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Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer)
Feb. 4th, 2019 06:46 pmIt took me months and months -- October through December was a mostly lost cause, and January turned out to be not much better in terms of opera time -- but I finally watched the entirety of Les Huguenots, which I really liked! (It is on Youtube with subtitles!) Opera Australia, with Joan Sutherland as Queen Marguerite, Amanda Thane as Valentine, Anston Austin as Raoul, Clifford Grant as Marcel. (Marguerite is a minor character, but obviously Sutherland was a big draw.) (Sorry justplainsavannahd for taking sooooo long! I'd love to hear from you if you are still around, though I certainly understand if you are not.)
I thought they were all really good. I really need my opera to have excellent acting as well as good singing, and this production really delivered on that front. All the acting was brilliant. I'd listened to a recording on Spotify (thank you justplainsavannahd for the libretto!) -- this recording also had Joan Sutherland as Queen Marguerite, also Martina Arroyo as Valentine, Anastasios Vrenios as Raoul, Nicola Ghiuselev as Marcel -- and so I knew the broad beats and also that the melody of "Ein' feste Burg" was a prominent part of it (it's there. all. the. time. Which I mostly liked! But I would not blame anyone else for getting tired of it), but as usual for me it was about 500% more moving actually seeing it and seeing the staging and acting as well as hearing it.
So, randomly talking about the characters and the singers singing them, often at the same time!
( Cut for length and I guess spoilers? I mean, this is both grand opera and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, it's not like you don't know this ends badly... )
I thought they were all really good. I really need my opera to have excellent acting as well as good singing, and this production really delivered on that front. All the acting was brilliant. I'd listened to a recording on Spotify (thank you justplainsavannahd for the libretto!) -- this recording also had Joan Sutherland as Queen Marguerite, also Martina Arroyo as Valentine, Anastasios Vrenios as Raoul, Nicola Ghiuselev as Marcel -- and so I knew the broad beats and also that the melody of "Ein' feste Burg" was a prominent part of it (it's there. all. the. time. Which I mostly liked! But I would not blame anyone else for getting tired of it), but as usual for me it was about 500% more moving actually seeing it and seeing the staging and acting as well as hearing it.
So, randomly talking about the characters and the singers singing them, often at the same time!
( Cut for length and I guess spoilers? I mean, this is both grand opera and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, it's not like you don't know this ends badly... )
