Dove Sono?
John GibbonsTop Ten Lost Opera Characters
Today at the grocery store a poor young lady had accidentally gotten separated from her mom and was in tears at the camera counter, while a sympathetic clerk called again and again for her mom to retrieve her. As the girl was still there a half hour later, I began to feel uneasy on her behalf. Fortunately, by the time I left, she had been reunited with her mother, who proceeded to berate the pathetically relieved young lady in no uncertain terms, and unfairly, I thought, because the girl’s lifeline, that indispensable icon of our age, the cellphone, was malfunctioning or out of power. I think kindness is the noblest human virtue, especially since we may share it with superior creatures like dogs and dolphins; nobler than love, or charity, or faith, pace St. Paul. Anyway, I got to thinking: What operatic characters get lost in their operas? Maybe I should send the question to the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, and win their super-duper prize package, but such is my loyalty to Holdekunst readers that I offer it here first, gratis.
in your local movie theater
Metropolitan Opera in HD
Christine Schaefer, Alice Coote,
and Phillip Langridge as the Witch
January 1, 2008
(encore January 6, 2008)
1. Obviously and of course, Humperdinck’s immortal Hansel and Gretel. I certainly hope there isn’t anyone left who doesn’t know enough to take this very great opera seriously. It’s sort of like Siegfried, except all fairy tale and no polemics. The pantomime of the fourteen angels can leave even the jaded listener in tears, even if he isn’t anxiously waiting for his mom at the camera counter.
2. Golaud and Melisande. The most delicate of metaphors, to the most delicate of musics, the first scene of Debussy’s greatest work is melancholy magic.
3. The protagonist of Erwartung, again, like the previous two exemplars, lost in a metaphorical forest. Only this time, we are plunged into the nightmare hysteria of Dr. Caligari.
4. Siegfried, in the first scene of the third act of Gotterdammerung. And who does he run into, but those not-so-agreeable substitutes for a Greek Chorus, the Rhine maidens. And thus, after he spills the beans, Brunnhilde has a chance to know everything, which endows her with truly awesome grandeur in opera’s greatest scene, her immolation. Certain uncharitable wives of mine might refer to the Rhine maidens as the Rhine “———s”. I don’t say yea or nay to that.
5. Keeping with the Wagnerian theme, Parsifal. He’s lost for the duration of his opera, basically. Could anyone be that stupid? At least the music is good. (talk about damning with faint praise)… Nietzsche thought Klingsor the only human character in the piece. As is so often the case, The Weimar Zarathustra hits the nail on the head.
6. Can we count Tom Rakewell and his fellow madmen? Adonis and Venus…being lost in the thickets of madness is perhaps the cruelest way to be lost. Stravinsky finally proves that he’s human after all with Anne’s exquisitely sad lullaby. Take the rest of Stravinsky, please, but let me have Rake’s Progress. Now and then let me borrow Petrushka, however!
7. Manon and Des Grieux in the last act of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. I know it’s a commonplace to joke about the Louisiana “desert” but doesn’t this passage refer to the “Louisiana Purchase”? …I’m way too lazy to dig up an American history textbook to do some fact checking, so you, my humble reader, are hereby commissioned to do this for me.
8. Dido and Aeneas in the “Royal Hunt and Storm” music from Berlioz’s Les Troyens. If your coupling doesn’t result in the founding of a great empire, you just ain’t trying hard enough.
9. How about Michel, in Martinu’s wonderful Juliette, ou la Cle des Songes (Juliet, or the Key of Dreams)…like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, he spends the whole work in a dream.
10. If I am allowed a sentimental metaphor, who is more lost than the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro? Dove sono…where are they? Those beautiful moments, those days of pleasure…maybe the agitated young lady from the grocery store will grow up to be an opera singer, and will have special insight into what John Berryman called “the epistemology of loss”…
Reader Comments (8)
Hello John: Marissa here from her desk at the Gleach. Appreciated today's opera post; just the thing for a winter afternoon at work. Pretty good thing you got goin' on there, dontcha? You bet.
Yah, it's a pretty good deal going there, then, all things considered. Coud'a been a worse deal, don't ya know, like the time the Vikings and Gophers lost the same gosh darn-tootin' day, and caused the hot-dish going there then to spoil, or like the time I got stranded in Bemidji. Well, good to hear from you. Can't tell you how sorry I felt for that poor young lady at the grocery. Human nature being what it is, in a way I felt worse about her than I felt about that hideous, depressing feeling of futilitiy-inducing, soul destroying tragedy in Omaha. We have to do something. After the Amish girls, Virginia Tech, and Omaha, I can't take it anymore, and opera only helps so much. Life isn't all puppy-dogs, champagne and opera, although it should be. Now That you're the BIG BOSS, I suggest you wear mirrored sunglasses and a sheriff's hat, the better to keep the likes of me in my place. I can brandish a brace of catfish with a roguish smile, and you can benignly intone, "That's jus' fine, Luke."...Glad you liked the post. Stan Grossman'll tell you the same thing, 'cause this is Wade's deal, here, Jerry...
Great topic, John, which I suggest you work up into a question for submission to the Met's opera Quiz. And I love the “Royal Hunt and Storm” music - it's one of many examples of how Belioz makes one feel like you're really present in his music, not just a listener.
John
I am new at the Graham School working at a student services coordinator. I was going through the Gargoyle checking things out and on page 12 under "Introduction to Musical Theory and Literacy" at the end it says, "A list of readings to be completed before the start of this seminar is available at..." I went to your website but I can't find that list. I was thinking that if this dim bulb didn't find it maybe others were having difficulty as well. I'll look for your response. Or you can email me at the school. Thanks.
Andy Leahy
It's not up, yet, Andy, I'm sorry to say. Within a week or so it should be up. I guess I felt I had time since the class isn't 'till February. I'll have it up soon, I finally have the time. I need to let the office know that it hasn't been up, but will be up soon. Thanks for reminding me, sounds like you are on top of things.
Thanks. I only asked because the Winter Gargoyle is out and since I hear you are a popular teacher people will be looking for it.
Hear that, o you detractors! "Vox Populi, Vox Dei".
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