Showing posts with label opera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opera. Show all posts

Friday, April 29, 2016

The Lennon-McCartney of the 18th Century


 
 
The tenor, Michael Kelly, wrote a memoir which remains interesting to anyone searching for Mozart stories, particularly about the Marriage of Figaro. (The Austrian Emperor and therefore everyone else in Vienna referred to Kelly as "Ochelli" because "The names of all Irishmen begins with an 'O". Therefore, OChelli he was--in Vienna.)  Lesson #1--never correct the Emperor of Austria if you would like to keep your job at the royal opera house...
 
From the tenor Michael Kelly’s "Reminiscences," published 1826 :
 
“I remember the first rehearsal of the full band, Mozart was on the stage with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hat, giving the time of the music to the orchestra. Figaro’s son, “Non piu andrai, farballone amoroso…” Bennuci gave with the greatest animation and power of voice.

 
I was standing next to Mozart, who, sotto voce, was repeating, “Bravo! Bravo! Bennuci!” and when Bennuci came to the fine passage, “Cherubino, alla vittoria, alla Gloria militar” which he gave out with Stentorian lungs, the effect was electricity itself, for the whole of the performers on the stage and those in the orchestra, as if actuated by one feeling of delight, vociferated Bravo! Bravo! Maestro! Viva, viva grande Mozart! Those in the orchestra I thought would never have ceased applauding, by beating the bows of their violins against the music desks. The little man acknowledged, by repeated obeisances, his thanks for the distinguished mark of enthusiastic applause bestowed upon him…” 

 

No more, you amorous butterfly,
Will you go fluttering round by night and day,
Disturbing the peace of every maid,
You pocket Narcissus, you Adonis of love,
No more will you have those fine feathers,
That light and dashing cap,
Those curls, those airs and graces,
That rosy womanish cheek.
You’ll be among warriors, by Bacchus!
Long moustaches, knapsack tightly on,
Musket on your shoulder, saber at your side,
Head erect and bold of visage,
A great helmet, waving plumes,
Lots of honor, little money,
And instead of the fandango,
Marching through the mud.
Over mountains, through valleys,
In snow and days of listless heat,
To the sound of blunderbusses,
Shells and cannons
Whose shots shall make your ears sing
On every note.
Cherubino, onto victory,
Onto Military Glory!
 
(Cherubino, alla vittoria, alla Gloria militar!)
 

This is one of the most famous (and fun!) arias in all of operaSet to Mozart’s most stirring martial music, it is mockingly sung to Cherubino, the teen would-be lady-killer, by the older servant,  wily Figaro. The Count who rules them all has just caught the boy hanging around once too often, first with his wife, and just now with Susanna, the pretty maid whom the Count is hot to seduce. As Cherubino is his ward and of noble blood, he can’t just murder him, (much as he'd like to,) so he's ordered him into the army.

 
The military is still the classic solution for boys who suffer from a chronic overload of testosterone and who are causing problems around your house—or on the street. Written in the late 18th Century, when war still had a cloud of romance hanging round it—no machine guns, tanks, drones or poison gas just yet—it’s straight on the mark. “Glory” is meant ironically. Figaro is sobering the boy up, saying that soldiering means real danger, exhaustion and suffering. So get ready, kid!

 
It’s a nice example of DaPonte’s nuanced writing, words that inspired Mozart to write his most famous scores. Figaro first sings mocking praises—“Pocket Narcissus” has to be one of the best put-downs ever. Then he gets tougher. There will be no further perfumed romps in My Lady’s chambers. Your new bosom companions, my son, will be hardened soldiers--and your 60 lb. knapsack. No more dances, only marching, almost always in the worst weather.  In the 18th Century, too, armies were often chronically without pay, not only because of the usual bad planning, but because wrecking havoc on civilians was (and, heck, still is) traditionally part of the game. DaPonte and Mozart, both freelance artists, know only too well that honor without the cash to back it up was a hollow thing indeed.
 

For the coup de grace, Figaro describes the pain which bombs and gunshots will cause your ears. It’s a misery particularly singled out by DaPonte and Mozart for Cherubino, a musical boy who writes beautiful love songs for all his girlfriends.

 
No more honey-dripping for you, Punk! From now on, your ears will “sing” to you of war! 

 ~~Juliet Waldron
Take a little walk into my 18th Century world:
 
 
And because it's Nanina Gottlieb's birthday today and because she too--aged 11--sang in this opera:

 

Friday, January 29, 2016

Earworm Mozart



I've fictionalized the creation of The Magic Flute in two novels, Mozart's Wife and My Mozart. Nanina Gottlieb, who sang the role of the heroine, Pamina, is the teen narrator of the latter Therefore, I thought I'd write about it, with all its "earworm" songs, and produced during the composer's hectic last year.


It has been said that The Magic Flute is a "pipe dream in which the ultimate secret is revealed, only to be forgotten again upon waking.” The opera is full of occult and masonic references, which would suit both the popular taste of the times (1791) for “magic,” and also the taste of Mozart and his friend Emmanuel Schikanader, fellow Masons.

Magical numbers--three Ladies, three Genii--and the multiple, nine--Sarastro’s Priests--appear repeatedly—and, because this is Mozart, in the music too. There are also a host of pairs and opposites among the symbolic characters: male/female, day/night, noble/common, perfect union/dischord. 




 

There are trials to be endured before the lovers may unite. Some believe that because Masonic "secrets” are revealed in the course of the action, the Brotherhood may have been responsible for the composer’s sudden demise. While I don’t subscribe to this notion, there certainly are lots of occult and masonic references scattered throughout the rather muddled story.

It is muddled, too, because Mozart had already begun to set music to a script (or "libretto") when he realized that The Theater am Weiden’s chief competitor, the Leopoldstadt Theater, had already launched a singspiel (those tuneful forerunners of Broadway) based on the exact same story. Their musical was called The Magic Zither.

Upon learning this, the writers and the composer simply changed The Queen of the Night from a good character into a bad one. Similarly, they changed her husband, Sarastro, from an evil tyrant into a benevolent “Philosopher King.”  This late tinkering with the story/music is obvious, for initially the emissaries of the Queen of the Night, the Three Ladies, give the  Prince not only helpful advice, but the magic flute of the title, to help him save the abducted princess.   Here, The Queen of the Night appears to be the injured party. Later, we learn that she and her ladies are now in league to thwart the Prince’s quest for enlightenment and the hand of her daughter.  

No one much cared, in the end, about logic. The music and the spectacle were (and are still) sufficient to create a luminous piece of theater.

Goethe’s mother wrote: “No man will admit he has not seen it. All craftsmen, gardeners…and even the “Sachsenhausers” (a rough rural suburb of Frankfort), whose children play the parts of apes and lions, are going to see it. There has never been such a spectacle before.”



This is high praise, even if the German word for spectacle carries a double meaning: “show” and “uproar.”

To quote Frederic Blume's essay “Mozart’s Style and Influence”: 

“To compose music for all; music which would suit both the prince and his valet…to compose music that had to be both highly refined and highly popular was a new and unprecedented task.”

Two-hundred and twenty-four years since this opera premiered, it's still going strong, a perfect way to introduce young people to this unique western art. Attending a first-rate production is easier and a lot less expensive than it used to be, for the Metropolitan Opera now broadcasts as many as ten operas every year directly into local movie theaters. Here's a cute clip (endure the undie commercial) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s3Vsf9P0hE

 

In December I enjoyed a re-run of Julie (she of Lion King fame) Taymor's  inspired 2006 Met production. My only quibble being that I missed favorite arias, which were cut to make the show last only a tidy 90 minutes.

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus!
 




 

~ Juliet Waldron





 

 

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