Ha! Well, I suspect you weren't expecting such a long post when you asked (tbh, neither was I :) )
Yes, in retrospect I really shouldn't have said the opera was superior (which was an obnoxious thing to say anyway); it's more the case that the opera speaks right to my id, and the play doesn't quite as much. Although yes, Schiller!Elisabeth is awesome! The secret letters confused me at first, though on second read it wasn't that confusing, and I suspect that actually seeing it would make rather more sense. (Although I've seen stagings of Nozze di Figaro, for instance, which make the last act make No Sense At All, so it probably depends.) But yes, impossible to actually do in an opera and have make sense -- it was a good move for them to cut it. (And I think Simon Boccanegra would have benefited from a slightly less complicated libretto too.)
Posa isn't quite as cold as I guess I made it sound -- he really does love Carlos and dies for him, and feels legit bad about screwing him over. But there's this manipulative side to him too, and his response to Carlos is a little more complicated than the pure love that opera!Posa has, I would say.
Oh, the Philip feels! Yes, he is All About Posa, although it's written as more of a paternal love than a romantic one:
KING (sits down, and leans his head on his arm). Oh! had he died for me! I loved him, too, And much. Dear to me was he as a son. In his young mind there brightly rose for me A new and beauteous morning. Who can say What I had destined for him? He to me Was a first love. All Europe may condemn me, Europe may overwhelm me with its curse, But I deserved his thanks.
Yes, if I request it for Yuletide it'll be the play specifically (because I'm so interested in how these complexities might play out), though I'm definitely planning to offer the opera! (I tend not to offer and request the same fandoms, at least generally speaking, because I've found that when I do that I tend to get more picky about what I want, which is not a good thing in an exchange :) )
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Yes, in retrospect I really shouldn't have said the opera was superior (which was an obnoxious thing to say anyway); it's more the case that the opera speaks right to my id, and the play doesn't quite as much. Although yes, Schiller!Elisabeth is awesome! The secret letters confused me at first, though on second read it wasn't that confusing, and I suspect that actually seeing it would make rather more sense. (Although I've seen stagings of Nozze di Figaro, for instance, which make the last act make No Sense At All, so it probably depends.) But yes, impossible to actually do in an opera and have make sense -- it was a good move for them to cut it. (And I think Simon Boccanegra would have benefited from a slightly less complicated libretto too.)
Posa isn't quite as cold as I guess I made it sound -- he really does love Carlos and dies for him, and feels legit bad about screwing him over. But there's this manipulative side to him too, and his response to Carlos is a little more complicated than the pure love that opera!Posa has, I would say.
Oh, the Philip feels! Yes, he is All About Posa, although it's written as more of a paternal love than a romantic one:
KING (sits down, and leans his head on his arm).
Oh! had he died for me! I loved him, too,
And much. Dear to me was he as a son.
In his young mind there brightly rose for me
A new and beauteous morning. Who can say
What I had destined for him? He to me
Was a first love. All Europe may condemn me,
Europe may overwhelm me with its curse,
But I deserved his thanks.
Yes, if I request it for Yuletide it'll be the play specifically (because I'm so interested in how these complexities might play out), though I'm definitely planning to offer the opera! (I tend not to offer and request the same fandoms, at least generally speaking, because I've found that when I do that I tend to get more picky about what I want, which is not a good thing in an exchange :) )