(no subject)

[cahn]

All right, I've wanted to do this for a while:

The problem with operas is that they're too long. By which I mean, if anyone in them was sensible they'd all be at most half the length.

So: comment with an opera name (*) and I'll respond with a short snippet of a canon-divergence AU where the opera is Much Shorter. Warning, of course, that at least some of the characters will be wildly out of character. That is to say, probably much more sensible. :)

(*) If it's an opera I know, you'll get the ficlet much sooner. If it's one I haven't watched yet, I'll put it on my list to watch and you'll get the ficlet once I've watched it. This is a good opportunity for you to get me to watch your favorite opera, since after I finish Norma with Caballé I'm gonna go back to RL opera friend and ask for more DVDs! (Though given my previous track record, this might also take a while.)

(cross-posted to tumblr)

Comments

[carmarthen]

Well, if I hated you, I'd suggest Ariadne auf Naxos, but my feeling about it is that it would be best improved by not existing (to be fair, I saw the most memorably terrible but not even entertaining production I have ever seen of anything).

*racks brain*

The problem is that I'm an operetta fan and I feel like they're generally a perfectly reasonable length. Hmm. Barber of Seville, I guess?

[cahn]

Ahaha, I love Barber of Seville but it... could... definitely be shorter. Um, it's also been a long time since I've seen it, so apologies if I've got anything wrong! (And I guess Don Pasquale was after Barber of Seville, but never mind that.)

I've never watched any Strauss! I'm... sort of curious, now. :)
---------

"Ah, Basilio!" said Figaro. He hurried to catch up with the music-master and put a hand on his shoulder. "I want to speak with you."

Basilio sighed. "Yes, Figaro?"

"Well, it's common knowledge that Doctor Bartolo wants to marry Rosina, but we all know it's not because he actually loves her, it's because he wants her dowry."

Basilio chuckled. "Figaro, I see that you are as blunt as ever. Of course he does not object to marrying a beauty, and he pretends to love her, but he has said to me more than once that Rosina is such a spitfire, he wishes the dowry came with a more, ah, biddable lady."

"What if," said Figaro, "Rosina were loved by a powerful and rich man -- a Count, let us say -- who would let him keep the dowry in exchange for his permission to marry her?"

Basilio started to look more interested. "Ah?"

Figaro leaned in close to Basilio's ear. "Both Bartolo and this man might make it worth our while -- Bartolo for providing him with the dowry, and this man for providing him with Rosina, eh? And I hear there's an opening for music-master in the Count's household..."

Basilio grinned. "I take your meaning indeed. I shall broach the subject with the good doctor, and perhaps our music lesson today shall be focused on Don Pasquale, so Bartolo sees some of the pitfalls of marrying a younger wife. And then you and I shall take the Count's offer to him."

Figaro grinned back. "Exactly as I was also thinking, sir."

[iberiandoctor]

Aha, this is now a factotum that actually knows how to get things done expediently! Nicely done ;)

[cahn]

I mean! It's not as amusing as the original, for sure :) (I sort of wonder whether Figaro was just coming up with the plan that gave him the most amusement...)

[carmarthen]

Well, there's the good Strauss (Johann II) who wrote delightful waltz-filled operettas, and the bad Strauss (Rickard), as I found out. Although the production I saw made a large number of terrible choices, and I will forever be bitter they removed the intermission because it's the only time I've ever wanted to walk out of the theatre and I COULDN'T. I suspect in a more normal staging it's just incredibly boring, rather than a mind-boggling combo of boring, baffling, and repellent.

This does seem like a definite improvement on the plot!

[zdenka]

I'm not a fan of Ariadne auf Naxos, but I have to put in a good word for Richard Strauss's Arabella! It has an actual plot (unlike Ariadne), a good relationship between sisters, and some really gorgeous music. (I liked it enough that I took my username from it, many years back.) I'm not deeply familiar with Rosenkavalier, but I've liked what I've heard of it.

Though I do agree with your good opinion of Johann Strauss's delightful operettas!

[carmarthen]

Good to know! I may give it a try - I just found the music in Ariadne auf Naxos deadly boring, but maybe it was a fluke.

(It did not help that the company putting it on had a VERY misleading program description in addition to the weird and offputting regie approach, so I was set up to expect something quite different from what I got - it was not a good introduction to Rickard Strauss.)

[zdenka]

As cahn could tell you, I am not at all a fan of regie either! And Ariadne is just such a weird opera concept with the mashed-together plots. I feel like people are less likely to do weird regie things to Arabella or Rosenkavalier, but who knows.

[cahn]

I mean, you know I really like regie sometimes! But... yeah... it seems like Ariadne auf Naxos would be a bad choice for it, especially on a first watch.

I keep flirting with thinking about watching Arabella, mostly because I see there is a DVD with Thomas Hampson and Renee Fleming, and, well, I will pretty much go anywhere for Thomas Hampson. Hmm :P

[zdenka]

I found the last scene of that production on YouTube yesterday -- following a very similar thought process -- and I got really mad because there wasn't a staircase. (The entire point of the last scene is when she goes down the staircase! It's there in the music! Argh.) Also because they didn't show Hampson's face at all during the part when Arabella says she forgives him. I'm sure Hampson and Fleming are fantastic, but I may be too preemptively annoyed with that production to watch it. :P

Oh, but here's the two of them singing an excerpt from the Act II love duet in a concert version, and they are in fact fantastic:
https://youtu.be/QU9wf0qGddk

[cahn]

ahahaha, we think alike again -- I also found that last scene and watched it -- I didn't know about the staircase (I knew about the glass of water, but that's about it, and I didn't have a libretto) so that didn't bother me, but not showing Hampson's face when she forgives him is just NOT ON, I was so annoyed. I mean, he's got the most expressive face of anyone!

Though that being said, Fleming's got a fantastically expressive face too, so at least we got to see that?

omg, that DUET you linked THOUGH, I hadn't seen that and this makes me want to watch it, aghhhhhh they are fantastic

[zdenka]

Hee, I'm amused.

She does! And such a gorgeous shimmery voice.

Oh, and I think you'd like Arabella if for no other reason than that a couple of the male characters start being jealous idiots, and then they listen to the person explaining why they misinterpreted the situation, and realize they were wrong before anyone dies or fights a duel or has other horrible things happen to them.

[cahn]

:D Okay, yeah, that seems totally Relevant To My Interests.

...I'm sure you have heard this (see also: thinking alike), but I just listened to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWsa9gihIbA and I'm a fan, even though I have no idea what they're singing and they're just standing there, the music is so beautiful and their voices are so beautiful <3

[zdenka]

I know the duet (I've listened to the whole opera at various points), but I hadn't seen that particular production -- thank you! Their voices are really lovely.

Many years ago, I had never heard of Arabella but I happened to catch it on a Met radio broadcast. And there was a gorgeous duet for two sopranos in the first act (the one you linked just above), and I totally fell in love with the music. And the next time I was in an opera workshop, I went to the director and said, "I want to sing that one!" She cast me as Zdenka in that scene, I got fond of the part and the character, and not long afterwards I needed a new username. And here we are. :)

[cahn]

I figured you knew the opera, given your username :) but I also thought you might have come across that link the same way I did -- it came up when I searched for arabella and hampson :P (I think it's the same production, although obviously he's not in that scene.)

That's a lovely story about your username <3

[carmarthen]

I was kind of expecting a satire with a sense of humor (the vague outline sounded Relevant to My Interests) but it was...not that. Also the version I saw had a lot of murder. So much murder (someone got ripped in half, someone got burned alive, etc.). It ended with the narrator (the last one alive) aiming a gun at the audience. I am not sure what they were going for. But I didn't like the music, so I don't think I'll ever find out of a more normal staging would be better.

I don't mind regie (or restaged Shakespeare) in theory, but it's got to have a concept that actually adds something to the experience. To be fair, traditional stagings do too, but when they don't they tend to be flat rather than offensively awful.

[cahn]

...huh. "Satire with a sense of humor" was actually what I had thought it was about, through vague osmosis. Interesting, I am revising my thoughts on looking this up :)

I have been watching a lot of regie lately, and it definitely ranges from "ohhhhh the concept really made me think about this in a different way" to "some of that was quite interesting and some of it was trying Too Hard" to "yeah, that was just a total mess." But none of it has been quite as much of a mess as what you've described! (Also, I'm watching pretty much all of this on video, which makes it a lot easier to nope out when necessary!)

[carmarthen]

It...might be possible to stage it that way, but it's hard to tell from what I saw.

(I didn't even mention that one of the protags spent an entire scene snuggling with a dead octopus bigger than her. Boringly.

TBH, I don't even know HOW they managed to pull off bizarre and boring at the same time. Quite a feat. I liked everything else I saw there, but the other things I saw were vastly less regie.)

[cahn]

Okay, I laughed at the concept of snuggling with a dead octopus and making it BORING. Wow.(Although it kind of makes sense. Reading about it sounds sort of surprising and cool ("a dead octopus!") but in person I think I'd be like "...why is this octopus still here. Ugh.")

...I did listen to the music yesterday on Spotify, and I remembered (my only previous experience with R. Strauss has been in orchestra) that I do like R. Strauss's music but only if really, really good musicians are involved (which sounds like was not the case for you, weird and boring staging aside). But of course it was in German so I had no idea what anyone was singing.

[carmarthen]

You'd think all the murder would be at least not boring, but nope. And the octopus, man, idek, why was it there? WHO KNOWS. I honestly have no idea about the musicians (although I did enjoy the other stuff I saw there - a competent but not amazing moderately-regie Carmen, competent traditional La Boheme, a nice Eugene Onegin ballet, a Hungarian borderline-operetta I adored...I can't remember if I saw anything else) because I was too angry about everything else to pay a lot of attention to the music (and I'm not trained enough to really tell the difference between a competent pro orchestra and a great one). I did have surtitles in English! They did not help.