Opera-Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera that takes human frailty to the extreme.  Perhaps that is the basis for Opera anyway.  Arias and duets are sung with great emotion as the characters are swept up in the drama of rage, jealousy, despair, deceit and frivolity. 

Rigoletto the main character, is a Duke’s jester.  He entertains the Duke, but does so at the expense of other courtiers.  As a result, he makes enemies who wait to take revenge. The Duke is a philanderer who is accused by Count Monterone that he has shamed his daughter.  Rigoletto insults the Count and in turn, the Count curses Rigoletto.  Rigoletto is concerned because he also has a daughter who he has kept sheltered over the years.  The duets between Rigoletto and his daughter Gilda, are absolutely beautiful.

Gilda adores her father and obeys him by staying home, leaving only to go to church.  But at church, the Duke spots her and tries to win her heart.  Of course she falls hopelessly in love with him. 

In the meantime, the courtiers spy on Rigoletto and see him with Gilda.  They think Gilda is his lover and they kidnap her, taking her to the Duke.  Rigoletto discovers what they have done and he rushes back to the palace.  Gilda flings herself on her father, confessing her shame by the kidnapping and liaison with the Duke.  

Rigoletto takes Gilda home to dress her in men’s clothes so that she can escape the shame of Mantua.  He then hires an assassin to kill the Duke for shaming his daughter.  During a dark and stormy night at an inn, Gilda overhears the assassin’s plot.  To save her love, she pretends to be the Duke and is killed instead.  When Rigoletto returns to the inn, he is overwhelmed with grief when he discovers the body of his daughter.  In the background he hears the dang Duke singing.  The curse!

I thought the singing and the bright costumes were beautiful.  But I couldn’t identify with the characters to become emotional.  Rigoletto was mean to others and a bit twisted that he control his daughter’s life so much that she didn’t know any better and fell for the Duke who didn’t deserve her sacrifice.

Would we see it again?  Of course, of course.  It is a Verdi classic and the music transcends the characters’ frailties. 

George Gagnidze plays Rigoletto, Sarah Coburn plays Gilda and Gianluca Terranova plays the Duke.  All well done.  

Opera-Lohengrin

The first Wagner Opera we attended was Siegfried.  It was okay.  Partial to Italian or French operas, we wanted to expand our horizons so to speak and attend another Wagner opera.

First, let me give you a brief synopsis on the opera, then recap what we actually saw.  Lohengrin is a fantasy, fairy tale story about romance and miracles.  King Henry arrives in Brabent to expel Hungarians from his realm, but also judge accusations about the disappearance of the young Duke Gottfried.  Count Telramund is the Duke’s guardian and accuses the Duke’s sister, Elsa of murdering her brother.  Elsa proclaims her innocence and trusts in God to send her a knight to champion her innocence.  On the river, a knight in shining armour appears on a boat drawn by a swan, to accept the challenge.  One thing he asks is that she never asks him his name.  He challenges Count Telramund and defeats him.  The knight then asks Elsa to marry him, but again, she is not to ask him ever, for his name. 

Ortrud is a witch and companion to Count Telramund who are both exiled while wedding preparations for the knight and Elsa are underway.  Ortrud casts suspicions in Elsa’s mind about the knight’s secretive manner.  During their wedding night, Elsa is begging for the knight’s name, when Telramund and 4 henchmen try to assassinate the knight.  During the fight, Telramund is killed.  Saddened by the events, the knight decides to reveal himself to Elsa and the King.  He is Lohengrin the Knight of the Holy Grail.   He has to return to his duties but wanted to stay long enough to marry Elsa. 

Ortrud then appears saying that she cursed young Duke Gottfried, turning him into a swan.  Lohengrin prays and the swan turns back into the Duke.  A dove leads Lohengrin back to his castle.  As he departs, Elsa is so distraught, she collapses and dies. 

So how does this compare to what we saw?  Instead of taking place in the time of knights and castles, the opera is set during World War I.  The set is a bombed out building used as a field hospital.  In a tent, we can see backlit shadows of a doctor sawing the leg from a wounded soldier who eventually dies.  The scene progresses and Elsa is asking for a champion to help proclaim her innocence.  The dead soldier from behind the tent, raises from the dead.  He comes out and in place of his amputated leg is a prosthetic, shaped like a knight’s armour.  At the end of the opera when he supposed to float back to his castle, he instead walks back to the tent, lays down and dies.  Elsa still dies too.

I preferred the romantic, fairy tale version. It best fits the original intent of the opera with fantasy and magic.  The version we saw was doubly tragic.  It was long, but we did find the opera to be more enjoyable than Siegfried.  We also discovered surprisingly, the most well known aria from this opera is the Bridal Chorus, most commonly played at today’s weddings.