Simon Boccanegra
May. 14th, 2018 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnLast 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.) (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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Date: 2018-05-18 03:42 pm (UTC)OMG those videos. I love them. Colombara! There's an audio recording with Hampson and Colombara (whom I had never heard before, he is wonderful!) -- youtube has this recording!
The rehearsal is especially great, my HEART. My favorite bit is 5:20 and the, oh, 40 seconds following, which is also my favorite part of the duet in general -- I don't know if you can follow the Italian at all, but Fiesco is going around singing "Haha, vengeance!" and Simon is replying "omg, now we can have peace and reconcile YAY!" (even if you can't follow the Italian, you can hear it in the music) and finally Fiesco is all, what are you saying? "Che dice?" and Simon says, "Well, you told me once that you would forgive me..." and Fiesco says, "Me?" (Io?) and Simon goes on to say, "...if I gave you my daughter who was lost, and she has come back to me in Amelia Grimaldi!" and it's the most thrilling line ever *starry-eyed* but anyway, it's hilarious in that video because clearly Hampson and Laszlo have talked about Fiesco saying "Io?" being a funny line (I think it's hilarious too, in a character-building sort of way), and when he says "Io?" he grins at Hampson and Hampson puts his finger to his temple like, "Fiesco! Dude! You're losing your memory!" AUGH I have ALL THE FEELINGS. (I also love how Hampson is sometimes lip-syncing Fiesco's line. AWWWW singers rehearsing, it is the best!)
Oh, gosh, I didn't mean to hint you should go for it, lol. I am sure I will eventually end up getting it (probably for my birthday which is coming up, my sister needs something to get me anyway) because, HAMPSON AND FURLANETTO, omg. It's just that it won't be immediate-gratification like the Hampson Don Carlo was for me :)
(The only thing I really know about Furlanetto is that he played Philip in the first Don Carlo I watched, on Met Player -- OH WAIT here's a bit from his scene with Keenlyside -- this is basically why I am kind of obsessed with Philip and also Rodrigo & Philip, ha. Furlanetto has immediately gone onto my short list, with Hampson and Kaufmann, of people whose voices I adore but also who act incredibly well.) ETA: Keenlyside is also on that list, although I have a slightly more conflicted relationship with his voice :)
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Date: 2018-05-19 04:47 pm (UTC)(I love the pointing, and how expressive Hampson is with his hands; I also love how in rehearsals and concerts you can see the singers’ real personalities overlay that of their characters!)
Ooh, Furlanetto! Now that;s proper father-in-law age-appropriate casting ;) Keenlyside is actually really growing on me, and that is a lovely impassioned Rodrigo/Philip dynamic. I’m totally here to talk about your obsession with them!
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Date: 2018-05-21 08:14 pm (UTC)RODRIGO & PHILIP. I just have a lot of feelings about these two, mostly based on this scene, and even a lot based on just Furlanetto -- he plays Philip as such a complicated character, who is angry with Rodrigo for speaking to him quite that frankly (I was legit scared when the orchestra booms in at "La pace dei sepolcri!" (The peace of the sepulchre!) and Filippo just looms over Rodrigo!) but also seems to think there is something in what he is saying, but also believes what he's saying, but who also is a bit paranoid, and who also is vulnerable concerning his son and especially his wife. I don't even think all of that is in the libretto (I don't think the libretto/music necessarily thinks Filippo thinks Rodrigo might be right) but...
I think one of my bits of kryptonite, also, is this loyalty lord/liege relationship and tensions within it, and this one is so fascinating to me -- Keenlyside and Furlanetto play this as something where the two of them are always extremely conscious of the fact that Rodrigo owes fealty to Filippo, and everything about Furlanetto's very powerful bass voice and acting shows the power Filippo has over Rodrigo -- but that doesn't stop Rodrigo from speaking truth even when Filippo is gesturing to him to stop (okay, he does briefly forget there, which I also love, that he gets so passionate about it), and I *love* the bit where Keenlyside sinks to his knees after Filippo brushes him off and tries to resign his sword to Filippo (and Filippo doesn't take it).
Then there's the Hampson/Salminem version of that scene that we've talked about -- I feel like Hampson makes this more complex in that everything I said before about their relationship is still in play, but because Hampson's an older, less direct Rodrigo, he also adds into the lord/liege relationship this sense of being a courtier and also more of an equal to Filippo in terms of age and knowledge, while still being subordinate to him. And then of course as we've said, there's the bit where Filippo is definitely doing the questionable touching thing and Hampson has such a hilariously unsettled look every time he does -- so now I do kinda ship them in a really messed up dubcon kind of way.
I love both of these -- there's something about the raw power in the direct Keenlyside/Furlanetto confrontation that really appeals to me -- and of course I also love the complexity Hampson brings to it. (I must admit I don't find Salminem quite as compelling as Furlanetto, although he's just fine of course!)
Simon Keenlyside! Keenlyside was my first opera baritone crush and I still love him a lot. I think he is a tremendous musician and actor (and on the shallow side, quite hot too! ;) ). The only thing is, I fell in love with his voice doing Mozart, which I think forces him to tame the richness of his voice a little, and when he does Verdi it becomes this much richer and broader voice (? don't know the right singing term) that I don't like nearly as much (though it's still beautiful and I'm sure others enjoy it more). Here are some Mozart links <3
Hai gia vinta la causa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzErPt-GKtk
Papagena! (check out his leap at 5:50, I can't believe he can actually sing through that): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PCRhnmNhNY
La ci darem la mano (the way he does that "Andiam" I CAN'T EVEN, also how he takes her hand at the end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfti-KQoxXM
I love his acting, though I feel like his acting and Hampson's are SO different. I am not sure I can articulate the difference, though! I think maybe Hampson has extreme facial expressiveness, and Keenlyside has extreme large-scale body acting ability? Like when Hampson acts I feel like I can tell exactly what thoughts the character is thinking, and when Keenlyside acts he IS the character, if that makes any sense?
Oh and here's an audio link to a Billy Budd aria, which, I have no idea if you can stand Britten at all, but I feel like it highlights what his voice is capable of,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WdGSryj5RQ