Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony, Seat B114
($97.50).
Conductor – Fabio Luisi; Cassandra, Trojan Prophetess,
daughter of Priam – Deborah Voigt; Coroebus, engaged to Cassandra – Dwayne
Croft; Aeneas, Trojan hero - Marcello Giordani, Dido, Queen of Carthage – Susan
Graham; Anna – sister of Dido – Karen Cargill; Narbal, Dido’s Minister –
Kwangchul Youn; Iopas, poet at Dido’s court – Eric Cutler; Ascanius, son of
Aeneas – Julie Boulianne.
Story. The first
part of the opera (Acts I and II: La Prise de Troie) talks about how the Greeks
invaded Troy by leaving a wooden horse behind.
Cassandra warns her father King Priam and her fiancé Coroebus to flee
the city, but she is ignored. The
Trojans bring the wooden horse left by the Greeks into the city as a way to
appease Athena, the Greek deity. The
ghost of Cassandra’s brother Hector visits Aeneas and asks him to flee to
Italy. As the Greeks overrun the city,
Cassandra and many other Trojan women commit mass suicide instead of being
submitted to rape and enslavement. The
second part of the opera (Acts III, IV, V: Les Troyens a Carthage) centers
around events in Carthage after the Aeneas and other Trojans arrived in
Carthage. Seven year prior, Queen Dido –
whose husband was murdered - and her
people fled from their native Tyre and settled in Carthage. They take in the Trojans after they are
shipwrecked in a storm. When the
Numidians attack Carthage, the Trojans help the Carthaginians to repel them,
thus earning their gratitude. Aeneas
and Dido eventually fall in love, and Dido begins to neglect her duty as
Queen. However, Aeneas is reminded of
his mission by Mercury in a vision, so they set sail for Italy, leaving Queen
Dido behind. When she realizes what has
happened, the queen ordered a pyre to be built to burn everything that reminds
her of Aeneas, and she also commits suicide by stabbing herself on the altar. Before she dies, she predicts Hannibal will
avenge her against Italy.
The headline artists of this performance are Deborah
Voigt and Susan Graham, both well known for their respective roles as a soprano
and a mezzo-soprano. I also generally
enjoy Berlioz’s music, in particular his Symphonie Fantastique and Faust (which
I also saw as an opera). My expectations
for the evening were thus quite high.
This is a long opera, lasting about four hours, five hours
with two intermissions. Worried about gridlock during the holiday season, we
got into the city quite early, and managed to find free off-street
parking! Dinner was at East Szechuan. Our trip home was equally smooth.
I didn’t get to write this blog until today (December 26)
because we spent Christmas in Boston with family, so I will probably end up
with some very general observations. The
first thought that comes to mind was the opera didn’t have to be this
long. This is particularly true of Part
II. There were just many dance numbers
that take up a lot of time (to illustrate how Dido and Aeneas are enjoying
themselves). The dancing was probably of
high quality, and so was the music, but they didn’t add a lot to the
drama. Someone defending the work would
say they added a lot to the overall experience (which I won’t argue with), but
to me they do not add to the story much.
I guess it’s a debate similar to the one in Strauss’s Capriccio: is
opera about music or about drama? To my
considerable surprise, I was quite awake for the entire performance, and
actually quite enjoyed it.
The other surprise was that Deborah Voigt didn’t sound as
strong as I expected. She actually
sounded weaker than Dwayne Croft (Coroebus) who according to the announcement
at the beginning of the performance was still recovering from a cold. Voigt was adequate, and actually was quite
convincing as Cassandra. Susan Graham,
on the other hand, sang extremely well, her voice carried well into the
balcony.
One main voice that spans both Parts was that of Marcello
Giordani, playing Aeneas. He could have
shone as the anchor of the show but unfortunately was not quite up to the
task. I found his acting skills a bit on
the wooden side also.
Most of the “supporting cast” did great jobs. Eric Cutler, as Iopas the poet, got quite an
enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Karen Cargill and Kwangchul Youn as Dido’s sister Anna and minister
Narbal sang clearly and beautifully. I
also like Ascanius, son of Aeneas, as sung by Julie Boulianne.
The production calls for a large chorus. I counted as many as 160 people on stage at
the same time (probably under-counted, if anything.) At the beginning of the show, they were all
lying on the ground, and as the music progressed slowly moved about and
eventually all got up. I thought that
was really effective. The chorus
appeared on multiple occasions and I enjoyed their singing.
Despite my opinion that there was too much extraneous
dancing, the dancers actually did a great job, and the dances well
choreographed. The color theme for the
Carthaginians was white, and the white clothes on the dancers certainly made
for a beautiful sight. Strangely, many
of the dances were “unisex” in that the pairings were not always boy-girl.
The staging had as its foundation a nest-like structure
built of slats, with a second level platform that served multiple functions,
such as the path the Trojan horse was brought into the city, or the cave where
Dido and Aeneas declared their love for one another. Overall, the staging was effective and
interesting.
The orchestra put in a great performance. The music is quite pleasant, but as with my
other Berlioz experiences, I probably will enjoy it more as I get more
familiarized with it.
Overall it is an enjoyable experience. However, the overall performance doesn’t quite
live up to the grand scale that one would expect given the story and the length
of the opera. Contrast this with my
experience with Prokofiev’s War and Peace or even the Broadway show Les
Miserables, which brings to mind the word “epic.”
I found both a New York Times review that says the score
lasts 4 ½ hours and is quite critical of many aspects of the performance - comparing it with Levine's performance in 2003; and a
Huffington Post review that gives quite a bit of detail of Les Troyens history
at the Met.
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