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Oct. 30th, 2005 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaalaGorgeous music ranging from lyrical to breathtakingly virtuosic! Baroque duets with resolving semitones! Two countertenors on one stage! Allow me to gush for a moment.
I just returned from the Kingston Opera Guild expedition to see Handel's Rodelinda in Toronto. The music, cast, and orchestra were fantastic. The costumes and setting were okay but unfocused and purposeless. The stage action was seriously iffy at times, I'm afraid--waaay too much pointless stage business during da capo arias. I even felt the need to close my eyes a few times[1]. It got better after the first act though.
Some cast highlights were the spectacular 26-year-old soprano Danielle de Niese in the title role[2], Michael Colvin (whose singing I admired on the CD of Harry Somers's Serinette), the very impressive Gerald Thomson... and the wonderful Daniel Taylor, of course, whom I wish I could see and hear more often. Some were better than others at handling the staging weirdness--Daniel Taylor especially--but frankly, the whole cast was great.
This was my first time seeing an opera seria, a genre that tends to get knocked in music history classes. We're told how it became stilted, elitist, ego-centred, decadent, etc. etc. in order to set up the need for reform by Gluck & co. I was surprised to find that, despite the fixed da capo aria form and ludicrous plot turns, the characters in Rodelinda do have some depth and the opera was actually quite moving at times. And da capo arias present a very distinct advantage for people like me who have to use binoculars: the surtitles can be read very easily, right at the beginning of a section, and then ignored for a long period of time.
Nifty.
[1] I hate the COC's promotional material too. But I've said that before and it's beside the point anyhow.
[2] She's beautiful, both vocally and physically. She has an incredibly diligent work ethic too. And she speaks three languages fluently. I hate her. Okay, not really.
*
Now, on to--yikes!--the mid-term tomorrow and essay due Tuesday.
I just returned from the Kingston Opera Guild expedition to see Handel's Rodelinda in Toronto. The music, cast, and orchestra were fantastic. The costumes and setting were okay but unfocused and purposeless. The stage action was seriously iffy at times, I'm afraid--waaay too much pointless stage business during da capo arias. I even felt the need to close my eyes a few times[1]. It got better after the first act though.
Some cast highlights were the spectacular 26-year-old soprano Danielle de Niese in the title role[2], Michael Colvin (whose singing I admired on the CD of Harry Somers's Serinette), the very impressive Gerald Thomson... and the wonderful Daniel Taylor, of course, whom I wish I could see and hear more often. Some were better than others at handling the staging weirdness--Daniel Taylor especially--but frankly, the whole cast was great.
This was my first time seeing an opera seria, a genre that tends to get knocked in music history classes. We're told how it became stilted, elitist, ego-centred, decadent, etc. etc. in order to set up the need for reform by Gluck & co. I was surprised to find that, despite the fixed da capo aria form and ludicrous plot turns, the characters in Rodelinda do have some depth and the opera was actually quite moving at times. And da capo arias present a very distinct advantage for people like me who have to use binoculars: the surtitles can be read very easily, right at the beginning of a section, and then ignored for a long period of time.
Nifty.
[1] I hate the COC's promotional material too. But I've said that before and it's beside the point anyhow.
[2] She's beautiful, both vocally and physically. She has an incredibly diligent work ethic too. And she speaks three languages fluently. I hate her. Okay, not really.
*
Now, on to--yikes!--the mid-term tomorrow and essay due Tuesday.
