cahn

iberiandoctor made the mistake of asking me what I thought of Schiller's Don Carlos (I read the Gutenberg translation available here (all quotes are from here), and, well, here we are. Surprising no one, I have Lots of Thoughts about it. I guess my takeaway is that I liked the play a lot and would LOVE to see it performed; on the other hand, there's a reason the opera is the version everyone remembers and the play isn't. [eta 7-5-18, wow, now that I reread that it sounds terrible, and anyway selenak has a very different viewpoint in comments -- and also I should actually see the play.] The play is a lot more complicated plot-wise, with a mad plethora of secret letters and conspiracies against other characters, and also a lot more complicated character-wise, especially in regards to the Marquis of Posa (honestly the entire play should probably have been called The Tragedy of the Marquis of Posa, but we'll get to that). The opera, on the other hand, distills all these secrets and conspiracies and complex characters down into more fundamental emotional truths, it seems to me, and there's a deep sympathy for all the characters which is sort of present in embryonic form in the play but isn't brought out quite as clearly. Being me I'm going to focus on the character differences, bringing the plot in when it's relevant to character (which is a lot, actually). I think this will make sense if you are familiar with the opera, and might not if you're not (since I don't discuss the plot in chronological order).

( In which I expand on this at (really) great length. )

In conclusion: a totally decent play, and as plays are, certainly more complex and interesting than the opera in many ways, and I would go see it in a hot second if I ever had a chance, but the opera takes something that's good and intensifies everything SO MUCH into something amazing <3 [haha, lol, past me, it would have been much more accurate and extremely less obnoxious to say that the opera speaks way more to my id; both play and opera are amazing in different ways!]

(1) So I watched 2+ entire Don Carlos without understanding why Posa takes Carlos' papers early in Act III, clearly with the idea in mind to use them to frame himself, but then doesn't actually make the final decision to use them until the quartet scene in Act IV, which is quite a bit later. (Doylistically, it's because the whole papers subplot in Schiller is cut and replaced by the auto-da-fe, so there's no room to mention them until then.) I thought -- and I still think this could be part of it, mind you -- that it was because Philip had finally gone too far in that scene, thus his determination to die after he speaks sternly to Philip. While writing this, it occurred to me that a) one reason could be that he just doesn't want them to be found on Carlo if he does something dumb, which, uh, yeah, it would certainly be a much shorter opera if Carlo had had them at the auto-da-fe; and b) (and I think this is the actual reason) he's waiting to see whether Eboli actually does accuse Carlo and Elisabetta or whether Filippo decides to execute Carlo -- if neither of these things happen, then maybe he doesn't need to move on that plan -- but when he sees what has happened in the quartet scene he knows that he has to do it.