A Night at the Opera
A review of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, by Mikey
I totally lucked out tonight. My friend Jill didn't feel like sitting through an opera, so she gave her ticket to me, and I sat at Boston Symphony with her husband, John. Free opera tickets! W00t! Mikey's in tha opera house! Fo sho!
First things that are handed to us are the program and a copy of the libretto. Cool! Perhaps this is a sing-a-long. You know, for someone who took 6 years of French, and 2 semesters of Mandarin in college, my German is pretty lousy. We walk into the hall and I notice immediately that there's no scenery, the orchestra seats are on the stage in front of the chorus stand. The opera is to be a concert performance (I ask John what the term is for such a performance. "On the cheap?" he replies.)
The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner's earlier works, so I'm thinking it's more early Romantic. It has a memorable overture, but no landmark musical elements from his later works like the "Tristan chord" from his Tristan und Isolde or the wafting muscial sound of his Ring cycle, for which he had a special theater built in Bayreuth.
Alas, the concert is not a sing-a-long. In lieu of an electronic ticker showing the audience a translation, we follow along with our libretti. This leads to the most annoying thing about the evening: people just don't know how to turn pages quietly. As soon as the page turn comes, all you can hear is the rustle of hundreds of page turns. I remember what an art it is to turn pages quietly - I have a solid page turn that makes minimal rustle, and it takes about 5 seconds. I figure there's no hurry. For Pete's sake, the opera is in German, people - you could take 20 seconds to turn the page and chances are the singer is still singing the same darn word.
The lights dim, and the performance commences. Here is my 1-minute, Cliff's Notes-like synopsis of the plot, with random notes about the concert itself:
Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Hollander) takes place off the coast of Norway
Act I: The orchestra begins with the overture. The French horn section blares the theme of the Flying Dutchman (Mikey tried to get a sound out of a French horn, once. I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and my brain was going to shoot out my nose. I'll stick to the violin and piano, thank you very much. I tip my hat to all those brass instrument players who are able to get a sound out of a mouthpiece with a hole about the same gauge as a hypodermic needle).
We are introduced to Daland, a Norwegian captain, who is the father of Senta, a young woman engaged to the huntsman, Erik.
(The ship of the Flying Dutchman approaches.)
Dutchman: I'm cursed to sail the seas forever until I meet a woman who falls in love with me. Yo, Captain!
Daland: Whassup?
Dutchman: Can I stay at your place? I've got treasure.
Daland: OK.
Dutchman: You got a daughter?
Daland: Yeah. I'll introduce ya. Gimme treasure.
Act II: Inside Daland's hizouse.
Senta: (Stares at a portrait of Flying Dutchman on a wall.) Yowza, that guy's hot!
Erik: Your father is trying to hook you up with some other guy!
Senta: Well, I gotta listen to my Dad...
Erik: No! I had a dream...(Erik goes on to spoil Act III. Yo, Erik - ever hear of a SPOILER ALERT?)
Exit Erik. Enter Daland and Dutchman.
Daland: Senta meet Dutchman.
Senta: Yowza.
Dutchman. Yowza yourself. Commit yourself to me.
Senta: Fo shizzle.
Daland: Yo, Dutch. About that treasure...
(At the end of Act II, several people get up to leave. What?!?! They're trying to beat traffic? Or perhaps they're upset that Erik gave away Act III.)
Act III: On the rocky shore.
Erik: Senta, don't go!
Senta: Nope, I promised Dad I'd hook up with this guy. Although, dying might suck...
Dutchman: No, if you don't come with me, I'm cursed forever and ever!
(Love triangle ballade ensues. Audience pores over their libretti. Are you kidding me? You're following three-part harmony in German? You posers. I know you're all faking.)
Senta: Okay, I'll go with you, Dutchman.
(Senta climbs to the top of a crag and dives off it into the water and dies. Her scores: 3.9, 4.7, 5.6, 2.2, 4.7, with the Russian and French judges getting into a fight, and the Korean judge filing a protest).
The ghosts of Senta and the Dutchman then rise from the sea and float toward heaven.
End.
I totally lucked out tonight. My friend Jill didn't feel like sitting through an opera, so she gave her ticket to me, and I sat at Boston Symphony with her husband, John. Free opera tickets! W00t! Mikey's in tha opera house! Fo sho!
First things that are handed to us are the program and a copy of the libretto. Cool! Perhaps this is a sing-a-long. You know, for someone who took 6 years of French, and 2 semesters of Mandarin in college, my German is pretty lousy. We walk into the hall and I notice immediately that there's no scenery, the orchestra seats are on the stage in front of the chorus stand. The opera is to be a concert performance (I ask John what the term is for such a performance. "On the cheap?" he replies.)
The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner's earlier works, so I'm thinking it's more early Romantic. It has a memorable overture, but no landmark musical elements from his later works like the "Tristan chord" from his Tristan und Isolde or the wafting muscial sound of his Ring cycle, for which he had a special theater built in Bayreuth.
Alas, the concert is not a sing-a-long. In lieu of an electronic ticker showing the audience a translation, we follow along with our libretti. This leads to the most annoying thing about the evening: people just don't know how to turn pages quietly. As soon as the page turn comes, all you can hear is the rustle of hundreds of page turns. I remember what an art it is to turn pages quietly - I have a solid page turn that makes minimal rustle, and it takes about 5 seconds. I figure there's no hurry. For Pete's sake, the opera is in German, people - you could take 20 seconds to turn the page and chances are the singer is still singing the same darn word.
The lights dim, and the performance commences. Here is my 1-minute, Cliff's Notes-like synopsis of the plot, with random notes about the concert itself:
Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Hollander) takes place off the coast of Norway
Act I: The orchestra begins with the overture. The French horn section blares the theme of the Flying Dutchman (Mikey tried to get a sound out of a French horn, once. I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and my brain was going to shoot out my nose. I'll stick to the violin and piano, thank you very much. I tip my hat to all those brass instrument players who are able to get a sound out of a mouthpiece with a hole about the same gauge as a hypodermic needle).
We are introduced to Daland, a Norwegian captain, who is the father of Senta, a young woman engaged to the huntsman, Erik.
(The ship of the Flying Dutchman approaches.)
Dutchman: I'm cursed to sail the seas forever until I meet a woman who falls in love with me. Yo, Captain!
Daland: Whassup?
Dutchman: Can I stay at your place? I've got treasure.
Daland: OK.
Dutchman: You got a daughter?
Daland: Yeah. I'll introduce ya. Gimme treasure.
Act II: Inside Daland's hizouse.
Senta: (Stares at a portrait of Flying Dutchman on a wall.) Yowza, that guy's hot!
Erik: Your father is trying to hook you up with some other guy!
Senta: Well, I gotta listen to my Dad...
Erik: No! I had a dream...(Erik goes on to spoil Act III. Yo, Erik - ever hear of a SPOILER ALERT?)
Exit Erik. Enter Daland and Dutchman.
Daland: Senta meet Dutchman.
Senta: Yowza.
Dutchman. Yowza yourself. Commit yourself to me.
Senta: Fo shizzle.
Daland: Yo, Dutch. About that treasure...
(At the end of Act II, several people get up to leave. What?!?! They're trying to beat traffic? Or perhaps they're upset that Erik gave away Act III.)
Act III: On the rocky shore.
Erik: Senta, don't go!
Senta: Nope, I promised Dad I'd hook up with this guy. Although, dying might suck...
Dutchman: No, if you don't come with me, I'm cursed forever and ever!
(Love triangle ballade ensues. Audience pores over their libretti. Are you kidding me? You're following three-part harmony in German? You posers. I know you're all faking.)
Senta: Okay, I'll go with you, Dutchman.
(Senta climbs to the top of a crag and dives off it into the water and dies. Her scores: 3.9, 4.7, 5.6, 2.2, 4.7, with the Russian and French judges getting into a fight, and the Korean judge filing a protest).
The ghosts of Senta and the Dutchman then rise from the sea and float toward heaven.
End.
posted by Mikey at 1:18 AM
9 Comments:
Opera plotlines always leave me scratching my head. I'll stick to listening to the music in ignorance, thank you very much! :).
Of course people left after the second act. As soon as it becomes clear that Wagner uses Schopenhauer's philosophy as a prop for asceticism in his opera then it becomes an imperative for the discerning listener to abandon this despairing will to preach denial and instead proclaim the übermensch by cultivating Hellenic passions over Roman deprivations!
Dave: You have a point. I remember precious little of the music because I was concentrating so hard on the translation given in the libretto. The plot wasn't that confusing - Pirates of the Caribbean except without the snazzy special effects and no Johnny Depp.
Kinjo: Huh? Sprechen Sie Englisch?
¿Usted habla inglés? Parlez-vous anglais? Parlate inglese? Você fala o inglês?
Har har, kinjo, rightly put ;-). I didn't really mean, Mikey, that I scratch my head in confusion of what was going on, merely in the feasibility and message of said plot line. But I think that is because I am a heathen.
Re: trying to get a sound out of a french horn
Come on Mike, it wasn't quite a hypodermic needle, but you got pretty good mileage out of your baritone mouthpiece!
I know you've tried to block it out, but I think I have pictures somewhere.
Sorry, Dasro, I was being dense. I agree with you on most of the opera plots - at least the ones I know of.
Deej, let me know if you find those pictures. I'm sure they're hilarious.
Lets hope you don't have any recordings of me playing said baritone.
I imagine those would be amusing photos indeed.
¿Usted habla inglés? Parlez-vous anglais? Parlate inglese? Você fala o inglês?
Excuse me. What I meant to write was, WOOOOOO! Wagner frelling RAWKS, man! Play Free Bird!
Dave: Think Mikey wearing the same uniform as the Beatles on the cover of Sgt. Peppers.
Bracken: Glad to see you speaking English again, man.
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