef3f1

You could have an interesting discussion with Mozart, Verdi, and Berg about the musical structures of their operas. Concert music has used any number of different solutions to form and structure issues, and opera is no different.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Concert music has used any number of different solutions to form and structure issues

Yes it has, and my liking and appreciation of a given piece of concert music has a lot to do with what that solution is. Long pieces that have structures similar to those typical of opera, like most Richard Strauss tone poems, are among my least favorite concert music, and that's why.

Contrawise, an opera that takes a more integrated, concert-music approach to its structure will win more of my favor. This is part of why I favor Das Rheingold over the rest of Der Ring: it's more tightly constructed.