Opera Impressions

Stiffelio: A Tale of Sex and Forgiveness

Verdi's Stiffelio deals with sex, love, adultery and the lives of the clergy. The opera tells the story of a Protestant minister, Stiffelio and his unfaithful wife Lina and how Stiffelio faces the passions aroused by his wife's infidelity and his role as the respected leader of his congregation. It is not surprising that the Italian censors had problems with the libretto. The censors decimated the opera and it has only been very recently that the opera has been reconstructed. 

Simon Boccanegra

There is nothing like a pleasant evening with Placido Domingo, James Levine, Giuseppe Verdi and librettists Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito. Arias, duets, trios, and the chorus all interacting in fascinating ways. Music that supports, advances and echoes the plot. There is something almost meditative in some of Verdi's operas. There is a certain flow of music and drama which seamlessly moves into these different combinations of voices and then ebbs back to others. In this opera, this was all in service of the question: can anyone bring peace and even a bit of unity to the Italian city states. Mix in romance, filial loyalty, a few traitors here and there and some poison and you have the opera Simon Boccanegra.

FLASH: Aida Dies At The End Of Opera

After the equivocal ending of the recent performance of Tosca at the Met where Tosca may or may not have thrown herself off of a tower, I must report from the recent Met performance of Aida, that Aida dies at the end of the opera. Or, at least she was last seen singing with her lover Radames while sealed inside a tomb. And, Amneris, the daughter of the King of Egypt, was last seen still articulating her ambivalence about having turned in Radames in response to her unrequited love for him.

Rigoletto

Verdi's Rigoletto -->is one of his more well known operas which includes the aria "La donna e mobile" by which the Duke sings about the fickleness of women. The irony here is of course that the Duke should be the last one to complain given his rapacious pursuit of a variety of young innocents. Among these is Gilda the daughter of the hunchback Rigoletto. There are so many interesting aspects of the plot most of which involve the character of Rigoletto. A good question here is whether what we see played out is an issue of Rigoletto's character or his job as the court jester - the local Don Rickles, who spares no one however unfortunate from his unrestrained barbs. In the end, Rigoletto suffers from what he has himself put in motion on many levels. Gilda's innocence does her in. The Duke seems to get away scott free. As Mel Brooks once said, "It's good to be king." Seeing this year's performance for me was strongly influenced by having seen Anna Netrebko sing the role of Gilda last year. Nothing they could do this year would have topped that. My impression of this year's performance is that it seemed to lack passion. Notwithstanding that, I still picked up the unfortunate nature of Rigoletto and the sad turn of events. My recording of this opera is the Sutherland-Pavarotti recording. I invariably opt for the Sutherland-Pavarotti version of an opera if there is one.