What my favorite operas say about me
Here are some thoughts I had when I was listing my five favorite operas of all time:
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) by Mozart
Count Almaviva wants to sleep with his valet's fiancee, Susanna. So he decides to exercise his droit du seigneur - the noble's right to sleep with his servant on her wedding night. It's a comedy (weirdly) of commoners using their wiles to outsmart an aristocrat. It explores class differences and gender identity. The plot is purposely convoluted and stupid.
My dad told me that opera was perfected with the premier of Le Nozze di Figaro. All operas leading up to it are mistakes. All operas after are noise. This opera is fast paced. It is revolutionary both in text and in music. There's this scene in Peter Schaffer's Amadeus that is unfortunately not included in the movie adaptation:
Amadeus: A dramatic poet would have to put all those thoughts down one after another to represent this second of time. The composer can put them all down at once-and still make us hear each one of them. Astonishing device-a vocal quartet! A quartet becoming a quintet becoming a sextet. On and on, wider and wider-and then together making a sound entirely new...I bet you that’s how God hears the world. Millions of sounds ascending at once and mixing in His ear to become an unending music!
So Amadeus is explicitly talking about the Act 2 finale. But it can also be applied to the last half hour of the opera which is my favorite. The finale cements it as the perfection of opera. There's this incredible layering of voices one on top of each other in the dark garden. There's no interruptions, just continuous music. Characters entering and leaving the garden with so much grace. The finale ends with the Count asking forgiveness ("Contessa perdono") and everyone, of course, rightfully cries.
La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Tito) by Mozart
The premise is of a scheming woman (Vitellia) who seduces Emperor Titus's closest confidante (Sesto), persuading him to assassinate the Emperor and win her the Imperial throne. The Emperor survives the assassination attempt and, as a testament to his virtue, forgives everyone involved. It has become fashionable to describe this as Mozart's worst opera. The work was commissioned by the King of Bohemia at the time as a piece of propaganda to pacify the political turmoil brought upon by the French Revolution. The plot is stupid. There is nothing intellectually profound about the opera. I love it cause it has two trouser roles (women dressed as men).
Act 1 is strong with one of the greatest aria written by Mozart ever: "Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio". It's accompanied by an amazing clarinet solo. Sesto goes off to assassinate the Emperor, but he begs Vitellia to look at him one more time. "Guardami (Look at me)," he pleads. All singers have their own interpretation of this one phrase (Cecilia Bartoli has the best interpretation). The clarinet answers. It's heartachingly vulnerable. Yet, the orchestra crescendos, his love for her is absolute. He will go on to do this horrible deed because: "Ah qual poter, oh Dei! Donaste alla belta" (Ah what power, oh gods, you give to beauty!")
I'm so sorry, but Act 2 drags. The final act is redeemed by one of my favorite choral work: after discovering the conspirators, he decides to forgive everyone. I consider the opera as one of my favorites because of that one aria and finale. It's very stupid. Anyone who talks about some intellectual merit of the opera is bullshitting, I'm sorry.
La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) by Verdi
We all know the story of La Traviata. A sex worker with a heart of gold. She dies of tuberculosis. Le fin. But I think we always focus on the wrong aspect of La Traviata. Violetta Valery is the noblest heroine (and hero) in all of opera. She knows she is dying of consumption, and she wants to have the simplest comfort in her life, her new found love, Alfredo. But when Alfredo's father comes, begging her to break off the relationship because the scandal is preventing Alfredo's sister from becoming married, she sacrifices her happiness just for this other girl.
I can't help but tear up:
Oh, tell your daughter, so lovely and pure, that a poor and wretched woman, who has but one precious thing in life - will sacrifice it for her - and then will die!
That's one reason why I don't like Moulin Rouge - in the movie, Sabine (the movie's Violetta) breaks up with Christian (this movie's Alfredo) to save his life. I don't know, it just lacks the bite. An older woman who knows that society is ruthless to women, and can't bear the thought of a girl having the same fate? Tragic.
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is a weird opera. It's about a court jester who enables the corrupt Duke. The music is fantastic, and has my absolute favorite quartet. But the story is also really stupid. See this is the thing about all operas. The plots are always stupid. For one thing, there's an assassin who does a really bad job! Instead of killing the guy he was hired to kill, the assassin kills someone else as if his employer is not going to check? I don't know. It's one of those mindless operas that you put on in the background when you need something to listen to. I don't really have much thought on it.
Jenufa
This is an infuriating opera. I had to listen to it 5 times before I got it. The music is hard to get into, but the minute it does, pure epiphany. Le Nozze di Figaro perfected opera, but I think Jenufa is the second perfection. It is a story of Jenufa who lives in a conservative Moravian village. She has a baby out of wedlock. To save Jenufa's reputation, her desperate stepmother drowns the babe in icy cold waters.
It is a story of redemption. There's something beautiful about Jenufa, who suffered so much, finding hope at the end. The music swells with strings. There's this brass that plays in the background giving her triumph. Yes, Jenufa is a ruined woman in the eyes of the villager, but she is a survivor. It is the most hopeful ending I have ever seen.