La Forza del Destino is one of my favorites by Verdi (or maybe just one of my favorites), so I went out last Saturday for the Metropolitan Opera livecast. I had forgotten, perhaps out of self-preservation, the ads that precede the show, in which ridiculously earnest yet very, very posh voices assure us that the arts "inspire us" & bring "us" together (once again, who is we?), meanwhile touting luxury products (like Rolex watches) that I have no interest in, even if I could afford them. I object to considering art, no matter how costly or specialized, a luxury-lifestyle accessory, so I slouch in my seat, simmering with proletarian rage, while they hit their beats.
Forza used to be done more often & is now something of a rarity. When asked about this during one of the intermission features, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director of the Met & other places & our afternoon's conductor, first mentioned what he called the "convoluted" plot, followed by the need for a certain type of singer. I suspect it's more about the singers, though the plot is one of those that regularly get sneered at. As with Trovatore, ridiculing the plot misses the point, I think. It's meant to be convoluted & coincidental & far-fetched; how else are you going to illustrate the forza of destino? Again, as with Trovatore, a plot teetering on the edge of absurdity is meant to make the point that the universe is, in fact, absurd. The Forza personages frequently call on the mercy of God & His (Catholic) Mother, but ultimately (though only implicitly), these are shown to be fictions powerless against the pointless cruelty of existence.
This was a new production, by Mariusz Treliński with sets by Boris Kudlička. Paradoxically, I liked the production while finding moment after moment wrongheaded or, in my view, just wrong. The idea is that this is a contemporary fascistic military state (similar to Franco's Spain, perhaps) that devolves into internecine chaos after the leader, the Marquis of Calatrava, is killed. The overture has a dumb-show acted out throughout, & though it's nicely timed timed to the moods & suggestions of the music, it all seems . . . a bit unnecessary, perhaps? What are we learning here that we can't see in the first scene? Is it so difficult, even in our very visually oriented society, to sit & just listen to some instrumental music? We are at the swank hotel Calatrava, for a celebration of the Marquis's birthday. The agitated Leonora enters (or exits, as she is walking out of the party; the set keeps rotating, showing us interior & exterior). She is smoking a cigarette (such a trashy & banal directorial touch), which she stubs out – agitation! We see her lover, Don Alvaro, costumed like a rock-band roadie. They are preparing to run off. He has to hide as she gets pulled back into the party. Her father wants her. It's intimated that he wants her in more than one way. Most of this information, of course, is conveyed in the first scene – only the Marquis is portrayed as pretty much a creep; he drinks too much & is a lech & has a weird thing with his daughter: so why is she so reluctant to run away from him? If he isn't a kind & generous father, though one who is limited by his sense of social status & propriety, why should she hesitate to escape from his control?
Padre Guardiano is played by the same performer (Solomon Howard), &, weirdly, instead of a contrast with the Marquis, he seems to be the same type: when Leonora comes to his monastery seeking protection, he is strangely handsy with her, & she with him, in a way that seems implausible for an older man who is an austere but kind spiritual director & a completely distraught woman trying to escape the world. At one point I think he slaps her, though I actually doubted by eyes, given how bizarre & unnecessary that would be. At a few later points, when the Marquis is long dead, & we expect the Abbot, he shows up in his military Marquis outfit. It's a bit confusing, though the metaphorical intention is clear (perhaps all too clear). Another weirdness: Leonora arrives at the convent after a car crash, so her raincoat & face & hands are covered with blood. At no point does either of the priests she speaks to, first Fra Melitone & then Padre Guardino, offer her a towel or something so she can wipe off the blood. They just . . . carry on a long conversation. With a woman covered in blood. Really?
And when Guardiano agrees that she can take the place of the hermit, & he summons the friars to let them know, she is, again weirdly, visible to them – not even a veil covers her face. Isn't it obvious they're not supposed to know who she is, or even that she's a she? Otherwise, why, at the end, would the wounded Alvaro think she was a priest who could give him the last rites? The friars also form two lines & strike her with switches as she passes through on her way to the hermitage. Why? What penance is this?
That scene is, of course, the famous invocation to La Vergine Degli Angeli, & the music, both hushed & soaring, pleading yet serene, carries an emotional power that overrides any questions about the staging. Musically, the performance is at a suitably high level. Lisa Davidsen as Leonora is strong yet touching. Her voice has what seemed to me a core of gleaming steel (personally, my touchstone for the role is the core of gleaming gold in Leontyne Price's interpretations). As Alvaro, Brian Jagde has power & pathos. (I thought he was more nuanced here than in some of the live performances I've head at San Francisco Opera). Igor Golovatenko, Leonora's vengeful brother Don Carlo, is so persuasive as a man in the grip of an obsessive vendetta that I was really surprised to hear this was his role debut. Judit Kutasi is a surprisingly elegant & fluid Preziosilla. That's one character who really benefits from the staging; instead of a stereotypical stage Roma, she is sort of a glam entertainer/hanger-on associated first with the Hotel Calatrava & then as sort of a USO performer for the troops. Like Mother Courage, she profits off of & sees through war, & ultimately is another of its victims.
The whole mixed-race plot, with Alvaro a descendant of Inca royalty & the Spaniards looking down on him as a half-breed, is pretty much abandoned here. No great loss, though it renders some lines (which were very generically translated in the subtitles) a bit incomprehensible. (It's unclear now why Alvaro, as Padre Rafael, should take offense at being told he looks like "a wild Indian".) A loss that is a bit more important is the underlying sense of very formal aristocratic honor (& entitlement), associated particularly with Spain. If the Marquis of Calatrava is staggering around stage in a semi-drunken state, leering at & fondling showgirls . . . well, you kind of lose that sense of punctilio & propriety that motivates the worldview, & therefore the behavior, of the Vargas family. When Don Carlo di Vargas (in disguise) realizes that his new blood brother in arms is the hated Don Alvaro (also in disguise), & takes care to help him recover from his wounds so that he can kill him in a fair fight, it is both noble & a bit absurd. But if you remove any sense of the manly honor that motivates him to behave this way, the action becomes wholly absurd.
Yet I found the production powerful. It seemed clear that the director, who is from Poland, had the brutal & barbaric invasion of Ukraine very much on his mind in trying to portray what war does to a nation & the people living there. He honors the seriousness of it (Preziosilla's rataplan, rataplan, war is glorious stuff is given with incisive irony). So despite what seemed to me missteps on a detailed level, the production as a whole is – I'll go with honorable. & of course the music, & the committed performers, carry us over any bumps in this long & twisty road.
2 comments:
I think Forza and Trovatore are difficult to cast well, but I think the decline in Forza's popularity might track with the rise of Don Carlo(s)'s popularity.
That's an interesting possibility.
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