Opera for Beginners (part 2 of 3)

[cahn]

This was part of my writeup on my family reunion opera talk, and it threatened to take over so I'm splitting it into its own post.

melannen and I had an interesting discussion about emoting by opera singers, and the perception that opera singers don't emote, and after thinking about this for a long time I have come to the conclusion that good opera singers emote quite a lot, but --

(a) not-very-good opera singers are crap at emoting because they are all too worried about getting the notes out with proper technique (this was totally me back when I was taking singing lessons)
(b) arias can often become more about beautiful singing than about specifically emoting, which is one of the reasons I dislike arias (although mostly I just like solos less than chamber/small-group work in general; this is a constant over all types of music, classical or not, vocal or not)
(c) in more modern operas, especially, there can be this tendency to sing in a very portentous (in my opinion: BORING) way
(d) it is often quite hard for me, at least, to understand someone emoting if they're doing so in a foreign language.

That is to say, if I were to try to convince people like myself, or like melannen, to like opera, I would do so by playing them a non-aria interactive scene from an Opera in English CD, ideally Mozart.

Such as the following... here's a sample trio (link to mp3). In this trio from Marriage of Figaro, the Count, who is very jealous and possessive of his wife (despite himself wanting to get it on with the Countess' maid Susanna), had accused the Countess of getting it on with a boy she was hiding in her closet. However, when he was about to force the closet, there was no man in there but just Susanna. But it's actually more complicated than that -- Cherubino (the boy in question) actually WAS there with the Countess and Susanna but jumped out the window -- it was (mostly) innocent but looked guilty as heck since the Count is already suspicious of Cherubino -- so until Susanna came out and revealed she was by herself, the Countess totally thought she was going to be in a LOT of trouble. (This is so complicated, I know! I blame Beaumarchais!)

This is immediately following a previous scene: the Countess' lines begin with "I cannot believe it!" Susanna's lines begin with "He jumped..." The Count's lines begin with "I don't understand it!"

(If this convinces anyone they would like to listen to the entire thing, it is available on Spotify -- search for Marriage of Figaro English. (Or of course it is available from various sources online, if you are like me and actually like buying your own media.) For those like me who have problems with parsing English, the translated-libretto is available here (click on the "Media" tab and then "Booklet"). Note that sticklers for translation (hi zdenka!) may be appalled by the translation, which is heavy on reproducing rhyme and usually meter and much much less interested in reproducing the exact sense of the Italian. Personally I love it :D Although it does mean that I listen to Marriage of Figaro far less than I do to the copious other Opera in English that I own-or-hang-out-with-on-Spotify, as it's the one opera where I know the Italian much better than the English and it confuses me.)

(One may ask, why not Verdi, who is just one BIG BALL of emotion?? For some reason, the Verdi Opera in English, with the possible exception of Don Carlos, is just not very good and I still don't quite understand why when the Mozart is SO good. I think the strong emoting is perhaps better done in Italian? BUT in Part 3 there will be a (video) excerpt from Verdi. :D )

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

[Sorry, I know this is off topic, but I couldn't help myself. When I get into a fandom, I have a one-track mind. :D Besides, this deserves to be more well known.]

I think the strong emoting is perhaps better done in Italian?

Little-known fact: if you, an Italian, tell Frederick the Great that Italians are better at strong emotions than Northern Europeans, he will write a pornographic erotic poem, called "The Orgasm", depicting your latest orgasm, in order to make you take back what you said. This poem will turn up in the Berlin archives in 2011, prompting scholars to wonder if maybe Frederick was present at and responsible for said orgasm.

(It will also lead to one of the most bizarre "no homo" arguments I've seen, but such are the perils of historical scholarship.)

[cahn]

This is fabulous! I suppose there isn't an English translation?? (I KNEW I'd have to learn German one of these days, darn it.)

(lol, actually I meant the strong emoting in Verdi in particular -- there are actually some musical reasons why I think this might be the case -- but I'm not sorry I phrased it in the more confusing way I did, because lol forever Friedrich)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Lol, I should have added a disclaimer that I knew you didn't mean emoting in general, but the whole "FRITZ ORGASM SELF-INSERT PWP FIC" took over 100% of my brain cells when writing this post, sorry not sorry.

So, two things.

1. Of course, there's an English translation! And you get it if you google "Frederick the Great orgasm", which I am doing as many times as possible to ensure it features prominently in my search history and also in the Google servers. :P See also the (translation-less) tumblr post where I learned about this.

2. One very important thing to know about Friedrich is that he was a huge Francophile (culturally, not politically), absolutely despised German culture and language and frankly everything remotely German, was very outspoken on the subject (like all of his vicious opinions about literally everything on the planet), and therefore wrote almost exclusively in French. He was one of those "I speak German to my horse" kind of guys. When he did read German literature, he mostly did it in French translation.

Now, French was kind of a prestige language across Europe in the eighteenth century. Even in Russia, the nobles started speaking it. But Fritz was extra committed to the superiority of French to his native language/culture. It's kind of like how the eighteenth century was misogynistic, but Fritz decided to be an extra committed misogynist. (Look, I love the guy, but.)

[cahn]

OH FRENCH, of course! I did know that, either from you or selenak, probably both, but had totally forgotten. French I actually do know well enough to pretend to translate, although having a translation as well is better :P MAN.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Haha, yep. Read stuff *about* Fritz: German. Read stuff *by* Fritz: mostly French.

Also this, haha. (Turn the picture upside down to read what's on the sheet in front of Voltaire. Re which, I'm not a good judge of poetry in English, much less French, but in general, Fritz's poetry gets a, not quite bad rap, but "meh" reaction, from modern and ancient commentators alike. ;) )

[cahn]

lol forever!

I did find it sort of... oddly innocent for an erotic poem, to tell you the truth! I mean, not that I expect twenty-first-century-fanfic-porn, but...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Haha, yes. It's been a long-debated topic whether Friedrich was someone who'd had sex with men and was masquerading as someone who'd never had sex* (because punishable by death), or someone who'd never had sex and was masquerading as someone who'd had sex with men (because as long as there was plausible deniability, 18th century royalty and nobility could get away with a lot, and it was possibly less embarrassing than being a virgin at his age). Poems like this don't exactly clear that up. :-P Hence that tumblr sketch.

* Barring a few supposed youthful escapades with women that variously he, or his supporters eager to rescue his reputation from that unspeakable vice, claimed he had had in his wild oats days.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Barring a few supposed youthful escapades with women that variously he, or his supporters eager to rescue his reputation from that unspeakable vice, claimed he had had in his wild oats days.

See also selenak's comment in the other post about het-posing, which is a fantastically accurate term for what I think Fritz was doing a lot of the time.

Algarotti

[mildred_of_midgard]

prompting scholars to wonder if maybe Frederick was present at and responsible for said orgasm.

I think neither selenak nor I have mentioned that the Italian in question was canonically bi (or as canonically as it gets) Francesco Algarotti! Also canonically hot, and very close to Fritz. So the poem is not the sole evidence on which we're speculating that a sexual relationship existed; less homophobic biographers will straight out say things like "and then Frederick fell in love with Algarotti" and "the lovers." Algarotti is absolutely 100% Fritz's type, I'll say that.

Homoromantic is the least we can say about this relationship, imo. Homosexual, maybe. The only real question mark for me is Fritz's evidently low sex drive--but then he did meet Algarotti during what I'm going to call his "Roaring Twenties". I mean, "Roaring" is comparative by the standards of a guy who everyone's been wondering for 300 years whether he had sex even once after becoming king at 28, not by the standards of other men in their twenties, but his late teens and early twenties are the years in which he talked most about all the sex he was having with women, and in which he engaged in the most suspiciously sexual-seeming relationships with men (beginning with Keith and Katte in his teens).

My guess, if I were to speculate and extrapolate on the evidence, is that Fritz was doing some experimenting in that decade to 1) defy his father, 2) figure out what was supposed to be so great about sex and why the hell he wasn't finding it as exciting as everyone else in the world. I think he tried sex with men and women in his teens and twenties and decided it wasn't really for him either way. I also think he talked about a lot more sex than he actually followed through on. Algarotti is one of my very speculative guesses for "actually followed through at least once."

Haha, I actually kind of wonder if Fritz threw up his hands and decided that if he didn't like sex with Algarotti, then he must not like sex, because *everyone* liked sex with Algarotti!

Wikipedia quote on Algarotti's canonical bi status: "He became embroiled in a lively bisexual love-triangle with the politician John Hervey, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu."

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is famous in her own right (Hervey notable but less so). Among other things, she was instrumental in introducing smallpox inoculation from the East into Europe and advocating for its use in the face of superstition. You may recall this was one of Fritz's pet causes too. Look at all the smart people of Europe being attracted to Algarotti!

While Algarotti was in England in the middle of this love triangle, FW died, and 3 days after inheriting the throne, Fritz sent a one-liner reading, "My dear Algarotti, my lot in life has changed. I await you impatiently; don't make me languish. Friedrich," to which one of his subordinates attached a somewhat clearer explanation that, "From this you ought to understand that Friedrich II succeeded Friedrich Wilhelm 3 days ago." (All in French, of course, including the names.)

I just love how he's all, "No time to explain! Come quickly!" For some reason, I find that so incredibly adorable.

Algarotti immediately dropped everything and came running back to Fritz. They then proceeded to have an on-again, off-again relationship over the course of the rest of Algarotti's life, as Algarotti moved around Europe and in and out of Prussia. For various reasons like health and having a life outside of Fritz, but according to at least one biographer, also because Fritz was easier to be pen pals with than live with, as we know Voltaire found out, so that sounds plausible to me.

Fritz as pen pal: "But whyyyyy are you in Italy when you could be here with meeeee???"

Algarotti: "You know I love you, but, um, tuberculosis, and lots of work to do in Italy like archaeological digs, but especially the Prussian climate and my lungs...it's not you it's me, let's be pen pals."

Fritz: "Okay, but get well soon, so you can come back to Prussia where I can demonstrate to you how we northern Europeans are totally full of passion and good at sex and orgasms and things!"

*still somehow have not run out of long comments about things we haven't yet told you about Fritz*

Re: Algarotti

[cahn]

"My dear Algarotti, my lot in life has changed. I await you impatiently; don't make me languish. Friedrich,"

Aw, lol, I find that incredibly adorable too!

Re: Algarotti

[mildred_of_midgard]

Speaking of adorable, I want to point out another case where characterization emerges from chronology.

So, as we've seen, 3 days after Fritz inherits, he's already telling Algarotti, "Come quickly! I need you!"

One of Fritz's biographers wrote, "Algarotti came running." I always raised an eyebrow at that and went, "But what does that *mean*?" Biographers are fond of uttering interpretations where what I really want is the raw data, so I can draw my own conclusions.

Well. I had to compile various sources to come up with a chronology, and I honestly find it hard to believe that all of the sources, taken together, can be correct, because that chronology is just that unbelievable. But if you assume they're even sort of correct, it's kind of amazing.

Summer 1739: Algarotti and Fritz met in person for about *a week* when Fritz was still Crown Prince. Keep that in mind when you remember that one of Fritz's first priorities as king was to get Algarotti by his side. There's no correspondence between them that I'm aware of before September 1739. It's not like Voltaire, where Fritz had been reading his works since the 20s and corresponding with him for years.

May 31, 1740: FW dies, leaving Fritz the throne.

June 3, 1740: "Come quickly, Algarotti!"

First week of June, 1740: Algarotti is in England, hanging out with Lord Hervey, who is apparently in love with him. As soon as Algarotti gets Fritz's letter, he asks Hervey for money to take a ship to Prussia. [!!]

June 10, 1740: Algarotti is riding with Fritz in the royal carriage ("like a mistress," says one of my sources) to Fritz's coronation in Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia--the part of Russia that's surrounded by Poland).

This means a letter went from Berlin to London, and Algarotti from London to Berlin, in a week or less. In the 18th century.

For comparison, at the end of Algarotti's life, when he died in Italy, Fritz dated a letter to him June 1, 1764, telling him to get better and come back to Prussia asap. On June 12, there's a letter from Fritz to a friend of Algarotti's, saying, "Thanks for letting me know he died on May 3, that's very sad. Please put up a monument for him. He will be missed." That's the speed at which messages traveled in the 18th century.

If all of these facts combined are true, Algarotti came *running*. In fact, he came flying. After having met Fritz for about a week a few months before, and having exchanged a handful of letters since then.

That must have been a hell of a week in 1739! You can parse Algarotti's speed as "The KING! Of PRUSSIA! Wants ME! See you, Lord Hervey!" but if you ask me, Fritz's speed can only be parsed as intense infatuation (which he was prone to). And that tells me that there was likely some mutual enthusiasm during that week, even if the description of one biographer that Fritz had "outbid" Lady Montagu and Lord Hervey was accurate. Btw, some time in 1740, Fritz made both Algarotti and his brother counts.

This is the context for my "falling head over heels all over again" phrasing in "Pulvis et Umbra", btw. They're not my OTP, but I read them as intellectually in sync and totally prone to infatuation with each other. And Algarotti was a much nicer person than Voltaire, so his flirtations with Fritz bore more fruit and less venom. I like to think the evidence points to him having some genuine affection for Fritz and his motives not being totally mercenary.

ETA: Btw, I've been trying to get a sense of Peter Keith's personality from chronology too, but it's been very hard, 1) because my sources all seem to contradict each other, 2) my German and French are not up to confidently sorting out the apparent contradictions, and most of the sources are non-English (and some in non-copy-pastable German Gothic/Fraktur font, UGH).

Re: Algarotti

[mildred_of_midgard]

Update: disregard the chronology above. It's now clear to me why it seemed impossible: the June 10 date for the coronation* was inaccurate and from an unreliable source; the actual date was sometime in the first half of August. Still, that means Algarotti was at Fritz's side within two months, which speaks of promptness to me by the standards of 18th century travel. (As opposed to jet packs, which the compressed chronology required. ;) )

* Which was not an actual coronation but a simpler, cheaper, and more modern/enlightened "I'm king now" ceremony. FW before him had also opted out of spending money on a proper coronation.

That said, Fritz inheriting on May 31 and writing to Algarotti on June 3 remains accurate, which still tells you seeing Algarotti again was a priority.

Algarotti was also with Fritz when he visited Wilhemine in Bayreuth that month, btw, as you may remember from the memoirs; she said nice things about him. So together they went from Berlin first to Konigsberg (modern day Kaliningrad) for the ceremony, then to Bayreuth, then to Strasbourg (where Fritz wanted to be an incognito tourist, and we all know how that worked out).

Okay, back to my Algarotti dissertation-reading!

Re: Algarotti

[mildred_of_midgard]

Homoromantic is the least we can say about this relationship, imo. Homosexual, maybe. The only real question mark for me is Fritz's evidently low sex drive

So, it's been bugging me that I've been overloading the term "homosexual" in the discussion about Fritz, and I wanted to clarify. It is perfectly possible to be homosexual, or to have a homosexual relationship, without being sexually active. The societal tendency to oversexualize homosexuality in a way we don't heterosexuality is a pernicious one.

But for me, in the context of Fritz's sexuality, the relevant distinction is not between homosexuality and heterosexuality or bisexuality*, it's between homosexuality and asexuality. Those are the two major contenders, as far as I'm concerned. (With obviously a continuum linking the two called "strength of his sex drive"--there's graysexual, for example, which might fit him well.)

So if, say, Fritz and Katte were attracted to each other and interested in pursuing a relationship, I will call that homosexual even if they never got further than hugging in the time they had. But if, say, Fritz liked looking at Algarotti and/or Fredersdorf and flirting, but was all "eww no" about ever having sex, then I will call that homoerotic.

* I don't take the bisexuality theory seriously. If he had sexual experiences with women, and he may well have, my view is that they were either him experimenting and deciding against, or fulfilling his marital duties the bare minimum number of times he could get away with (I really hope it was zero, poor guy).

[nineveh_uk]

I have to admit that I love that recording and that translation (my father and I are known to quote bits, not least the Count's "I don't understand it"). It's such fun. I have a recording of a live radio broadcast on tape, and the audience is having a whale of a time.

My go-to example of emoting/acting through singing is Philip Langridge as Captain Vere, particular the epilogue of this recording Yeah right, you're totally telling the truth to yourself that you are just fine and have accepted everything now...

[cahn]

Of course you love it, because it is awesome!! I didn't do a very good job of talking about how much I LOVE Opera in English in this post, but I would still dislike opera if it weren't for the awesomeness that is Opera in English. I do think that they made exactly the right choice to focus on the rhyme and meter in the translation, as it's what makes the dialogue so sparkly to me when I listen to it. Seriously, I didn't like either Cosi fan tutte or any bel canto before listening to the Opera in English recordings, because i didn't *get* what they were trying to do with the music and the words together.

And as I was listening to Figaro to pick out a bit for this post, I was thinking, wow, it's sooooo good, I should listen to it more, weird cognitive dissonance and all :) (I don't have this problem with any of their other Mozart offerings because I don't know the Italian nearly as well -- my singing teacher once made me learn a bunch of Figaro, which is the only reason that I know this opera that well.) The Count's "I don't understand it!" is so great <3 Oh man, that radio recording sounds amazing. Let me know if you ever digitize it :D

ahhhhhh I own that Billy Budd recording and LOVE it!! (uh, as you will have gathered, Simon Keenlyside is one of my heroes, and I also just adore Philip Langridge.)