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Simon Boccanegra
Last night I did something fun -- I ditched the family and watched Vienna State Opera's "livestream" performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the story of the first Doge of Genoa. (It's not truly a livestream because they're considerate enough to stagger the viewing times in a 72-hr period so they're convenient for people who don't live in Vienna.) The real draw was Thomas Hampson in the title role, of course, though all the singers were really quite good. (Though no one equaled his acting.) It was lovely to listen to and watch Hampson (and Simon's character has a lot of drama, including half of Act II and all of Act III being basically a long-drawn-out death scene (spoiler: he is a baritone), which we were prepared for by Paolo, the villain, warning us that he was giving Simon a slow-acting poison, but wow, that was a really slow-acting poison -- anyway, the point being that there was a lot of drama for Hampson to sink his teeth into).
The actual livestream experience was not bad except for the subtitles, which were highly irritating. Wiener Staatsoper has a very odd way of doing them, involving pairing up a mobile device to one's listening device, and it's apparently cued by hearing the actual opera, which has to be turned on high volume?? Anyway, I tried it out and it didn't work at all (it was also as far as I know impossible to test before the opera began). Fortunately I had been warned by online reviews about this, so I had a backup plan with a google translate version of the italian libretto and the Met on Demand player version, which does have good English subtitle support (though obviously not synced so I always had to be messing with it), but seriously, Wiener Staatsoper, I know you expect everyone to know Italian but this is not cool. I would not do this again for an opera whereThomas Hampson wasn't the lead I didn't have the libretto in front of me and/or know it well enough not to need one. (I am still totally planning on watching Keenlyside in La Traviata in September, though, for which I have the score, and embarrassingly enough I probably know all the bits with Germont in them well enough to follow the Italian.)
Simon Boccanegra itself... Thematically, it has all the things I love (and which I am convinced Verdi also loves, because he puts them in all his operas). Parental relationships! Conflict that isn't about romantic love! A noble baritone character! (Simon is really great, up there with Rodrigo in terms of awesomeness, although unlike Rodrigo the entire cast seems to want to kill him rather than bone him.) Characters who make the right choices because of HONOR! Awesome non-romantic duets and trios and scenes with trios singing against chorus! And Verdi has some really wonderful music here. Baritone-bass duet! I have realized I am a complete sucker for emotional baritone-bass duets, and apparently Verdi is too.
All this being said, the libretto is a hot mess for a first-time viewer like myself, and I totally see why it is performed relatively rarely. In Don Carlo, the plot (which in Schiller is quite a bit more complex) and character identifications are simplified down to where it's very easy to follow, but the libretto if anything strengthens the psychological portraits and character interactions and allows the music to further strengthen them. Simon... is exactly the opposite. I was never quite sure of what was going on and how the characters were identifying. For example, Jacopo Fiesco, Simon's lover's father who hates Simon because he is an ex-pirate and also got Fiesco's daughter pregnant (kind of a cool plot for opera, mind you; sort of reminiscent of Traviata, where the sex-judgmental father is clearly in the wrong), shows up as such in the Prologue. In Act 1 he is apparently now pretending to be a member of some other family entirely, the Grimaldis, to escape detection?? Which is to the best of my knowledge never stated, and I actually had no idea why he was randomly in Act I until consulting Wikipedia after the fact. (Fiesco in general is unfortunately treated by the libretto and/or my subtitles situation; I think pretty much every time he shows up after the first time I had no idea why he was there at all.)
The other big issue is that it's so episodic; I mean, now that I've had some time to think about it the forward narrative is more clear to me, but when I watched it, it definitely had this feeling of lurching from one event to the next. Simon's daughter Maria goes missing; we find her (as Amelia Grimaldi) in the next scene. Then Paolo says he will kidnap her! She escapes and arrives safely in the next scene, none the worse for wear. Then Amelia's fiance, Gabriel Adorno, is upset because he thinks Amelia and Simon are uncomfortably close! (He doesn't know that she's Simon's child, for reasons that make no sense.) Then he finds out the truth ten minutes later and is totally OK with it! I mean, I highly approve of jealousy arcs not taking more than ten minutes (Otello, though it has so many things about it I love, is proving a hard slog for me right now because I apparently have a squick for this), but it did mean it was hard on a first watch for me to get a real continuing connection to the characters or their relationships through any sort of arc. The exceptions are Fiesco being angry at Simon -- which means that their reconciliation scene in Act III was one of the most moving parts of the opera to me (see also: bass-baritone duet!) -- and Simon's death taking a whole hour (which is also, as I said before, kind of hilarious).
There are scenes of great power -- Simon and Amelia's reunion; the great council scene with Simon both merciful and terrible (Wikipedia tells me this is an interpolation by Boito to try to fix the original; not surprised); as I mentioned before, because I am a sucker for bass-baritone duets and reconciliation and HONOR my favorite was the Act III duet between Simon and Fiesco (in addition, Hampson's Simon's body language marks him as all but delirious with the poison at this point, and is leaning a lot on Belosselskiy's Fiesco by the end, which appeals to multiple of my tropey interests as well); and then of course Simon's deathbed blessing is spectacular and I expect there wasn't a dry eye in the house. (Mine were suspiciously wet, anyway.) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iberiandoctor: The role of Simon Boccanegra is... really, really darned close to Hampson playing Valjean, up to the having to make the choice to save his daughter's boyfriend part (though Amelia has more agency than Cosette) and deathbed blessing part (seriously, Amelia even says something like "Father, you're going to live, it's too soon, too soon to say goodbye because I love you!"), except he's an ex-pirate rather than an ex-convict, and no one really seems to care about that anyway except Javert Fiesco.)
You'll notice these are all scenes involving Simon. He's the heart of the opera, and Hampson was so enjoyable to watch in all of them. I will say that there were a handful of times, maybe three, that he went for a high note and made it, but it was noticeably ragged, not as beautiful as I've been conditioned to expect from him. His midrange is as beautiful as ever, to my ears. Also the others had great voices -- Marina Rebeka was excellent as Amelia, her voice started out a bit too bright for me but settled down, and she has a lot of filial chemistry with Hampson -- Francesco Meli, the tenor, has a voice that is a bit more bright than I personally like (Kaufmann has spoiled me!) but he was great too -- although I thought it was funny that Dmitry Belosselskiy, the Fiesco (whom I loved; he was my second favorite), was clearly a lot younger than Hampson, given that he's basically Simon's father-in-law, and he was definitely too young to have Rebeka as a granddaughter.
During the curtain call, the principal singers were all holding hands and as they were moving across the stage Hampson unintentionally totally stepped on Rebeka's dress; when he realized this, he grinned and turned it into a (sideways) hug instead. It was super cute. Hampson also remembered to give kudos to the orchestra, which is basically THE most quick way a singer can get to my heart :)
So, yeah, in retrospect I wish I had watched a vid of it beforehand and understood the story, which I think would have helped a lot (besides being busy with Don Carlo, I also had noticed I tend to imprint a bit on the first version I see, and thought perhaps I'd like to imprint on this version -- which did work, I think) but in general it was pretty great.
The actual livestream experience was not bad except for the subtitles, which were highly irritating. Wiener Staatsoper has a very odd way of doing them, involving pairing up a mobile device to one's listening device, and it's apparently cued by hearing the actual opera, which has to be turned on high volume?? Anyway, I tried it out and it didn't work at all (it was also as far as I know impossible to test before the opera began). Fortunately I had been warned by online reviews about this, so I had a backup plan with a google translate version of the italian libretto and the Met on Demand player version, which does have good English subtitle support (though obviously not synced so I always had to be messing with it), but seriously, Wiener Staatsoper, I know you expect everyone to know Italian but this is not cool. I would not do this again for an opera where
Simon Boccanegra itself... Thematically, it has all the things I love (and which I am convinced Verdi also loves, because he puts them in all his operas). Parental relationships! Conflict that isn't about romantic love! A noble baritone character! (Simon is really great, up there with Rodrigo in terms of awesomeness, although unlike Rodrigo the entire cast seems to want to kill him rather than bone him.) Characters who make the right choices because of HONOR! Awesome non-romantic duets and trios and scenes with trios singing against chorus! And Verdi has some really wonderful music here. Baritone-bass duet! I have realized I am a complete sucker for emotional baritone-bass duets, and apparently Verdi is too.
All this being said, the libretto is a hot mess for a first-time viewer like myself, and I totally see why it is performed relatively rarely. In Don Carlo, the plot (which in Schiller is quite a bit more complex) and character identifications are simplified down to where it's very easy to follow, but the libretto if anything strengthens the psychological portraits and character interactions and allows the music to further strengthen them. Simon... is exactly the opposite. I was never quite sure of what was going on and how the characters were identifying. For example, Jacopo Fiesco, Simon's lover's father who hates Simon because he is an ex-pirate and also got Fiesco's daughter pregnant (kind of a cool plot for opera, mind you; sort of reminiscent of Traviata, where the sex-judgmental father is clearly in the wrong), shows up as such in the Prologue. In Act 1 he is apparently now pretending to be a member of some other family entirely, the Grimaldis, to escape detection?? Which is to the best of my knowledge never stated, and I actually had no idea why he was randomly in Act I until consulting Wikipedia after the fact. (Fiesco in general is unfortunately treated by the libretto and/or my subtitles situation; I think pretty much every time he shows up after the first time I had no idea why he was there at all.)
The other big issue is that it's so episodic; I mean, now that I've had some time to think about it the forward narrative is more clear to me, but when I watched it, it definitely had this feeling of lurching from one event to the next. Simon's daughter Maria goes missing; we find her (as Amelia Grimaldi) in the next scene. Then Paolo says he will kidnap her! She escapes and arrives safely in the next scene, none the worse for wear. Then Amelia's fiance, Gabriel Adorno, is upset because he thinks Amelia and Simon are uncomfortably close! (He doesn't know that she's Simon's child, for reasons that make no sense.) Then he finds out the truth ten minutes later and is totally OK with it! I mean, I highly approve of jealousy arcs not taking more than ten minutes (Otello, though it has so many things about it I love, is proving a hard slog for me right now because I apparently have a squick for this), but it did mean it was hard on a first watch for me to get a real continuing connection to the characters or their relationships through any sort of arc. The exceptions are Fiesco being angry at Simon -- which means that their reconciliation scene in Act III was one of the most moving parts of the opera to me (see also: bass-baritone duet!) -- and Simon's death taking a whole hour (which is also, as I said before, kind of hilarious).
There are scenes of great power -- Simon and Amelia's reunion; the great council scene with Simon both merciful and terrible (Wikipedia tells me this is an interpolation by Boito to try to fix the original; not surprised); as I mentioned before, because I am a sucker for bass-baritone duets and reconciliation and HONOR my favorite was the Act III duet between Simon and Fiesco (in addition, Hampson's Simon's body language marks him as all but delirious with the poison at this point, and is leaning a lot on Belosselskiy's Fiesco by the end, which appeals to multiple of my tropey interests as well); and then of course Simon's deathbed blessing is spectacular and I expect there wasn't a dry eye in the house. (Mine were suspiciously wet, anyway.) (
iberiandoctor: The role of Simon Boccanegra is... really, really darned close to Hampson playing Valjean, up to the having to make the choice to save his daughter's boyfriend part (though Amelia has more agency than Cosette) and deathbed blessing part (seriously, Amelia even says something like "Father, you're going to live, You'll notice these are all scenes involving Simon. He's the heart of the opera, and Hampson was so enjoyable to watch in all of them. I will say that there were a handful of times, maybe three, that he went for a high note and made it, but it was noticeably ragged, not as beautiful as I've been conditioned to expect from him. His midrange is as beautiful as ever, to my ears. Also the others had great voices -- Marina Rebeka was excellent as Amelia, her voice started out a bit too bright for me but settled down, and she has a lot of filial chemistry with Hampson -- Francesco Meli, the tenor, has a voice that is a bit more bright than I personally like (Kaufmann has spoiled me!) but he was great too -- although I thought it was funny that Dmitry Belosselskiy, the Fiesco (whom I loved; he was my second favorite), was clearly a lot younger than Hampson, given that he's basically Simon's father-in-law, and he was definitely too young to have Rebeka as a granddaughter.
During the curtain call, the principal singers were all holding hands and as they were moving across the stage Hampson unintentionally totally stepped on Rebeka's dress; when he realized this, he grinned and turned it into a (sideways) hug instead. It was super cute. Hampson also remembered to give kudos to the orchestra, which is basically THE most quick way a singer can get to my heart :)
So, yeah, in retrospect I wish I had watched a vid of it beforehand and understood the story, which I think would have helped a lot (besides being busy with Don Carlo, I also had noticed I tend to imprint a bit on the first version I see, and thought perhaps I'd like to imprint on this version -- which did work, I think) but in general it was pretty great.
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I can see that the time skip and the disguises/name changes would be confusing if they don't explain it! The librettos that I've read explain it somewhat in the character list. Amelia does kind of explain what happened with the kidnapping thing, but it goes by quickly and it's not easy to follow if you don't have a good libretto. The whole thing with how Simon lost young Amelia is kinda confusing too, and I'm honestly still not completely sure I have that sorted out.
(If you ever watch La Forza del Destino, I highly recommend reading the libretto beforehand to get all the false names straight. There are multiple main characters using multiple false names at different times, and I don't want to imagine trying to sort all that out on the fly. :D)
Thomas Hampson is great and I imagine he would make a great Boccanegra! (My CD recording has Piero Cappuccilli as Simon, Mirella Freni as Amelia, and Nicolai Ghiaurov as Fiesco, so no complaints there, but now I'm curious about other singers in those roles.) I like Simon and Fiesco, and I absolutely love the Council Chamber scene. And their first duet is amazing. (I just realized that the version of that duet I listen to most often is from the No Tenors Allowed CD with Hampson and Samuel Ramey, so I have heard Hampson singing (part of) the role.)
I admit I don't really like Adorno. His aria is all about how it would be better for Amelia to be Dead than Dishonored, which makes it hard for me to be sympathetic towards him (especially since he doesn't seem to be making a distinction between rape and her intentionally cheating on him). But he isn't a major figure in the plot, so I can enjoy the pretty singing and otherwise ignore him. :P
Does the poison really take an hour? That doesn't seem like it can be right. I don't know how they staged it, but in my libretto at least, Simon only drinks the poisoned water shortly before his confrontation with Fiesco. I think that would be more like 20 minutes before the end of the opera? So still slow, but not ridiculously slow.
Oh, and the scene in the last act when the torches are going out is chilling. I imagine it must be even better to watch it.
I don't always manage to comment, but I've been really enjoying reading your opera reactions!
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loversfriends arc without anyone needing to fling themselves off a bridge! I need to go find a good video of it!unlike Rodrigo the entire cast seems to want to kill him rather than bone him
OK, I admit it, I snickered at this like a 12-year-old. But seriously, who could be immune to Hampson's complex, sexy, gorgeously-acted and gorgeously-sung Rodrigo (with his open white shirt of sexiness)? That said, Hampson's sexy, sexy-father-in-law-reconciling, scoundrelly ex-pirate definitely sounds like something I need in my life :)))
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(Anonymous) 2020-03-05 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)It took me a while to really fall in love with this opera. I heard a recording first, as a teen (presumably the Abbado one), saw the ROH staging from like '91 also as a teen but it didn't grab me at the time (now I love it), and then I saw it with Milnes from the Met and noted it was pretty good, but the breakthrough was this Vienna staging from 2016 with Dima. Absolutely heartbreaking. The plot is still overly complicated but the music, the emotions... the dominance of baritones and basses, exactly my jam. So I have hunted down every Domingo-free version since :D
Also: Simon might just be the opera character with the second highest HP (no one tops Tristan). That poison takes forever. And a few hours presuambly pass between Act II and Act III (I always think Act III happens around dawn - it's still dark because it's winter or something).
Fiesco is a Dramatic Bitch and I love him. That reconciliation duet... my heart.
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