Crazy ladies

I would like to talk further about the subject of portrayal of women as unstable in opera. I would suppose that if you took a survey of the number of operas which portray women as “loosing it,” or possibly “have already lost it,” and compare it to the number of operas where men “loose it,” (there are a few, Rigoletto comes to mind) there is an overwhelming majority on the side of women “loosing it.” Of course there are reasons for this; mainly the overwhelming continuation of the Aristotelian perpetuation, which makes me wonder did we ever even have a chance to prove ourselves? But I believe there is still redeeming value to these operas which show ladies “flying off the handle.” There is a reason they do. They continue to live and work in environments that are hostile to them, that make them do things that they would rather not do, and deal with people that are unreasonably difficult. It's everybody else's fault. If men were not so difficult and were not so incapable of understanding others (as women are portrayed to be able to do). In the case of A View from the Bridge it's the men who don't do wise things, are unable to take time out to understand. Beatrice has been living in an extraordinary situation. It's understandable that she would have a negative reaction. I think perhaps it would be unrealistic and boring if she didn't. I think we saw examples of her throughout the opera where she tried to make a stand, but this was made impossible but the over-imposing men of the story. We are sympathetic with her and if anything, we come to view men in a more negative light. I am curious to see an opera with a strong women character to see how it would be received. Perhaps this is another example of not being able to see the oppression until it is rejected.

Key to success

After listening to Bolcom's A View from the Bridge I can really see the similarity in styles of writing to Carlyle Floyd and Willie Stark. Maybe I just get caught up in the colloquial use of accents (who would of thought you can actually sing operatically with a New Jersey/New York accent!) The music is wide and disjunct, while still remaining in a frame of tonality. The text is set well, though not particularly with memorable melodies; still the shape of the phrase matches the inflection of the language making it difficult to perceive the story being set in another language. But I would have to say that this story is much more successful than Willie Stark. I feel like I have a better connection with the characters, as if they were people that I could possibly know. I didn't need someone to tell me outside the story to grasp and understand where these people are coming from (though the lawyer was a great touch for setting up the scenario; it was seamless). I was caught up in the story wondering what was going to the characters now. I really feel that this success comes from a good collaboration between composer and librettist. Both need to understand how an opera works theatrically and be able to establish connections for the characters in a short amount of time and therefore make the characters believable and understandable. In Willie Stark, as I said before, I often felt pulled in several different directions; the characters were really unfocused in theirs actions, something that could be attributed to bad acting, but I don't think this is the case. In this opera Bolcom has clearly indicated that he understands the theater, and certainly having a librettist and author who are on board makes for an infallible trio. To fail with such means would be truly regrettable.

It's all about the music

Have you ever noticed that when you go to an opera, even if it's in English, that you get a synopsis of each act? They give the ending away! We know that the lady coloratura is going to go off the deep end, or the lyric is going to die of lung disease and that the tenor is going to stab himself and continue to sing for fifteen minutes but we watch anyway, and somehow we're still intrigued. I suppose it's similar to the movie Apollo 13; unless you are completely devoid of any historical knowledge, you know that they're going to get back and they're going to be okay. (Sorry if you are one of those people.) Still the drama is so exciting that I get drawn in every time. Is Steven Spielberg just that much of a genius, that he can keep us engaged in the story, or is simply a good performance. I'm not writing this blog to analyze Steven Spielberg, but I think it is a worthy comparison. I can't count how many times I've seen Traviata but every time I'm enraptured in the music. Though I haven't seen all of The Aspern Papers I can see how this would also be the case. Just from these two scenes I found myself completely absorbed in the story even though what they were saying was not particularly interesting or deep. It was definitely the music that pulled me in and held me leaving me wanting more. And when you think about it, that's what opera is, a story that is amplified by the music. The music makes it a better story, or why else would we spend all of our time doing it? Argento has certainly proved himself an apt composer for incorporating bel canto elements into a more modern style. I would like to hear more.

Revisiting an old question

For this post I would like to discuss the question posed by Alyssa in class the other day. She re-asked the question of what constitutes an American opera? In the case of the Aspern Papers, we see an American composer setting a novel by an writer who is really an amalgamation of both American and English properties and the setting of the book is definitely not set in an American atmosphere. So quite justly the question is asked, can this still be considered American? We posed the same question at the beginning of the semester and many of the answers were things such as American opera includes more indigenous or folk-like elements, deals with such ideas as Manifest Destiny etc. But I would argue that American opera has to include many other elements that would not necessarily be defined as American. I would also have to say that the idea of America of the 80's and 90's (is it safe to say we all grew up around this time?) is much different from the idea of America that is evolving. It is an America that is rejecting nationalistic notions and embracing a more global perspective. Certainly we've seen foreign subjects set by composers already in this class. John Adams recently composed an opera called The Flowering Tree sets an Indian folk story. Of course, Adams notes that even though a composer may take considerable effort not to impose their own musical idioms reaped from his or her own culture upon a subject from a different perspective, those influences are inevitably going to sneak in. Really, in the end the one qualification for American opera must be that the composer is primarily American or has had significant exposure to American culture.