Classics Considered

Three years already since my last opera review ?!  I feel bad about that and intend to start making it right, firstly with this review of L'Elisir d'Amore ("The Elixir of Love") by Gaetano Donizetti, of Lucia di Lammermoor fame. Some backstory for newer readers: I've been enjoying operas at the local movie theater, streamed live from the Met , since 2012.  It's a wonderful weekend "excursion" - my cousin, also an opera fan, has joined me in the last couple of years, and I've succeeded in getting my sister and brother interested as well.  Tickets run around $30, but for a 2-4 hour show and the quality of the productions, you definitely get your money's worth.  (That said, I usually only go to 2-3 per season, for budgetary reasons.) The story of L'Elisir d'Amore is a classic love triangle - a rich, carefree lady named Adina (sung by Pretty Yende) is being aggressively wooed by an arrogant but dashing sergeant, Belcore (baritone Dav...

Watching The Enchanted Island posed three firsts for me: 1) Baroque 2) English 3) Getting my brother to watch opera (!!) The last one was a surprising success...the first two, not so much. I was intrigued by the concept when it came out in 2011, and it stayed in the back of my mind, till I finally got the DVD from the library.  The Enchanted Island is a so-called opera "pastiche" by Jeremy Sams - if his name rings a bell, he composed the score for Persuasion .  He collected different Baroque operatic pieces (mostly arias) and wrote English lyrics for them, basing the plot on a combination of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream . This production gave me pretty mixed feelings. I'm a little - is disturbed the word? - that Sams took whatever Barqoue opera pieces he wanted and put completely new words to them.  Part of me is always a purist to the composer's original intentions, and though their works have long since been in the public domain, at times it ma...

Last month, I saw two excellent productions which I've been meaning (ever since) to talk about.  One was an opera - the Met's new/first production of Iolanta , by Tchaikovsky, starring Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala.  The second was Billy Budd , a 1962 adaptation of Melville's novella, with Peter Ustinov playing Captain Vere. Iolanta is about a princess who was born blind, and kept ignorant of the fact.  Her father, King René, insists she lives a sheltered, solitary life in the forest, hoping somehow that her betrothed, Robert, will also never learn of her blindness (until after they are married).  The king tries to enlist the help of a surgeon to give Iolanta her eyesight, though the outlook, he feels, is not promising.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, Iolanta has been found by the knight Vaudémont, who falls in love with her instantly...but is it also unconditionally? This is such a beautiful story that it's amazing the Met waited so long.  The plot...

Romeo and Juliet in Scotland.  That is the easiest way to sum up Gaetano Donizetti's dramatic opera, Lucia di Lammermoor . It is, perhaps, unfair to summarize this opera so succinctly, when it is so famous, so much a "classic" of the opera genre.  Following the links on Wikipedia, I learned that Lucia  was based on a Waverly novel by Sir Walter Scott - The Bride of Lammermoor  - which in turn was apparently based on true events.  That might explain why it is somewhat more credible, and more compelling, than Romeo and Juliet , even though the plot runs nearly parallel. The Ashton family is archenemies with the Ravenswood family (what a splendid name!).  As these things go, Lucia Ashton (Anna Netrebko) falls in love with Edgardo Ravenswood (Piotr Beczala).  She happens to have a brother, Enrico (Mariusz Kwiecien), and because he is a baritone, we know whose side he's not  on.  Taking her love for Edgardo as a betrayal, Enrico schemes to force h...