Opera Review: L’Elisir d’Amore, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City

Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera in two acts premiered in Milan in 1832, but L’Elisir d’Amore remains as crowd-pleasing and entertaining today, especially in the Met’s beautiful production.

Grigolo and Kurzak

Italian peasant Nemorino (Vittorio Grigolo) is desperately in love with well-read landowner Adina (Aleksandra Kurzak), but she’s a perpetual flirt, currently taken by visiting soldier Belcore (Adam Plachetka).

The love triangle plays out against Michael Yeargan’s gorgeous sets, reminiscent of nineteenth-century landscape paintings in their composition. It’s a sort of comedic Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), minus the death and heartache. The only death here is offstage and brings Nemorino wealth and, subsequently, ridiculous levels of female attention, prompting Adina’s jealousy. The chemistry between the leads and the usual comedic misunderstandings keep the audience constantly engaged. It’s easy to follow without the usual rustling of programmes and whispered explanations.

‘Udite, udite, o rustici’

But the comedic heart of Donizetti’s opera, and this production, is Dulcamara (Alessandro Corbelli)—the travelling salesman whose miraculous elixir is fabled to cure all ills, even unrequited love. His aria, ‘Udite, udite, o rustici’, is a highly entertaining operatic sales pitch, and surely the inspiration for Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Pirelli's Miracle Elixir’ in 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Unusually for a comedy not all the misunderstandings are set right, not all the mysteries are unravelled. Dulcamara is never revealed as a fraud and his elixir is heralded as a miracle cure to the end, when young love’s trials have concluded satisfactorily.

Corbelli and Kurzak

Grigolo’s performance was probably the standout in the matinee I saw, but Kurzak was also charming and the chorus made this a true ensemble piece, as Enrique Mazzola conducted.

Adorable child actors, beautiful costuming, fine performances all around and settings that made you feel immersed in Italian landscapes: what more could you ask for in the middle of New York City?

The cast of the Met's production

What productions would you like to see the Secret Victorianist review next? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Opera Review: Rigoletto, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City

George Gagnidze as Rigoletto

Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic opera about a debauched duke, his deformed jester, and the hunchback’s beautiful daughter, based on a Victor Hugo play, was first performed in Venice in 1851.

Michael Mayer’s energetic production at the Met (now in performance for the third time) transports the action from sixteenth-century Mantua to 1960s Las Vegas. Expect neon lights, a casino, and a seedy strip club, with the duke (Stephen Costello) a flamboyant playboy, who, in the first act, is set upon by an Arab tycoon (Stefan Szkafarowsky) for seducing his daughter.

Olga Peretyatko and Stephen Costello

The sixties is a clever choice of time period. It is an opportunity for colourful set (Christine Jones) and costume (Susan Hilferty) design, but also, strangely, makes sense. The tension between a highly sexed, drunken lifestyle and the more conservative morality Gilda (Olga Peretyatko) represents rings true, as does the physical threat of violence from Stefan Kocan’s mobster-style assassin.

George Gagnidze is Rigoletto himself, bringing gravitas to a production that leans to the humorous, especially due to the loose and amusing translation of the English subtitles. He is particularly touching in his scenes with his daughter, before and after her deflowering, but also does a good job in scenes with the Duke’s entourage, holding our attention throughout the flashing lights and dramatic dance sequences.

Olga Peretyatko

It’s the Duke’s ‘La donna è mobile’ that the audience leaves humming (of course!) but, in the final act, there’s a real pathos in the juxtaposition between Costello’s lighthearted singing and the moment of tragedy – as Gilda’s body is revealed (inside the trunk of a car here, not a sack).

I was entertained throughout, with the three hour running time flying by. There are performances until 17^th December, so if you’re in the city (and even if you’re a newbie to opera), go!

Do you know of any other shows with nineteenth-century origins currently playing in New York? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Opera Review: La Traviata, Musica a Palazzo, Venice

Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, which tells the tragic story of a fallen woman based on La dame aux Camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas, fils, had its very first performance in Venice in March 1853. So it seemed fitting that on my visit to one of the world’s most beautiful cities, the Secret Victorianist should take in a sumptuous and unusual production of this opera classic.

Inside the Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto

Away from the bright lights of Venice’s opera house – La Fenice – which seats a thousand and was home, in an earlier incarnation, to the La Traviata premiere, the Musico a Palazzo has made a name for itself by staging famous operas in the intimate setting of the Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, a fifteenth-century palace on the Grand Canal.

Each act of Verdi’s opera was performed in a different room of the piano nobile of palace, with the building’s beautiful furniture and decorations, including frescoes by Gianbattista Tiepolo, providing an incredible backdrop for the tragedy.

The audience takes its seats for Act Two

The opera’s cast was cut down so that there were only three singing roles, adding to the sense of closeness between the audience and the performers. It was fascinating to see the singers up close rather than from a distant balcony, or when sat far back in an auditorium, and it was equally revealing to have a clear view of the musicians (a string trio and pianist), who are usually hidden in an orchestra pit.

What was particularly interesting for me, as a Victorianist, was how closely the experience seemed to replicate that of a nineteenth-century musical salon. I felt more of a guest in the palazzo than in any other historic house I have visited, in Venice or elsewhere. There is no ‘please don’t sit’ or ‘do not touch’. You’re part of the performance along with a small group of people – local and from all over the world – gathered here on this one night.

The cast for the performance the Secret Victorianist attended

Drinks, served at the first intermission and included in the entrance price, add to this feeling. There’s no mad rush to the bar and people seemed quite happy to mingle and talk about the performance.

What’s lost, of course, is much of the story of the opera being performed, and some of the music. This isn’t the kind of production that is going to provide you with English surtitles, and the cuts to the cast make the plot loose to say the least. It’s better to think of it as a dramatic concert in a stunning building – a chance for opera fanatics to immerse themselves in Violetta and Alfredo’s world, and for those new to the art form to appreciate an Italian passion in these glorious Venetian surroundings.

'Violetta's bedroom' in Act Three

If you’re looking for a romantic evening in Venice, or just to enjoy some beautiful music in a unique way, I’d really recommend it.

Membership to the Musica a Palazzo (necessary to attend a performance) is €75 and you can see the calendar of performances here.

Do you know of any New York City productions with a nineteenth-century twist you think the Secret Victorianist should see? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

"We'll Always Have Paris": The Met's La Bohème and Henri Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème

Some texts have an afterlife which is entirely reflective of the spirit in which they were written. One of these is Henri Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème (1851).

The other week I attended the New York Metropolitan Opera’s wonderful production of Puccini’s La Bohème, the world’s most popular opera, which premiered in 1896 in Turin. In preparation for the performance I decided to read Murger’s work (on which the libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa was based), even though every programme blurb is likely to tell you the adaptation is ‘loose’ at most.

A scene from the Met's production

Murger’s ‘novel’, which I read in translation, is more of a series of short stories set in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Characters recur, some with greater frequency than others, but timing is more nebulous and the plot hard to define. In the opera, Rodolph and Mimi’s relationship – its inception and conclusion – bookends the story. It is important in Murger too, but not central, and many of the features of Mimi’s story in the libretto (e.g. her profession and her death) are taken from an additional and minor character in the novel – Francine.

This is interesting. It suggests a dichotomisation of women in the opera – timid, initially chaste Mimi contrasted with worldly Musette – which is not the case in the text, where if anything the resourceful women trading on their beauty seem more sensible than their permanently broke and utterly deluded lovers. The stage world of great loves and tragedy is instead a constant comedy of bed-hopping and betrayal, where death is a constant feature, but life most always go on.

Rather than plot, what was lovely to see brought to life in the opera were details of the Bohemian life, which come up again and again while reading Murger’s vignettes. There is the cold, furniture sacrificed to open fires, near-continual drunkenness, tenants eluding the landlord, and strong emphasis on (male) friendship - which is more central than romantic love in the original.

This production did a great job of transporting the audience to Paris – whether the city’s bustling streets, or a quiet garret, set against a darkening skyline. When the curtain falls you’re suddenly back in New York, bereft of the idiosyncratic Bohemian life of the Latin Quarter. Finishing the novel is a similar experience. Characters and a way of life, with which a succession of stories has made you oddly familiar, fade away. If nineteenth-century Paris were a destination I could choose to visit, I’d have no hesitation in heading back for more.

Do you know of any other NYC events with a nineteenth-century link the Secret Victorianist could attend? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist!