Puccini's Turandot, a problem for some in its perpetuation of racial stereotypes	*Listed as OPERATIC REDISCOVERIES

SYLLABUS (flat)        SYLLABUS (foldable)        COMPOSER BIOS
CLASSES:    [1]    [2]    [3]    [4]    [5]    [6]    [7]    [8]    [9]    [10]    [11]    [12]   
 
CHANGES, 7/12: If you have visited this page before, note that I have changed the titles of
several classes, and substituted Robert le Diable for Guillaume Tell as the subject of Class 7,
and Ruslan and Lyudmila and The Tsar's Bride for the originally-announced Sadko in Class 10.
The selections below are now final, at least in outline. rb.

In originally proposing this course as "Operatic Rediscoveries," I intended to feature a number of slightly less familiar operas that I could nonetheless show in first-rate productions. This is still my intent, but to focus the topic more clearly, I have chosen the theme of "Problem Operas Solved." In another recent course, I asked what made the most frequently performed operas so popular; this time, the question is the opposite. What is it that has condemned some marvelous works by the likes of Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini to linger in the relative background, and how have modern directors responded to the challenge?

Why problems? Opera is an old medium. For centuries, composers have been writing in response to conditions that may no longer apply. Styles have changed, and so have tastes. A myth or fairy-tale that resonated with our ancestors may seem trivial when set beside present-day concerns. More seriously, many operas make societal assumptions very far from our own, and some may involve attitudes that are no longer acceptable. Such works demand interpretation, presenting them in a context that is as cogent to modern audiences as it was to the original ones. That's the fascination.

The first class will look briefly at some well-known operas such as Verdi’s Otello and Puccini’s Turandot (pictured above) that have racial or gender stereotyping built into their very essence, and also glance at some other issues that can cause problems in reviving operas beyond their original context. The remaining classes, however, feature operas by major composers that, for whatever reason, have never attained a similar frequency of performance.

Two of these, Rameau’s Les Indes galantes and Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable, are works that I have introduced before in other Baltimore courses, then spending an hour on each. Yet they are highly entertaining and make important points; and this time, I will be able to show them at twice the length. For the final class, I offer a brilliant production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos previousy shown in Montgomery County via Zoom, but not in Baltimore.

The rest will be operas that I have shown in snippets or not at all. Some will be the less-often-performed works of the most popular composers: Mozart’s Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Verdi’s La forza del destino, and Puccini’s La fanciulla del West. Others—such as Handel’s Alcina, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and the Russian pair of Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar's Bride—will be masterpieces embodying certain expectations of style or subject-matter that may need reinterpretation in our own. All will be illustrated with substantial excerpts from modern performances that are as dramatically compelling as they are well sung. rb.

September 19

RESOURCES

1. Waking Up

If you Google "opera problems," you are most likely to come up with treatments of race in classic operas such as Aïda, Otello, or Madama Butterfly, and beyond that, the lack of opportunities for artists of color in the opera field at large. It is an important issue, but alas we can do no more than touch on it in the first hour of the class. In the second hour, however, we shall continue with a rather fuller treatment of Giacomo Puccini's final opera, Turandot, a lavish spectacle which has nonetheless come under fire in the present "Woke" culture for perpetuating stereotypes of Asian identity and gender. We shall see if it is possible to have the spectacle without the ethnic slurs, but the gender stereotyping in Turandot is also part of a much older tradition of representing women in opera—an issue that we shall encounter more than once in the weeks ahead.

September 26

RESOURCES

2. Visions of Empire

Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1735 opera Les Indes galantes (The Amorous Indes) presents problems of several kinds. It is not a continuing story but a series of tableaux, each set in a different part of the world. It follows the French court-opera tradition where aria merges into recitative, and both are interrupted for dances. And it is built entirely on racial stereotypes (albeit benevolent ones); there is even an act called "The Savages"! Yet there have been at least four major new productions in the past decade alone; why has it suddenly become so popular? One reason is surely its gorgeous music and genial tone. But another is that directors have become fascinated with the problem of making it relevant to the present age. Laura Scozzi in Bordeaux, for example, uses a comic touch to address issues such as environmentalism, consumerism, and globalization. And Clément Cogitore in Paris (above) assembles a multiracial cast and a repertoire of street dances as a contemporary response to the casual racism of the earlier century.

October 3

RESOURCES

3. Gender Politics

Operas based on literary myths, consisting almost entirely of solo arias, and with casts comprised mainly of sopranos (both male and female) would not seem viable for audiences nurtured on grand opera and verismo. Yet the operas of George Frideric Handel, the epitome of the opera seria tradition, have been enjoying an accelerating revival, especially following his tercentenary in 1985. And for an adventurous director like Katie Mitchell, an opera like Alcina (1735), whose enchantress heroine seduces Crusader knights and turns them into animals for her collection, becomes a master-class in gender politics—and a very sexy one at that!

October 10

RESOURCES

4. Antique Roadshow

Most of the earlier operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were also written in the opera seria tradition. Idomeneo (1780), the last opera he wrote before leaving Salzburg for Vienna, is no exception: the hero, King Idomeneus of Crete, is forced to sacrifice his own son in fulfilment of a vow made to Neptune when shipwrecked on his return from the Trojan War. Yet Mozart varies the texture of arias with some remarkable choruses and ensembles, and in the closing hour creates music that is as dramatic as almost anything that would follow. The smaller photograph above shows the 1982 production at the Met by Jean Pierre Ponnelle, who revels in its classical pedigree; the lower one shows the 2019 staging in Madrid by Robert Carsen, who revisits the opera in the context of war, PTSD, and political displacement.

October 17

RESOURCES

5. East-West Encounters

Mozart's next opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio, 1781), also contains its share of challenging arias (including two jawbreakers for the soprano back-to-back in the second act). Yet it is written in the German of its Viennese audience, it contains many marvelous ensembles, and maintains the spirit of comedy throughout. Or almost throughout, for Mozart treats the Islamophobia of its premise—a captured Spanish noblewoman sold to the harem of a Turkish Pasha—with remarkable seriousness. The keeper of the harem, the bloodthirsty and lascivious bass Osmin, remains a stereotype throughout, yet is a comic tour-de-force. But the Pasha himself, who speaks but never sings and who truly loves the heroine Konstanze, is of a different order entirely. Without updating the action in any way in his 2015 production at Glyndebourne, director David McVicar reveals the opera as the Enlightenment parable that it is, and an aching human drama far from the usual farce.

October 24

RESOURCES

6. Not Shakespeare's Romeo

Italian opera of the bel canto period (earlier 1800s) had almost as many conventions as the opera seria of a century earlier, yet the leading works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti have remained as repertoire staples. There are many reasons why other works of these prolific composers are less often heard; in the case of Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues, 1830), it may have to do with the fact that he was working from a different Italian source from Shakespeare's, so the plot does not follow the more familiar story; it is a claustrophobic opera almost entirely without spectacle. Audiences may also find it difficult to accept a mezzo-soprano hero. In his 2015 production in Zurich, Christof Loy makes a strength of these limitations, by showing Juliet as the psychological prisoner of her wealthy father, and the ardent but still very young Romeo ultimately unable to liberate her.

October 31

RESOURCES

7. Theatrical Thrills

With the premier of his opera Robert le Diable in 1831, Italianate-German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer became the toast of Paris. The piece virtually defines the new genre of grand opéra: works based on an historical subject chosen for its potential to provide a succession of stage pictures over four or five acts, spectacular scenic effects, and bravura singing, all supported by massive choruses, an extensive ballet, and a large orchestra. The scale and expense of such productions, coupled by shifts in public taste, virtually banished them from the repertoire during the 20th century, but they have been beginning to make a reappearance—especially when a director such as Laurent Pelly at London's Royal Opera in 2012 realizes their potential for sheer fun!

November 7

RESOURCES

8. The Artist's Dilemma

Tannhäuser (1845) made the young Richard Wagner's reputation. In the words of a recent article in Opera Today, "contemporaries became obsessed with his portrayal of the struggle between sacred and profane love. Today, however, when everyone wants to have it all, this topic says little to modern listeners—and so Tannhäuser has become one of the least performed of Wagner operas. Yet the score remains ravishingly beautiful." In writing about the inspiration of a fellow musical artist (Tannhäuser was a noted medieval singer), Wagner was composing a sort of psychological autobiography—yet it is difficult to show this in stage productions, which most often revert to a series of picturesque tableaux. We shall look at two attempts to go beyond that: the 2012 Barcelona production shown above by Robert Carsen, who makes Tannhäuser a visual artist, and the 2019 Bayreuth staging by Tobias Kratzer, who starts way out in left field but ends with something psychologically true and deeply moving.

November 14

RESOURCES

9. Managing Melodrama

Giuseppe Verdi was at the height of his powers when he wrote La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) for St. Petersburg in 1861, yet he kept tinkering with it for the rest of the decade. Why? He could never get the balance quite right, or shape the sprawling plot into a cohesive whole. A Spanish melodrama of the kind that had served him well enough with Il trovatore a decade earlier was no longer in tune with his new depth of psychological insight, yet his writing for the soprano heroine Leonora, and the fierce duets between the two men who love her, are some of the most powerful of his career. Thanks to video, we are in the fortunate position of being able to compare a revival from St. Peterburg in the original sets to a modern approach such as the 2016 Munich production by Martin Kusej that will occupy the larger portion of the class.

November 28

RESOURCES

10. Russian Legend

With certain exceptions such as Boris Godunov and Eugene Onegin, Russian opera has not traveled well beyond its home country, probably because so much of it is based on Russian fairy tale and legend, even when the subject is ostensibly historical. So I have been impressed by the director Dmitri Tcherniakov, who in production after production manages to leap the gap between traditional decor and ultra-modern settings such as a television studio or cocktail party with provocative and exciting results. Today's class will sample his touch with two widely-separated Russian works: Ruslan and Lyudmila (1841) by Mikhail Glinka, which was among the earliest, and The Tsar's Bride (1899) by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the many stage works by this lyrical and colorful composer that is all but unknown in the West.

December 5

RESOURCES

11. Puccini Goes West

After the success of Madama Butterfly in 1904, Giacomo Puccini returned to the same source, the Broadway playwright David Belasco. His play The Girl of the Golden West is set in and around a saloon catering to miners of the American Gold Rush, together with a share of law officers, bandits, swindlers, and whores. Although he had never visited the West, Puccini seized on it as another opportunity for local color, which he poured into a score hailed as his most symphonic to date. The resulting opera, La fanciulla del West, was a great success at its premiere at the Metropolitan in 1910 (Destinn and Caruso, with Toscanini conducting), but the perceived mismatch between music and setting has rather sidelined it since. Modern productions, however, have become more frequent. Many have updated the action or taken a less literal approach, but in the end the most successful solution may be to ignore that there is any problem to solve, and simply to do what the composer asks, as in the 1991 Met production by Giancarlo del Monaco shown here.

December 12

RESOURCES

12. A Classic, Hijacked

In 1912, Richard Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hoffmannstahl devised the one-act opera Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos) to serve as the finale to Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, whose nouveau riche title character orders up the opera to demonstrate his wealth. But the combination of play and opera proved impractical, so in 1916 the pair came up with a prologue set backstage in the patron's house, showing how the opera comes to be performed, and the tribulations of the young Composer (another Mozart, as it were) who finds himself in love with the vaudeville artist hired to share the stage with it. The combined opera has brilliant music, but it is a unique hybrid, quite difficult to build into a persuasive whole. Director Katharina Thoma scored a notable success in her 201e production for another private opera house, Glyndebourne, in a staging that ties both parts of the opera together with the history of Glyndebourne itself.

 
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